Update: Professor breastfeeds during class

[charminglife]

Update: Inside Higher Ed had another post about this today - AU issued a statement that she shouldn't have brought her kid to class.

www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/11/american-u-professors-shouldnt-bring-babies-class

___________________

I don't think that the professor breastfeeding during class is a big deal, especially since AU is a fairly left-leaning campus, and I appreciate that she tried to make the best out of a poor choice of caring for her child or missing the first day of class. I think the email from the student reporter has a strange tone and I can see why the professor is defensive.


Breast-Feeding While Teaching
Scott Jaschik

Adrienne Pine didn't want student journalists at American University to write an article about how she had breast-fed her sick infant on the first day of classes this semester. And when she became concerned that The Eagle, the newspaper there, was going to proceed, the assistant professor of anthropology decided she should be the one to tell the story.

So last week, Pine wrote an essay at the liberal publication CounterPunch called "The Dialectics of Breastfeeding on Campus: Exposing My Breasts on the Internet." In the essay, she described how her baby woke with a fever on the first day of Pine's course, "Sex, Gender, Culture." Pine couldn't take her baby to child care because of the fever, and didn't want to cancel class or turn it over to a teaching assistant on the first day. So she opted to take the baby to class.

Pine described what happened: "I sped through the lecture and syllabus review with Lee, dressed in her comfiest blue onesie, alternately strapped to my back and crawling on the floor by my feet. The flow of my lecture was interrupted once by 'Professor, your son has a paper-clip in his mouth' (I promptly extracted it without correcting my students’ gendered assumptions) and again when she crawled a little too close to an electrical outlet." At one point, Pine said, her daughter became restless and -- without stopping the lecture -- she breast-fed her. Class ended, but then Pine was contacted by a student journalist.

In e-mail messages and personal discussions with Pine, the student journalists at The Eagle told Pine that "[r]umors about the incident are already spreading through the student body," and that there was an obligation to tell readers what happened. In her essay, Pine objected to calling breast-feeding an "incident" and said that publicizing her action would create a hostile workplace for her. In a note she sent a student reporter, Pine said: "I feel that the focus on my protected actions in class singles me out unfairly in the workplace and as a woman. Especially if you are going to go the typical journalistic route of finding 'both sides' of this 'story' which I believe shouldn’t be one by seeking out students who felt uncomfortable by my actions...."

Feeling that The Eagle wasn't taking her concerns seriously, Pine wrote that she "decided the only option left was to exposé [sic] my breasts -- on my own terms -- on the Internet. So here’s the story, Internet: I fed my sick baby during feminist anthropology class without disrupting the lecture so as to not have to cancel the first day of class. I doubt anyone saw my nipple, because I’m pretty good at covering it. But if they did, they now know that I too, a university professor, like them, have nipples. Or at least that I have one."

Lisa Wolf-Wendel, professor of educational leadership at the University of Kansas and co-author of Academic Motherhood: How Faculty Manage Work and Family (out later this month from Rutgers University Press), said that breast-feeding in class reflected a kind of issue related to being an academic parent that isn't talked about in public, even amid much discussion of how colleges can be more supportive of professors who are parents. Some colleges have lactation rooms for those who are breast-feeding and pumping milk, but most do not, she said, leaving breast-feeding women who lack private offices no choice but to use bathrooms.

And while colleges have become much more supportive of the needs of parents of newborns, many institutions seem to forget the sort of situation in which Pine found herself, in which a child isn't a newborn, but child care is for some reason not available on a given day. "Colleges forget that children, regardless of their age, continue to exist."

Wolf-Wendel said that she knew that Pine was not the first woman to breast-feed in class. Eleven years ago, Wolf-Wendel's second child was born on the first week of classes for the spring semester. At the time, Wolf-Wendel couldn't afford a leave, nor did she want to be apart from her newborn daughter during her first weeks. So she sent a note to a graduate class she was teaching in which she said she would be bringing her daughter to class for the first few weeks, and offering the students the option of anonymously expressing discomfort with this plan to the department chair, in which case an adjunct would have been recruited to teach. No one objected, so Wolf-Wendel taught the course, which met for three-hour sessions.

From time to time, her daughter "would get fussy or hungry, and without a hitch, I would continue the discussion or lecture, and take out a blanket and breast-feed her and go on to teach the class," Wolf-Wendel said. "I recall being careful to cover myself and not to stop teaching, and to be mindful of what my child needed and what my students needed."

