An American Airlines flight attendant asked a woman to cover up while breastfeeding on a fight because “there were men and children around,” after a passenger complained. How should we think about this particular incident and about breastfeeding on an airplane?
Flight Attendant Admonishes Woman To Cover Up While Breastfeeding On American Airlines Flight
Sarah Jean shared her breastfeeding horror story that occurred on American Airlines flight AA2962 from Charlotte (CLT) to Des Moines (DSM) via Reddit:
Mid-flight, a flight attendant tapped my shoulder. She said that I “needed to cover up” because “there were men and children around.” My daughter was fully latched and had been the entire flight, so there was no nipple or even areola showing. The top of my breast was showing, but…I mean, I used to show more cleavage on a weekend night out. Swimsuits show more.
I explained, of course, that my daughter won’t eat or sleep while covered, and was told this didn’t matter. I still needed to cover up. When I asked if this was an American Airlines policy, I was told it was “common courtesy.” That’s the phrase this woman kept repeating. “Common courtesy.”
It was the same phrase two other flight attendants repeated later on when I asked them about it. My daughter had (unsurprisingly) woken up by then because, in my absolute shock over this situation, I had covered her. “A parent complained over their child seeing that,” one of them said.
Oh how quickly we forget what it was like to have an infant nursing…
After unlatching her baby, the baby cried for the final 45 minutes of the flight.
She complained to American Airlines and received the following form letter response:
But received a genuine apology on Twitter:
This isn’t the first such incident on American Airlines.
> Read More: American Airlines’ Agent Humiliates Breastfeeding Mom
Speaking personally, I have never understood why people become offended when a woman openly breastfeeds a child. Just like sitting in a co-ed sauna in Germany or Austria, I simply don’t equate nakedness to sexuality. Obviously, there can be a link, but the case of breastfeeding is one of the most natural female functions and a critical bonding experience for mother and child. This is the sort of thing that should be celebrated across the cultural right and left.
Obviously, economy class on airplanes is rather tight and a woman breastfeeding may take up extra space. That’s unfortunate but implicates the current airline business more so than the mother. Despite this, I believe that should a baby need to eat, a baby should eat. This is all the more important if a baby is on a strict eating schedule, as were ours. It is also important if it is a means to keep the baby quiet, as was the case here.
If seeing a breast offends you, do look away. Your children should not be traumatized by a breastfeeding mother and we not play out the parade of horribles (that if this goes, anything goes).
CONCLUSION
A woman was scolded for breastfeeding her baby and told to cover up on an AA flight. American Airlines has now apologized for the incident…kind of. I am of the opinion that in almost all cases, breastfeeding is not exhibitionism and should not just be tolerated, but embraced. Surely, we can agree that a partially-exposed breast that we can look away from is far better than a screaming baby that we cannot drown out even with noise-canceling headphones.
(H/T: PYOK)
While I have no-doubt the FA most-likely could have handled this situation better, these “self righteous” breast feeding moms are often times trouble.
You have to be kidding. This a joke, right?
“Self righteous?” Oh, I get it. You think “standing up for yourself and your baby”is being self righteous. Like maybe these mothers actually BAIT the bullies to bully them. “Hey baby- let’s go on a plane and see if we can get hassled by a BULLY!” Because the people who chose to bother nursing mothers are BULLIES. How do I know? Because they never hassle sexy gorgeous women in low cut dresses! Hint: They are attracted to those they view as weak. And you call them self righteous if they resist. Mind your business bully.
Hypothetically, if I were an exhibitionist would it be permitted for me to use a breast pump on my girlfriend on the plane? Just hypothetically, of course.
With breastfeeding, who is the party to protect? Protect the other passengers? Or protect the mother? There are varying views. Some airports have enclosed breast feeding areas.
Matthew writes “If seeing a breast offends you, do look away. ” That implies a view that it is the other passengers we seek to protect. In that case, how about the watching of porn by other passengers, particularly if the main viewer tries to partly shield the view with her/his hand? Is that ok?
I personally have no opinion if there was breast feeding at one end of a 3 seat narrowbody aircraft row and I sat on the other end, possibly aisle (or vice versa with me sitting at the window). The same goes if a man was watching porn or a female was quietly masturbating or a kid was quietly eating a sandwich or if an elderly man was reading a dental journal.
Watching porn or engaging in other prurient activity is a totally different thing.
Unlike porn or actual congress on a plane, breastfeeding is the manner in which a baby is literally sustained: it is inherently necessary (and beneficial) even compared to formula or drinking breast milk from a baby bottle.
