Drinking and Breastfeeding

This entry is really a note to @FrankAuntie rather than a proper blog post, but I'll try to hit the middle ground in formatting.  I'm just not used to expressing myself in 140 characters and she (assigning gender from user pic) disagreed with something I said, which was: If you asked a woman not to breastfeed while she smoked crack, the breastfeeding advocates would still call you literally Hitler.

This was in reference to this article: http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/bar-asks-mom-to-stop-drinking-while-breastfeeding/27874902

So Frankly Dear and I went back and forth. She said that the woman only had a few sips. I said that taking the word of a drinking woman with a baby in a bar off her own facebook page over the words of the managers and other patrons proved my initial point about breastfeeding bias. She challenged me to produce an article which says she had more than a few sips. So I present... the same article: http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/bar-asks-mom-to-stop-drinking-while-breastfeeding/27874902


Frankly, I don't want you to think I'm some faceless internet troll or a misogynist asshole. I'm a stay-at-home dad who owns a company that pays women the same as men and a writer/journalist who has written for womens magazines and specifically feminist magazines in the past (we liked to say I was the "token pig"). I butt heads with other feminists when I say that something has gone too far, but someone has to say it.

So let me explain how the article casts serious doubt on Crystal's claim that she only had one sip of beer using induction, deduction, and abduction.

1. Crystal orders a shot of Fireball Whiskey and a beer.
2. She claims she was sipping the beer and a water, but saving the shot until she was done breastfeeding. "I had a huge water I was downing. I had a beer and a shot of Fireball in front of me but that was for after I was done. And I had one sip of beer and was not planning on the rest until after I was done nursing," McCullough said.
3.  One of the managers approached McCullough, telling her that several of the other patrons had complained.

4.  When McCullough expressed that she didn't think she was doing anything wrong, the manager closed out her tab, effectively preventing her from buying any more drinks. 

5.  She left Big Woody's shortly afterward.

6.  At the end of the article is a quote:  "Our concern was for the child, really that's what it is," explained Craig Davis, one of the owners of Big Woody's.

So here's the sequence of events based on Crystal's version of what happened.

1.  She already had a water, so this was not the beginning of her night there.

2.  She ordered a shot of Fireball Whiskey and a beer.

3.  She had one sip of beer before or during nursing.

4.  She was interrupted during or after nursing by a manager who told her that several of the other patrons had complained about her drinking and breastfeeding.

5.  She refused to stop drinking.

6.  The manager closed out her tab.

7.  She stuck around for a while.

8.  She left.

See the parts where it starts to fall apart?  By the time she had taken her first sip of beer, several patrons had already complained about her drinking and spoken to the managers.  She had a tab open at the bar already.  Maybe she opened the tab with that beer/whiskey purchase and just planned on drinking more as the night went on, but since she has already been there a while (the "huge water I was downing" when she ordered two more drinks) it's very possible, given that the other patrons were complaining about her drinking, that the tab had been opened before the whiskey/beer order.  To everyone saying how alcohol takes 30 minutes to get to breast milk and thinking that she was just going have these... umm... two drinks at the same time... and then switch back to water, remember, the manager didn't kick her out or take her liquor.  He just said she couldn't have any more to drink.  Then she left.  This is all HER VERSION from her facebook page.  There's always three sides to a story, each person's and the truth.  All of this where it seems likely that she was drinking before she claimed she was and planned on drinking after she claimed she was going to stop comes from her version, so the truth is going to be worse.

So it's a bit of a flimsy story.  The only reason anyone is believing her is because of the breastfeeding bias.  If I told you she was snapping her fingers and under certain conditions drinking and snapping her fingers would cause a child harm, then we see Crystal with a baby at Big Woody's Bar ordering Fireball Whiskey with a beer chaser being cut off by the manager after several patrons complain that because of her drinking she'll harm a child.  Without the bias.

Now, Frankly Dear, you said you couldn't find another source that said she was taking more than a couple sips and challenged me to produce one.  I admit that I can not.  The above is conjecture based on Crystal's version of what happened.  I will explain why there are no sources though.  There's two sources that could say that Crystal was drinking heavier than she claims: the staff and the patrons.  The patrons are transitory by nature so no reporter could show up today and get the same people that were there then.  Even if someone claimed to have been there, the reporter wouldn't quote them on the drinking because it enters a gray area of slander since there's no way to know if the person was really there in the first place.  The staff, I imagine, are under orders not to speak to anyone about this incident.  See above where the owner gave a short, generic, and vague quote despite the fact that he wasn't involved.  The manager wasn't quoted?  The bartender?  Just the owner with a vanilla quote to prevent the reporter from saying (the very damning) "X refused comment."

I'm afraid I don't have too much more to offer on the subject and hope this clears up my stance on the issue.  I don't ask that you take it as truth, just another point of view.  If you see some validity in it, great.  If not, oh well.

And as a totally random thing that no one else reading will understand: pillories lock a person looking forward and bending over so that they couldn't tell who was raping them.  Now THAT'S bizarre out of context.