When students filled out their course evaluations, Wolf-Wendel said that several students commented on her "bravery" for breast-feeding in class, but several also expressed their discomfort.

Wolf-Wendel said she's confident she wasn't the first professor to breast-feed in class either, however much people avoid the discussion. Her experience, she said, made her understand Pine's situation.

"I'm very sympathetic to her. She was trying to be a good professor and a good mother, and trying to fulfill both of those roles to the best of her ability," Wolf-Wendel said. "If you want people in multiple roles, sometimes you are going to have overlap of roles," she said. Sometimes it might be a situation where a professor has no choice but to cancel class. But that's something professors don't want to do, especially on the first day of the semester, she said.

The only way to prevent a situation such as the one Pine faced is to have back-up child care available for higher education employees, or to have professors ready to step in and teach a course on no notice -- and those aren't solutions likely to be offered, Wolf-Wendel said. People need to accept that, sometimes, "our children potentially might need us at times that are inconvenient."

Via e-mail, Pine said that she has been pleased with the reaction to her essay, which she said "has been overwhelmingly of gratitude and solidarity."

Asked how colleges and universities might help academics in her situation, she said: "The question about what universities should do is a complicated one. As a society, to prevent discrimination and enable women equal work opportunities, we should have universal free childcare. Given that that is not currently available, employers should do a better job of making free, or at least affordable childcare (including emergency childcare) available on-site. As it is, childcare eats up half of my (or any other AU professor single parent's) salary, and while flex pay helps, it is not enough. But beyond childcare, the real issue in this case is that there needs to be some assurance that the difficult choices the neoliberal academy forces faculty parents to make will not create a hostile work environment for us. Intellectual laborers, like all workers, need a work environment free of harassment and discrimination."

Zach C. Cohen, editor in chief of The Eagle, said that the newspaper started looking into the first day of Pine's course after hearing about the breast-feeding from students who were there. American's campus is small enough, he said, that many people have been talking about the class. He said no decision has been made on whether the newspaper will run an article. "We're collecting all of the facts, and we'll make a decision once we have all the facts," he said.

UPDATE: American University issued the following statement Monday morning: "AU supports faculty and staff as they face challenges of work life balance. The university follows federal and D.C. laws for nursing mothers, and provides for leave in the case of a sick child. In accordance with the law, AU provides for reasonable break times and a private area to express milk for a nursing child for up to one year from the child’s birth. [This follows directly from federal law -- the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 Section 4207, which requires employers to (1) provide a “reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for up to 1 year after the child’s birth each time she has a need to express the milk and (2) provide a place shielded from view and from intrusion by coworkers and the public, other than a restroom, where mothers can express milk.]"

Read more: www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/10/unusually-public-discussion-breast-feeding-while-teaching#ixzz265CB02Xx
Inside Higher Ed

Link to CounterPunch, which includes the email from the student newspaper reporter:

Hello Professor Pine,

My name is Heather Mongilio. I am one of the news assistants on The Eagle. I hope you had an enjoyable first week of classes. It was brought to our attention that you breast fed your child during your “Sex, Gender and Culture” class. I was hoping to be able to talk to you in order to discuss what happened in class and allow you to speak about the matter in your own words. I understand the delicacy of the matter and I do not want to make you feel uncomfortable, but for the story to have the most balanced angle it would be best to have your thoughts…

–
Heather Mongilio

www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/05/exposeing-my-breasts-on-the-internet

[charminglife]

I think this is what bothers me about the email from the reporter - obviously the professor thought it was OK to breastfeed in class - otherwise she wouldn't have done it. With the reporter asking for her thoughts in order to present a balanced angle, it means that the initial framing of the article by the paper was in a negative light.

This is probably obvious to most of you but I haven't had enough coffee yet.

[Kristinmo]

Super unprofessional. Having the kid there inhibited her ability to do her job and distracted her students. The BFing part doesn't upset me as much as the having the kid there in the first place part does.

[charminglife]

Sept 10, 2012 11:10:44 GMT -5 @mrdobalina said:

1. It is unprofessional to bring a child to class who can and did disrupt it.
2. In a sex,gender, anthropology class if a student can't hang with breastfeeding they are in the wrong class.
3. This professor seems VERY defensive.
4.Heather Mongilio is going to wish she never wrote that email.

Is it more unprofessional to miss the first day of class or to bring the child (not snarky, something I'm wondering too.)

