Politics Aside
by Kate Kahn - 26th July 2007
These days you'll find Ann Romney standing firmly behind her man, Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. But a little item in today's Boston Globe newspaper tells us that Mrs. Romney was in the lead many years ago when it came to breastfeeding in public.
At the time, Mrs. Romney was not only juggling childcare issues (the Romney's have five boys), but she was also taking courses at Harvard's Extension School. According to The Globe, Mrs. Romney would take her son, Josh, a baby at the time, to class and nurse him in the back of the classroom. "I think that was a first," she says, adding, "It's one of those things where the professor is like , 'Wait, wait, wait, this is liberal Harvard, but what am I going to do about that woman in the back with a baby that's nursing.' He just kept pretending like I wasn't there."
Kudos to Mrs. Romney. What she did, and when she did it, takes guts. And if the professor needed to pretend she wasn't there, that's fine too. It enabled her to do something that she felt was important. And it respected her right as a mother and as a student. Breastfeeding in public is an issue that's unites people across the political spectrum. Anyone who is uncomfortable seeing a women breastfeed her child in public should get out of the way rather than ask the mother to do so. To legislators who have already passed laws, I say congratulations. To those who haven't, it's time to broaden your minds.
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