Women shamed for breastfeeding in public at ‘nurse in’ by grandmother

‘There are other parents that don’t believe in that, there are people that are real Christians'

A group of women hosted a “nurse in” at Walmart in response to a mother who was asked to leave the store for breastfeeding her child in public.

However, at the event where multiple women were breastfeeding, an elderly woman told the mothers they should be more “discrete” and implied that they would offend other parents who were “real Christians”.

Ashley McCall had just finished doing her grocery shopping at the Twin Falls, Idaho branch when she sat in a secluded part of the shop to breastfeed her son Cillian, who would not stop screaming.

After five minutes, a member of staff approached the mother and asked her to leave, suggesting she take her son home.

McCall took to Facebook to share her frustrations, explaining how she subsequently sat in the back of her small car to nurse her child in the car park.

“Do either of us look comfortable to you? I’m literally stepping on my own foot and he’s cramped between the door and his car seat,” she wrote alongside four images of herself and Cillian squashed in the car.

“This is ridiculous,” she continued.

“There is nothing inappropriate about breastfeeding, except the people who are sexualising it.

Days later, McCall joined forces with her friends to organise a “nurse in”, encouraging women to meet at their local Walmart and simply sit and nurse, as Walmart’s policy supposedly permits.

However, during the event, the mothers were approached by a disgruntled elderly woman who said they should be more discrete.

"There are other parents that don’t believe in that, there are people that are real Christians," she said in footage that attendee Sarah Ahrens shared on Facebook.

"Okay well I'm Christian," the woman said. "If I brought my grandson in here, kay.”

"It’s not about them,” a protesting mother responded.

“It's about a mother breastfeeding and how their body is most comfortable.”

The video has been widely shared online, generating a flurry of supportive comments from fellow mothers who were outraged by the elderly woman’s comments.

“I feel embarrassed for this woman's stupidity. My goodness what rock she been living under? I mean does she honestly think that nursing mothers was just recently invented? Smdh [shaking my damn head]. From one nursing mom to others, feed them babies ladies,” one wrote.

“Ignorant people, breastfeed away my dear. You go girl,” another added.

However, others were less encouraging and some took offence to what the breastfeeding woman was wearing in the video.

"She has both her boobs hanging out just all over the place, I’m for breastfeeding, but she could have covered up a lil," one person wrote.