[curtains]

You'll have to take my feminist card as well.. I think the world would not have ended if she allowed her assistant to head up the first class and hand out syllabuses without her.
Your baby is sick (and who care what color you dress her in??) stay home and take care of her.

ETA: Or have someone else take care of her... I hope that didn't come off as it is the mother's job to take care of the sick baby only - just if she had no other options than it was up to her to do it.

[Deleted]

She sounds unprofessional as a whole. The fact that her kid was crawling around, munching on a paperclip, and OMG, how dare you assume she's a boy because of her blue onesie makes me think she's a drama whore who has no clue how to handle a situation without maximizing the attention she gets for it.

But Wolf-Wendel sounds perfectly reasonable.

My money says it's not the fact that this woman was nursing that was the problem. It's the fact that she likely chose to go about it in the most distracting way possible in order to make a point.

[cole]

I'm a grad student at AU and hadn't heard about this, though to be fair I'm only on campus when I have class.

I would have an issue if a professor brought a child to class, especially one that is as mobile as that article implies. That's going to be a distraction regardless of breastfeeding as shown by her own writing that more than once students interrupted what was going on to let her know what her child was doing, to me indicating students are paying at least some attention the child compared to what she's talking about in front of the room.

Many classes at AU don't have TA's, so I can understand not having that back up. But I think the first class is a fine one to cancel (just email the syllabus/post it on blackboard, and tell students they are responsible to review and for the readings). In terms of students being in the wrong class if they can't handle breastfeeding, from a quick search on the AU website, she teaches a 200 level course by that title, which probably means there are gen ed students, not those actually interested in the topic. So I can understand that making students uncomfortable and think that's okay for students to be taken aback by their professor breastfeeding which it's quiet possible some of them just started college.

[Kristinmo]

Sept 10, 2012 11:13:58 GMT -5 charminglife said:

Sept 10, 2012 11:10:44 GMT -5 @mrdobalina said:

1. It is unprofessional to bring a child to class who can and did disrupt it.
2. In a sex,gender, anthropology class if a student can't hang with breastfeeding they are in the wrong class.
3. This professor seems VERY defensive.
4.Heather Mongilio is going to wish she never wrote that email.

Is it more unprofessional to miss the first day of class or to bring the child (not snarky, something I'm wondering too.)

For sure bringing the kid. Plus, the kid was sick enough to be excluded from daycare- I would be pissed at beingexposed to germs if I was in the class.

[ringstrue]

Wait - she took her BABY to a classroom full of disgusting college kids when it had a FEVER because the DAYCARE wouldn't take the kid?

This lady needs a basic biology course, stat.

[mkesweetie]

If thinking that this prof is ridiculous means you have to turn in your Feminist Card, I guess I'll be submitting mine too. Totally unprofessional.

[marie427]

Sept 10, 2012 11:31:44 GMT -5 ringstrue said:

Wait - she took her BABY to a classroom full of disgusting college kids when it had a FEVER because the DAYCARE wouldn't take the kid?

This lady needs a basic biology course, stat.

This is where I'm at. This is just dumb.

[cookiemdough]

All of it is unprofessional, including nursing in front of the class. We aren't talking about NIP at the mall or in a restaurant. She is at work, she shouldn't have brought her child anyway, but then to bring her, let her crawl around on the floor and then nurse all while trying to teach just screams wtf were you thinking.

[Deleted]

So she had a fever and homegirl thought it would be a good idea to let her wander around, stuffing dirty shit in her mouth instead of, idk, being hopped up on baby motrin and sleeping in a bed, pnp, swing, etc?

[mominatrix]

Honest and for true... I can't wait until stuff like this simply isn't news.
Mom feeds sick baby. Film at eleven.

...via mobile.

[hopecounts]

No problem with NIP but bringing a sick baby to class and letting her crawl around is totally unprofessional.

One of my professors would bring her 3 yr old on in certain circumstances (both she and her husband were profs so would pass her back and forth based on what classes they had, etc.) but she only did it on day's we were working on the computers and her 3 yr old quietly colored or played a computer game and most of the time we would forget she was there once we got busy with our work. She did shift lab days once or twice to make it work but I always kind of thought it was unprofessional. However, she was an awesome professor and none of us complained because comparatively it wasn't a big deal.

[pixy0stix]

Sept 10, 2012 12:04:02 GMT -5 mominatrix said:

Honest and for true... I can't wait until stuff like this simply isn't news.
Mom feeds sick baby. Film at eleven.

