A Toronto lawyer and mother, Sheri Hebdon, was recently profiled in the Toronto Star after being told off for breastfeeding her 11-month-old twins at a city-run daycare. She was asked to leave the infant play area and go to a more private room after a male employee allegedly became uncomfortable.
Hebdon, who has breastfed her twins at the daycare before, was appalled by the incident and demanded an apology. The Ontario Human Rights Code states, “nursing mothers have the right to breastfeed a child in a public area,” you would think especially in such a child-friendly space as a daycare. Hebdon subsequently received an apology from the City and the daycare staff told her that she would no longer be troubled while breastfeeding.
In four days, this article has received almost 250 comments, quite a few of which pounced on the fact that Hebdon is a lawyer making a fuss, rather than a mother wanting to breastfeed. One commenter was outraged that she sends her children to a city-run daycare, subsidized by taxpayers, when she should be spending her pots of lawyer money on private daycare. Others thought Hebdon was in some way enhancing her brand by turning this incident into a “soapbox issue,” or that she missed her day job and was trying to bring some legal conflict into her life. Perhaps most amusingly, a few people commented that Hebdon couldn’t have felt ashamed or on the verge of tears as she was a lawyer, and lawyers have thick skins and probably no emotions.
Image: memekode