… and that is a reasonable position to take, that the mother is excused for exposing herself because a baby needs breast milk. In my opinion, that is a stronger position than those who say it’s ok for a mother to expose herself. It is not without special circumstances.
The problem I see is that people are degenerating into a bunch of complainers. The passenger complains. The mother complains to American Airlines. People should start being nice to each other and not be a bunch of complainers. …just like the complainer recently on United who didn’t get his meal and the plane had to divert to ORD on a IAH-AMS flight.
Agreed on the last part, though I think there would have been only one complaint had the FA simply chided the complaining parent instead of the woman and told him to mind his own business.
Enclosed rooms are for mothers who prefer privacy. There’s no requirement they do it in there. Understandably, one may not want to feed their child in the bathroom, so these are just more comfortable private spaces. It’s also perfectly acceptable to do it in the terminal.
I think we have a winner. The male counterpart to Karen is … Derek!
I don’t believe anyone who publicizes something stupid that likely never happened. I’ve been a FA for close to 40 years. In all those years, I’ve never met or seen another flight attendant who gives two hoots if someone is breast feeding a baby (most of us encourage mothers to do so on takeoff and landing to help the baby’s ears). I do know quite a few FAs who care if someone is completely topless parading up and down the aisle attempting to get a reaction so they can publicize how the evil flight attendants took offense over a little innocent nursing. That’s likely what happened, if anything at all did.
…and yet this sounds entirely plausible to just about anyone who has regularly interacted with flight attendants in the past 20 years.
A mother is allowed to breast feed her child whenever she needs to. She’s never the one creating a disturbance. There’s simply nothing more to say. The FA and the pax were in the wrong.
People mad about a mom soothing, feeding, and nurturing her child are smooth brains.
AA should do more than their week apology. How about a written letter from the flight attendants apologizing to the mother and stating that they were wrong to ask her to cover up.
Love to know the gender/age/yrs of service as FA and of course.. political affiliation.. and USAir or American…. Status. Curious. Thats all.
100% agree with you Matthew.
Were they nice breasts? That’s the most important question.
Women beware: don’t breast feed around this guy
Billy Bob don’t be jealous – Unlike you I don’t have to pay women to be around me.
Well yea, I would hope your cousins wouldn’t charge you
Seriously Billy Bob, when was the last time you were with a woman you didn’t have to pay or wasn’t drugged, or wasn’t abducted? Or man? I don’t want to be homophobic!
Dude, I have kids… so probably a lot more recently than you
You lie. Sex offenders are denied access to children.
I know, that’s why you don’t have kids. Why are you telling me?
It’s comments like this that reminds me that breasts are sexualized body parts and for this reason, should remain covered at all times while in public, because most men, or any one who is a “breast man”, will sexualized these types of situations. You can argue the natural/nurture crap all you want, but a woman displaying her breasts in public will always create a scene. If we were a society of nudists, this would be acceptable, but we are not and because clothing is required, displaying women’s breasts and genetalia in public will cause people to be uncomfortable and/or stimulated,
Of course, by “in public” you mean in public places that are dominated by insecure religious prudes with hidden problems understanding sexuality. Women being topless in public is legal in various situations in most of Europe, South America, Australia, Canada, and even parts of the US. And of course there are communities in the world where the women are topless much of the time and the world doesn’t end…
I’ve always found it strange that there are areas in the US where it would be illegal for a woman to swim with her top off, but legal for a man to have sex with his sister– certainly one of those things seems a lot more sexually problematic than the other. Thank God, we’re covering up those nipples.
How about some modesty, cover up and show you care about the feelings of others. I’ve seen many who breastfed and all covered up.
I guess I don’t understand what is immodest about showing less breast than many outfits while performing something so essential like feeding your baby.
What’s wrong with children seeing a mother feeding her baby? But, it’s not the fault of anyone complaining. It’s the fault of our society that has over sexualized absolutely everything.
Everyone either has or had nipples along with varying amounts of fatty tissue behind them. Seeing someone else’s shouldn’t be a traumatic event worthy of complaint.
I love seeing random boobage as much as any guy but still have never been turned on by a woman breastfeeding or considered it to be sexual in any way. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and some may disagree with mine, but your opinion should not limit the freedoms of others.
And yes, I apply that standard universally regardless of political origin of the opinion.
Only in a thoroughly degraded nation like America, where extremist religion pits people against each other, would the issue of breast-feeding on a plane create such an uproar. What a sad, pathetic nation.
Right – only in the US do these issues come up. I’d suggest you try a Google search, but I don’t think you really care. Why do you hate the US so much?
It’s probably good etiquette to cover up a bit but I take no personal offense to a boob nourishing a baby. This is something sane people should ignore.