Most people are objecting to her bringing in her sick kid, with a fever, to a public environment/work when the general consensus is if you're sick STAY HOME! Plus, she wasn't even watching her kid during class.

Bad parenting/judgement call.

[cookiemdough]

Sept 10, 2012 12:04:02 GMT -5 mominatrix said:

Honest and for true... I can't wait until stuff like this simply isn't news.
Mom feeds sick baby. Film at eleven.

...via mobile.

The problem is the "while at work" part of the whole thing.

[charminglife]

Sept 10, 2012 12:14:45 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Sept 10, 2012 12:04:02 GMT -5 mominatrix said:

Honest and for true... I can't wait until stuff like this simply isn't news.
Mom feeds sick baby. Film at eleven.

Most people are objecting to her bringing in her sick kid, with a fever, to a public environment/work when the general consensus is if you're sick STAY HOME! Plus, she wasn't even watching her kid during class.

Bad parenting/judgement call.

I think Momi's point is that's not what the reporter was addressing - it was specifically breastfeeding in class - which makes me think it would still be an issue if the professor brought a non-mobile, healthy infant to class and fed her.

[teflep]

Sept 10, 2012 12:04:02 GMT -5 mominatrix said:

Honest and for true... I can't wait until stuff like this simply isn't news.
Mom feeds sick baby. Film at eleven.

...via mobile.

But she is bringing her sick baby to class to get others sick. That is unprofessional at best

[ringstrue]

I think I'm ok with Bfing in class if you are not A) teaching the class and B) you have someone to hand the baby off too or the ability to leave if the baby gets loud. So like a student BFing would be ok, imo.

[Deleted]

I don't see why it's a big deal. The people saying it was distracting are also saying the first day of class doesn't matter. I do think the first day matters - to get a sense of the professor - and these students certainly got that. I really don't see getting worked up over it. If the kid were there everyday, sure, but not just once.

Hell, I have a corporate job and would be allowed to bring a baby in under those circumstances. I just don't see who it hurt, so why attack her?

[SusanBAnthony]

I never had a prof bf in class (not that I would have cared) but I did have a prof bring HIS baby to class, bc it was either that or cancel class. He wore the baby in a bjorne and it was fine. The baby fussed a little, and he had to stop a couple times, but no big deal. A female prof also brought her baby to work with her went she came back after leave. I have no idea if she breasted in front of people or not (I never saw her) but my point is that in my experience professors bringing babies to work is not uncommon (and I was in engineering).

I don't think any prof would want the TA to have to deal with all the outline of course rules the first day. That's how you end up with the harvard cheating scandal, and students saying "the TA said it was ok" type he said/she said.

I don't know how sick her kid was, but I guess I trust her to know whether the kid was actually sick, or not. My kids have both run fevers That we're just from teething or whatever, and I have not felt they needed to stay home, but daycare felt otherwise.

I just can't get worked up about this. Of course she might be a total AW or a horrible parent or whatevs, but probably she isn't. Probably she was just trying to do the best she could with limited backup childcare options, and a tight schedule for the semester. And why it would be school newspaper worthy in the first place, I have no idea.

[aurora]

Sept 10, 2012 12:47:00 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

I never had a prof bf in class (not that I would have cared) but I did have a prof bring HIS baby to class, bc it was either that or cancel class. He wore the baby in a bjorne and it was fine. The baby fussed a little, and he had to stop a couple times, but no big deal. A female prof also brought her baby to work with her went she came back after leave. I have no idea if she breasted in front of people or not (I never saw her) but my point is that in my experience professors bringing babies to work is not uncommon (and I was in engineering).

Really? I have been at 3 different universities in engineering programs in various roles for 16 years now, and I have never seen a professor bring a baby to class. To their office, sure (with a responsible person to watch over the kid while the prof. is lecturing), but never to class.

As a student, I would have a problem with my male or female professor being distracted by a baby in class, for sure. If I visited office hours and there was a baby in the office it wouldn't bother me. It has nothing to do with breastfeeding (which I fully support).

[eddy]

I had a prof do this in undergrad. She was tenure track (but not tenured yet) and had a baby in the middle of the semester. I think for the first couple weeks she lectured with her husband there and occassionally nursed. It didn't bother me and now knowing the restrictions women in academics face I get why she did it.

