Thoughts from an active pensioner who is now somewhat past his Biblical "Use-by date"

"Why just be difficult, when with a little more effort you can be bloody impossible?"



Friday 5 December 2014

Farage on breastfeeding.

Certain elements of the media are castigating Nigel Farage for suggesting that women should be more discrete about breastfeeding their babies in public.
"Nigel Farage says breastfeeding women should sit in a corner" screamed the media and all the feminist tweeters and blog sites. No he didn't, he merely suggested that some people feel very embarrassed by it, it isn't too difficult to breastfeed a baby in a way that's not openly ostentatious, perhaps by sitting in a corner.
To me this was a reasonable suggestion, why not be discrete and try to avoid upsetting anyone; surely this is simple good manners.
When our children were young, some forty years ago, we would have been refused entry to many restaurants if they were with us, and, even if we were allowed in, we would be seated where we weren't easily seen by most diners. We were staggered when we went to Sweden for a holiday and tentatively entered a restaurant to be met by a waiter who immediately rushed to get a high chair for our youngest and produced a children's menu. At that time, such things were unheard of in England!

There are times that I wish things were still like that when you have to put up with some of the children nowadays. Last week we went to a normally peaceful pub for Sunday lunch, but it was ruined by two boys, probably about 5 or 6 years old who were playing some chasing game in and out of the tables, and when they weren't doing that, they were shouting at the top of their voices. Their parents seemed to see nothing wrong with this and I was about to say something when another customer did so in far more forceful terms than I would have done. The parents looked visibly shocked. Why should anyone object to their boy's games? You don't expect boys of that age to sit quietly at a table, do you? My answer would have been  "Yes, I do". My grandson, six years old next month, can be taken to a restaurant and will sit still and behave at the table. We quite enjoy taking him out, and whilst he's a terrible chatterbox between courses, it's not so loud as to disturb other diners.

Unfortunately the attitude of a few, seems to be to question anyone's right to be offended by their actions and so they see no need to consider whether what they are doing might offend someone as their own needs are paramount. Farage is right, people should be show more consideration for others, unfortunately these days "rights" seem to be more important than "responsibilities". Oh for a return to the so-called "polite society".

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