Emma Mitchell was preparing to feed her four-month-old son Aaron when a receptionist at Oldham Citizens Advice Bureau warned her it was a “multicultural building” and it would cause an 'uproar' amongst muslim visitors! She suggested that she should use the nearby public toilets instead.
Emma had a fuming row with the manager before being offered an empty room under supervision.
She said: “It was just awful. I felt humiliated, intimidated and guilty through the whole thing. We all live in Oldham and use this building and what I was doing was one of the most natural things a mum can do. I shouldn’t be made to feel it was wrong just because it’s not in someone’s culture.”
When her son started crying, she asked if she could use an empty corner of the room to breast-feed him in, offering to face the wall. But the receptionist told her it wasn’t allowed as “some gentlemen had complained in the past” and suggested she use the public toilets nearby.
Emma said: “You wouldn’t eat your dinner in the toilets, so why should my son? She rang the manager who said ‘You absolutely can’t do that here’.”
Emma’s friend Michelle Booth, who was with her, said: “They were implying breast-feeding was offensive to muslim sensibilities. It’s political correctness gone mad.”
Perhaps I'm just an old fashioned old git, but in my day it was not really the done thing to get your tits out in public to feed your baby. It was a simple case of manners, but I accept that times change - albeit not always for the better.
But the point is that it has sod all to do with religion, and I am sure most muslims would agree with me...