Breast, bottle, whatever: How to Feed Your Family This series is not about how babies eat.
Celebrity parents are no stranger to receiving trolling comments from keyboard warriors who want to criticize how they’re feeding/holding/treating/raising their child. Michelle Branch, a mom shamer, decided to confront her child in person after she gave birth to Willie earlier this year.
Lyndsey Parker, Yahoo Music editor, was speaking about her new album. Fever: What’s the Trouble?The singer-songwriter shared her story about a March incident, in which another mother called her out for nursing her baby at a playground when she was just six weeks old. Branch “fuming” later took to Twitter She vented about the heated moment by writing that she was shocked that a fellow mother was judging her.
Branch, who also has a daughter of 17 and a son of 4, told Parker that it was “really crazy”. The family was in Charleston, S.C., at the time. Branch had walked to a nearby playground to let her son play, while she nursed her baby on a nearby bench.
“I had my stroller right in front of myself and I was able to use it. [nursing] Branch recalls, “It was like 90 degrees outside. Branch recalls, “And I was like. I’m boiling. I was a little too discreet and she is being fed very discreetly by me. A mom from across the playground couldn’t stop staring at my face. I was like, Ah, another mom. She might want to be mom friend.”
The other mom was not interested in playing nice, Branch soon discovered. Branch said the woman approached her two older daughters, who were playing near where the singer and her baby were sitting, and told them they were leaving — because of Branch.
She was like, “She’s not being modest.” We must go,” she stated. “And I was shocked. My face felt hot. And I was like: Is she trying to direct this at me?
Branch stated that “there were so many things I was bothered by about the interaction.” Branch stated that she told her daughters that I was not okay and that it was the most important thing. I was feeding a six-week-old baby at a park where there were mothers and their children. I was surprised that another woman would do it. .. Motherhood is hard enough, but to be made to feel this way by another mother was very upsetting.”
The singer of “Everywhere” said that she was shaking when she returned home from work and regretted not responding to the woman.
“It was one those things where she went and I couldn’t believe that she didn’t say anything back to me because I was just kinda in shock,” she shared. “I kept saying, “Oh, I can’t wait for her to run into me at the park again because she wants to talk to me,” but I never saw her again.
Branch, despite being traumatized by the mom-shaming and the indecent suggestion that she was feeding her baby, is still reeling months later.
“What are you saying boobs were designed for?” She laughed. “Like, is it really that you are so upset that I am breastfeeding in a park?” It’s not as if I was. I was trying to be as modest and humble as possible. It was very upsetting.
—Additional reporting by Lyndsey Peter.
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