Nursing covers are part of the problem

I hate nursing covers. I am cranky as all get-out today, so I am not going to insert any disclaimers like "I understand some women feel more comfortable blah blah whatever works for your family." No one here needs me to tell her to do what works for her family, am I right? So these are my shooting-from-the-hip objections:

1. Nursing covers are weird-looking. Aren't people more likely to stare at you if you're wearing an oversized floral apron around your neck? 


2. Nursing covers are one more THING to get in the way of peaceful outings with a new baby, one more $30 item to clutter up a baby registry. Going out? Don't forget the Boppy! Don't forget the Flap Happy! Don't forget the backwards superhero cape with the cutesy-poo elephant print! Puh, I say. Stick a diaper in your purse and hit the road.


3. Nursing covers don't really help uncomfortable observers to feel more comfortable. Most of our collective craziness about nursing arises from people's discomfort with the reality of breastfeeding: babies are sucking on women's nipples. There's also a frisson of "...and ACK I might see some nipple if I don't look away!" -- but my experiences lead me to believe that people object more strenuously to the idea of a baby nursing in public than to the visual of a baby nursing discreetly in public. And aren't people more likely to think you're doing something you need to hide if you act like it needs to be hidden?


4. In fact, nursing covers perpetuate the problems they're ostensibly designed to deal with. The way to get comfortable with breastfeeding is to be around breastfeeding. Maybe you can sit across the museum from the sweet sleepy baby whose mama is quietly nursing him. You can take the pew behind the wiggly baby who settles instantly when his mother lets him nurse. Here's the thing: you have to see it repeatedly for it to look normal to you. If it's hidden under a giant paisley hairdresser's smock, we're not any further forward.
   
   And -- AND AND AND -- the very names of these products convey Failure To Get The Concept. "Udder Covers." "Hooter Hiders." News flash, O foolish manufacturers: they are not udder covers, because lactating women are not and never will be cows. Don't even suggest that I'm a cow. And woe BETIDE the person who calls my breasts "hooters" -- but we should shell out perfectly good money to someone who seems to be stuck in junior high?

Harrumph, she said in her most curmudgeonly voice, while reminding you that all crabbiness herein is aimed at societal cluelessness and stoopid marketing departments rather than at any individual mothers. Also, happy World Breastfeeding Week.

PS Writing this post left me considerably less crabby and I googled Hooter Hiders because I thought I'd heard they had a new and less offensive name. Do you know what I found?? I found this. Women of America, I implore you: keep your lampshades at home. On your lamps.