[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...amp;TM=36494.93

Breast-feeding mother asked to leave Olive Garden
Woman refused to take baby to rest room

Deborah Sederberg
The News-Dispatch

MICHIGAN CITY - The mother of an 11-month-old baby girl was asked to leave the local Olive Garden restaurant after she refused to move to the restaurant's rest room to nurse the baby.

Margaret Naas, La Porte, mother of 11-month-old Katie, decided she might like some chicken Parmesan for lunch on Monday.

After she ordered, Katie decided she was hungry as well.

"She wanted to nurse," Naas said. "It was 80 degrees out and I didn't have any blanket or cover with me," she added.

Here is where her story breaks from the Olive Garden's spokesman's story.

She said she lowered only one side of her halter top to nurse the baby.

Mark Jaronski, corporate spokesman for Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden restaurants, said several other guests spoke to a local Olive Garden manager, complaining not about a mother nursing her baby but about what they saw as the mother's lack of modesty.

Speaking from his office in Florida, Jaronski said he had been told Naas "had taken her halter top down and was completely exposed. "Several guests asked the manager to speak to her," he said.

Naas said the manager, a woman, was polite. "She said she wasn't speaking for herself but for others."

The manager offered her the option of nursing her baby in the restaurant's rest room.

"That's disgusting," said Tammy Pray, a lactation counselor for WIC (Women, Infants, Children) a nutrition program for mothers and their young children funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"Who would want to feed their children in a bathroom?" Pray asked.

Naas didn't want to feed Katie there. The Olive Garden Staff boxed up her lunch, she paid her tab of about $12, which included a soft drink, and left.

Pray was the one who first brought the matter to the attention of The News-Dispatch.

Naas said her intention was not to stir up trouble. "My baby just wanted to nurse," Naas said.

According to the Indiana State Department of Health Web site, Indiana's breast feeding law says, "Not withstanding any other law, a woman may breast feed her child anywhere the woman has a right to be. Source: Indiana Code 16-35-6-1 Chapter 6, Sec. 7."

Jaronski agrees and said his colleagues at Olive Garden agree.

"But we had guests who had concerns about modesty and we have to be responsive to the comfort level of all our guests," he said.

Naas said she fears Jaronski did not hear an accurate version of the incident. "He wasn't at the restaurant," she said.

[Ang]

Doesn't Olive Garden have fabric napkins that are fairly large? Or isn't there some sort of towels they use in the kitchen that could have been offered? Believe me, I do not want to watch a woman whip it out to feed her child in public. I realize breast feeding is a natural and wonderful thing for the mother and child, but I would be embarassed to see it in a restaurant. Instead of offering the rest room or leave, they could have offered her a towel or cloth napkin to cover up with. JMO

[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...&TM=392.012

Breast-feeding natural, beautiful
I am absolutely appalled and disgusted that Olive Garden would ask a nursing mother to leave.

The act of breast-feeding your child is completely natural and is so much better for the child in the long run.

What does it say about the state of our society that we have turned something beautiful and healthy into something pornographic and inappropriate.

I was right there in line defending the Olive Garden through all of the protesters [during construction of the restaurant], I even yelled back at them once or twice. But, I will think twice before I call in an order for soup, salad and bread sticks after this.

Brooke Kubath

Michigan City

[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...&TM=392.012

Restaurant owes mother apology
I think it is absolutely absurd that the manager of the new Olive Garden in Michigan City actually had the nerve to respond to the restaurant's ignorant patrons by asking the mother breast-feeding her child to please "nurse in the restroom." Do you know nothing of a woman's rights to feed her child in ANY given public venue?

What a great way of creating publicity for your new chain restaurant. I for one will not choose to give you any of my business.

I also think a public apology to the woman and child is appropriate at this time.

Heather Drake-

Engstrom

La Porte

[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...amp;TM=44652.26

Was breast-feeding incident a set-up?
Breast-feeding in public is a matter of modesty. For an 11-month-old child why not pump a bottle? Why would she even want to take her shirt down with all the families there. How can that be bonding? Its not like she was home.

I have to wonder if she did this on purpose to cause problems for Olive Garden. Are her family members union and is it a set-up against Olive Garden to hurt their business.

Plenty of moms breast-feed with respect to others. I know my family does not care if you breast-feed. However, if you are totally hanging the breast out for every person to watch there is a problem. Olive Garden did the right thing.

Donna Brown

Michigan City

[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...amp;TM=45620.98

Dining, bodily functions don't mix
It seems like it has been decades since the rumor began that "we're going to get an Olive Garden." We finally got it, despite the protest against non-union people having a right to gainful employment too.

Now we have to suffer the public breast-feeding debate. Another writer stated it is a normal bodily function. Let your imaginations run wild with other normal bodily functions that are inappropriate or offensive in public.

As long as this battle has been going on, why haven't the pro-breasters lobbied for new family restaurants to have breast feeding rooms?

I don't pay to go out to dinner to eat in the bathroom, I'm tired of that argument, too. I also don't go out to see private bodily functions performed in public.

Vickie Eilers

Michigan City

[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...amp;TM=45620.98

Breasts are not shameful - or to get out of tickets
To Mr. Hack, whose comment really stood out to me ["Olive Garden handling proper," Thursday], you said, above all, that's the last thing you want to see, and that it is disgusting.

Allow me to shed some light onto what breasts are for, because apparently we have all forgotten. Contrary to popular belief, they are not for getting out of traffic tickets, helping sell hot wings, or getting men to buy us things. Breasts have one purpose: feeding offspring.

We live in a culture that has oversexualized every part of the female form to the point where when a woman tries to breast-feed a child it is viewed as disgusting and indecent. You think she should have been charged with indecent exposure? Do tell, what makes our breasts so much scarier and forbidden than yours? It's bad enough women are forced to hide their bodies while men can walk around topless because we live in a male-dominated society that tells us our bodies are too sexual to see, but their overweight, sloppy, hairy, etc. bodies are just PERFECT for view.

She shouldn't have to hide in her car or in a germ-infested bathroom to feed her child. It's another part of the body, fulfilling it's only purpose.

Perhaps we need to re-evaluate our cultural norms when one of the few things we do that we were meant to do is being looked down on as something dirty and shameful. Grow up. They are breasts. If you're disturbed by that, wait until someone tells you where you came out of!

Dinah Gumns

Michigan City

[Dave]

I also don't go out to see private bodily functions performed in public.

Like eating?

Am I the only one who finds objecting to eating (which is what breastfeeding is, at least from the infant's point of view) at a restaurant a bit incongruous?

[lovethiscity]

Like eating?

Am I the only one who finds objecting to eating (which is what breastfeeding is, at least from the infant's point of view) at a restaurant a bit incongruous?

I am with Dave, a kid has to eat too. Just cause it aint on da menu don't make it bad ugly or anything else. It is just dinner.

[Ang]

Which is why they could have offered her a towel from the kitchen to cover herself up with instead of sending her to the bathroom or asking her to leave.