Burger King apologizes for a BF incident

Karen wrote in message hlink.net...
What really gets me about many of these store and restaurant incidents
is that the person who is offended frequently goes to store personnel to
complain rather than confront the offending mother mother and child face
to face.

I wonder, would you as the mom rather be approached with such a
complaint my staff or the complaining individual?

By the store employee. I'd be nervous and weirded out if a random
total stranger approached me to comment on my behavior. At loeast if
the person's an employee, you have reason to believe they'renot crazy
or not going to act crazy then, on the job. Maybe it's my Eastern
urban fear of strangers. . .

I could see both
sides, but what I'd really like to see is one store, just one, say the
the complainant that what the mom is doing is perfectly legal and fine
with them as well. But I supposed we'd never hear about it if they did.

Yes, I wonder if this does sometimes happen. I hope so. I mean, if a
customer complained that another paying customer, say, smelled really
bad, certainly the employee would not do anything about it. They'd,
perhaps, suggest that the complainant move to another seat/table. But
a BFing mom? Oh, we'll take care of that for you, sir. I remember a
regular customer at a restaurant where I used to wait tables who was
clearly (quite) a bit "off." He would eat SO loudly and then,
invariably, lick his plate clean. Yup, and not discretely either. This
was not a fast food joint, but a decent casual neighborhood
restaurant. Not one person ever deigned to ask us to make him act more
civilized.

I can't help thinking that part of why it appears to be so easy for
strangers to feel comfortable attempting to control the behavior of
BFing women is because they are just that: women. I think people in
general are just a lot more presumptuous toward women.

Do you know what the b/f mom did when asked to move? Did she leave, or
stay??

Leann

"Anne Rogers" wrote in message
...
yikes, this drives me mad, can you believe that there are people out there
who think our babies should eat in the toilet, nor to I understand the
"cover yourself up" other than a few secs whilst latching on, what can you
see!

-----------
Anne Rogers

I don't like going to the bathroom in my local Burger King, I don't like
taking my 3 year old in there either. I would never nurse my baby in there.

I think I've nursed my baby in BBK once. I feed him everywhere and so far
this hasn't happened. I hope it never does.
Kris

Susan wrote:
In article
,
"Leann and Donald" wrote:

Do you know what the b/f mom did when asked to move? Did she leave,
or stay??

I found and article that said the baby is the only one who got any
lunch that day. They are standing firm though, trying to get Burger
King to clarify their position on NIP in their stores.

Here's another article (maybe the one Susan was referring to). The female
employee who spoke to Catherine Geary (the mom) seems to have been
incredibly rude:

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Nov/11122003/utah/110303.asp

Nursing mother is told to cover up at Burger King

By Michael N. Westley
The Salt Lake Tribune

Catherine Geary didn't anticipate running into trouble when she sat down
in a corner booth in the playground area of a Burger King restaurant in
Sandy and began to nurse her 9-month-old daughter, Elizabeth.
But as Geary's father stood in line to order their meal, a woman
complained to management that Geary's actions made her uncomfortable. It was
not the request to move or cover herself up that upset Geary, but rather the
spectacle that a Burger King employee made of the complaint.
"I was told that I would not be able to nurse in the restaurant and that
I would have to leave or go in the bathroom stall," said the Orem resident,
who was eating at the Burger King at 10235 S. State St. The female employee
who had been sent by management to handle the situation stood five or six
feet away from the table when she loudly made her announcement, said Geary.
"She just stood there and said, 'I'm not the one doing anything wrong or
doing anything bad,' " said Geary.
"By two or three words into it, everyone had turned around and the kids
from the playground came over to see what was going on," said Geary.
With Elizabeth on her lap, and a sweater pulled over the baby's head,
Geary was certain that she was acting modestly.
Geary is surprised that anyone would take offense at a nursing mother in
Utah. "There are two laws on the books, one of them is a House bill, which
basically states that anywhere a woman is otherwise legal to be she is able
to nurse."
The law that Geary refers to -- Utah House Bill 262, sponsored by Judy
Ann Buffmire and passed in 1995 -- goes one step further, saying that it is
not unlawful if the woman does not cover herself before, during or after the
feeding.
Although Burger King executives offered an apology, Geary remains upset
over the incident.
Burger King said in a statement that: "At no time was she asked to leave
the restaurant. We were responding to a guest request in a respectful
manner."
But Geary says the treatment she received was anything but respectful.
"I t was just a matter of bad judgment. In the future they could teach
their employees how to deal with things like that better."
And in the end, only Elizabeth got lunch, though not very much.
**********

I'd like to know why the discomfort of the complaining "guest" trumps
Geary's comfort, or for that matter that of her baby!

--
Belphoebe

In article ,
says...

Mrs. Cynic here. You do not take food to concerts because the food vendors
want to be able to serve you food. Food is not ALLOWED in most stadiums.

You don't take food INTO a concert, though, at least not most that I
attend. It's Just Not Done.

