“The joys (and politics) of breastfeeding someone else’s baby”
This was the title of a very controversial article written by a columnist for a Canadian Newspaper.
Writer Leah McLaren describes how she was at a house party when she was about 25 and feeling “broody in the way that young women in their late 20s often are”
She went upstairs to use the toilet and spotted a baby in a car seat in one of the bedrooms.
“I smiled at the baby,” McLaren explained. “The baby smiled back.”
She picked him up and he sucked at her little finger.
Uh, oh.
She wrote “Would it be so bad, I wondered, if I just tried it out — just for a minute — just to see what it felt like?”
Stop. Stop. Stop.
To cut a long and monumentally awkward story short, the baby’s father walked in to see a non-lactating woman dry-nursing his child without his permission.
The funny part – the father was called Michael Chong who is now a well-known Canadian politician. He confirmed a version of the story.
This is Leah McLaren’s version of the story – and although it’s been removed from the Globe’s website, it will burn forever in the memory of the Internet.
To be honest, no summary can do the story justice.
And so many questions remain. Why did she do it? Was it what she expected? Did she ever do it again? Did she realise how much of a violation it was? Why did she write about it?
What are your thoughts on the issue? Natural curiosity or outright inappropriate behaviour?
