hedgehog42 wrote:

I think if you always nurse behind closed doors, you're not normalizing
breastfeeding, you're reinforcing the idea that this is something
sexual. It may even fuel some odd fantasies in their imaginations about
how it all takes place.

Worse, IMO, is that BF then functions as a dividing factor. Stepson is
confiding in you about bad results of a geometry test when baby cries
to be fed? "Oops -- gotta run -- we'll talk in 45 minutes -- or you can
call to me through the bedroom door." You've watching a rented movie as
a family when baby cries? "Can you guys put this on pause for an hour,
since we have to return it tomorrow and I really wanted to see it?"

When nursing's done in a matter-of-fact way -- and yes, with attempts
to be discreet, even if baby disengages occasionally -- then, as
several people have said, it gets to be old news (i.e., normalized)
real fast.

This is just a somewhat random insertion - but it got me thinking about
how cultures differ so much.

At FIL's last week I was looking at pics of DH as a kid, and amongst
them were many pics of his mother who died when he was 16 so I never
met her. many were summer pics at the beach. in most she was topless.
not doing any thing sexual - picking shells with the boys, playing in
the sand with the kids, etc. All perfectly natural. Needless to say I
didn't need to g o hide in a room to BF at FIL's house...