Michelle
Flutist

--
Drift on a river, That flows through my arms
Drift as I'm singing to you
I see you smiling, So peaceful and calm
And holding you, I'm smiling, too
Here in my arms, Safe from all harm
Holding you, I'm smiling, too
-- For Xander [9/22/98 - 2/23/99]

In article ,
says...

But then taking a baby to such a concert is also rude, unless it is a family
concert specifically planned for kids in the audience.

It isn't, as long as you take the baby out when s/he gets noisy.

Michelle
Flutist

--
Drift on a river, That flows through my arms
Drift as I'm singing to you
I see you smiling, So peaceful and calm
And holding you, I'm smiling, too
Here in my arms, Safe from all harm
Holding you, I'm smiling, too
-- For Xander [9/22/98 - 2/23/99]

I wrote,

But then taking a baby to such a concert is also rude, unless it is a family
concert specifically planned for kids in the audience.

Michelle J. Haines wrote,

It isn't, as long as you take the baby out when s/he gets noisy.

Michelle
Flutist

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. From the moment the baby or small child
first begins to make noise, the concert has been disrupted and both musicians
and audience members have been disturbed. It also generally takes more than a
few seconds for the parent to remove the noisy child from the hall, not to
mention that unless they are seated on the aisle they will be annoying several
people on the way out.

When people are paying a lot of money to hear a professional orchestra play
great music, they deserve a chance to hear the quiet moments undisturbed by a
crying child, even if that crying child is moving steadily towards the exit.

Mary Ellen
William (8)
Matthew (6)
Margaret (2)

In article ,
says...

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. From the moment the baby or small child
first begins to make noise, the concert has been disrupted and both musicians
and audience members have been disturbed. It also generally takes more than a
few seconds for the parent to remove the noisy child from the hall, not to
mention that unless they are seated on the aisle they will be annoying several
people on the way out.

When people are paying a lot of money to hear a professional orchestra play
great music, they deserve a chance to hear the quiet moments undisturbed by a
crying child, even if that crying child is moving steadily towards the exit.

Well, from the perspective of someone who plays a fair amount of
concerts (although we don't typically charge for our's) and whose
husband takes the children to them, he always manages to get any
noisy children out with a minimum of disruption, and he sits near the
door so he can do so. *shrug* You're welcome to attend and tell him
he's being rude if you like.

Michelle
Flutist

--
Drift on a river, That flows through my arms
Drift as I'm singing to you
I see you smiling, So peaceful and calm
And holding you, I'm smiling, too
Here in my arms, Safe from all harm
Holding you, I'm smiling, too
-- For Xander [9/22/98 - 2/23/99]

Michelle J. Haines wrote,

Well, from the perspective of someone who plays a fair amount of
concerts (although we don't typically charge for our's) and whose
husband takes the children to them, he always manages to get any
noisy children out with a minimum of disruption, and he sits near the
door so he can do so. *shrug* You're welcome to attend and tell him
he's being rude if you like.

No, but if I were on stage and saw him plus baby coming in to the audience, I
would probably point him out to my standpartner and we would both cross our
fingers.

There has been something of a baby boom in my orchestra over the last
half-dozen years or so and I have noticed that not one musician has brought
babies or small children to anything other than a family or kid concert. My
kids have been brought to concerts, sure--family concerts, kid concerts,
outdoor performances--but not classical concerts that begin at 8:00 PM. My
oldest son attended his first full-length formal concert last summer, at age
eight. He enjoyed it. And nobody sitting near my husband and son needed to
worry about whether or not the music was going to be accompanied by fussing.

Maybe the difference is professional orchestra vs community orchestra--our
tickets are relatively expensive, or rather they were until my orchestra went
into bankruptcy and quit playing @@--but I wouldn't take a
baby/toddler/preschooler, nursing or otherwise, to *any* classical concert.
And I have played many concerts that were pretty much ruined for the orchestra
& audience, thanks to small children who shouldn't have been there in the first
place. There are better ways to expose little ones to classical music, and if
it's really important that my husband be there (if I have a solo or something),
we hire a babysitter.

Mary Ellen
William (8)
Matthew (6)
Margaret (2)

In article ,
says...

There has been something of a baby boom in my orchestra over the last
half-dozen years or so and I have noticed that not one musician has brought
babies or small children to anything other than a family or kid concert.

That's too bad. We consider them valuable musical education. A
child need to hear music being made to learn to make music.

My
kids have been brought to concerts, sure--family concerts, kid concerts,
outdoor performances--but not classical concerts that begin at 8:00 PM.

Our's start at 7:30, and our director's wife brings their daughter,
too.

Maybe the difference is professional orchestra vs community orchestra

Probably.

Michelle
Flutist
--
Drift on a river, That flows through my arms
Drift as I'm singing to you
I see you smiling, So peaceful and calm
And holding you, I'm smiling, too
Here in my arms, Safe from all harm
Holding you, I'm smiling, too
-- For Xander [9/22/98 - 2/23/99]