I feel like this would have been a non-issue if she hadn't issued her letter. If she was just like "Dude this was less than ideal I know, but these were the cards I was dealt today" I don't think it would have been an issue.

[SusanBAnthony]

Sept 10, 2012 12:55:48 GMT -5 aurora said:

Sept 10, 2012 12:47:00 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

I never had a prof bf in class (not that I would have cared) but I did have a prof bring HIS baby to class, bc it was either that or cancel class. He wore the baby in a bjorne and it was fine. The baby fussed a little, and he had to stop a couple times, but no big deal. A female prof also brought her baby to work with her went she came back after leave. I have no idea if she breasted in front of people or not (I never saw her) but my point is that in my experience professors bringing babies to work is not uncommon (and I was in engineering).

Really? I have been at 3 different universities in engineering programs in various roles for 16 years now, and I have never seen a professor bring a baby to class. To their office, sure (with a responsible person to watch over the kid while the prof. is lecturing), but never to class.

As a student, I would have a problem with my male or female professor being distracted by a baby in class, for sure. If I visited office hours and there was a baby in the office it wouldn't bother me. It has nothing to do with breastfeeding (which I fully support).

Yep.

Chemical engineering, which is way more women than any other discipline, if that matters. In both cases it was young babies, and in the man's case he knew in advance but asked the class if we preferred to find another time period or do the best we could. He changed his lecture from writing on the board to PowerPoint so that he would be able to do it more easily with the baby, and it was fine.

Yes I am paying for college, but shit happens, lectures get cancelled, professors are people too. A few items I have had prof's try to reschedule a lecture when there was a conflict, but usually there is not a single hour in the week that every single student is free, so doing the best you can during the usual time is the only choice. And with advance notice you can often get a TA or another professor to cover you, but with no notice, good luck.

[livinitup]

I don't think seeing a woman breastfeed is any big deal. Even a professor in the course of her job. And I'm not shocked that the professor of a "Sex, Gender, Culture" wrote an essay about not being harrassed for it. And I'm glad she was able to not let the newpaper turn it into an "incident". But the AU statement was a little eerie and kinda weird how they posted their compliance with the law to provide rooms "shielded from view" for expressing breast milk.

I guess it kinda made me wonder, "so what happens when nursing women don't want to be shielded from view?" I guess that's the whole dust up. Are we protecting a mother's privacy in feeding her child or a group from seeing it?

[emilyj]

I am a female, tenure-track professor. I have a huge problem with this on two levels:
1. I think it's inappropriate to bring your child to class. As pointed out in the article, obviously it was distracting to the student to have the child there, crawling around on the floor eating paper clips.
2. I think it's inappropriate to nurse while you are teaching. I do not view this as equal to nursing in public. Sorry. For all of you that work, would you bring your child to your job and breastfeed in a meeting with your boss or a client? That's the equal here to me.

No. Seeing a woman breastfeeding or NIP is NBD in MOST circumstances. But IMO, there are certain times where it is not appropriate. For me, one of those times comes when I am supposed to be doing my job. And for me, that's when I'm expected to be in front of a classroom giving my students my full and undivided attention.

[Deleted]

So this is interesting to me.
Most of you know I'm a realtor and don't have the regular mat leave we have here in Canada. I have been working part-time since DS was 1 month. Normally, my ILs or DH is with the baby when this happens.

A couple of occasions have arisen where someone wanted to view a house on just an hour's notice (where I have no childcare options) and i explained to them that I could either
1) show them the house but bring DS with me
OR 2) myself (no baby) or someone at my office could show them the house but it would require advanced notice.

Every single time people have said to bring the baby they'd love to see the house AND the baby. And since all of these people continue to choose to work me with, I'm guessing they really meant it.

SO WWYD in my situation? I try to avoid being unprofessional and bringing DS, but I often find t hat is the option people take when given a choice.

[aurora]

laurier - I think there is also a huge difference between a realtor-client relationship and a professor-student one. In your case, the client has more "power" in the relationship to speak up if they don't like what you're doing, right? I'm not sure exactly how the Canadian system works, but I would imagine if they feel you're not meeting their needs they can ask to be released from their contract and find a new realtor. Whereas with students and a professor, if a student feels that his/her educational needs are not being met, he or she runs a risk in complaining, and probably can't just take a class from someone else.

[Deleted]

It's distracting. Don't bring your kid to class period.

I mean, I think it's rude if I eat in class as a teacher, never mind being a child with me.