Ronald McDonald House in Houston bans nursing in common area

I'm very angry. The Ronald McDonald House in Houston has threatened to kick a family out because they have the nerve to actually want to nurse their babies in the common area.

I actually called Naomi Scott today. I left her as professional and composed a voice mail as I could. In response to her concern over multicultural respect, I stated that people do not have a right to NOT be offended, but mothers do have the right to nurse in public. I also stated that most countries are much more accepting of nursing that the United States is. I also told her how offensive her comparing nursing to smoking is. Smoking causes cancer, breast feeding reduces the risk of this. I asked her to create a breast feeding positive environment rather than a hostile one. I also stated that if this is not resolved satisfactorily soon, I will be contacting major corporate donors to the RMH whom I do business with to complain, namely Farm Bureau insurance, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Stampin' UP (I forgot to say the stamp company, but oh well.)

For me, this is one more example of multiculturalism gone too far. In response to a supposed offense, they have severely offended others. Nursing is not something to hide or be ashamed of, much less to ask a mom to go up to her room 3 stories up from the common area. FYI, the common area is the ONLY place that eating is allowed. Bottle feeding is welcome here, breast feeding is not. How offensive is that! If someone is offended by a baby nursing, THEY don't have to look or THEY can leave. We are talking about a hungry upset baby here. Between adults and babies, babies win every time.

I'm very upset by this. This is discrimination, pure and simple. Someone thinks that the children are too old to nurse so they are going to harass this family because of the staff members' personal beliefs. World wide the age of weaning is about 4 years. AAP recommends breast feeding until at LEAST (not STOPING at) age one. The WHO recommends nursing until at least age two. Well I disagree.

Sydney turns 1 next month. I have no plans to stop nursing her any time soon. I plan on nursing her for much longer. I'm not sure if I will child lead wean, but I love nursing her. It is a great way for me to re-connect with her after a day being apart.

Frankly, I'm very disappointed at their reaction and their insistence to stick to their illegal, immoral, and unethical policy. I think they are being very stupid if they think this will go away and not hurt their donations. They do not get to ignore the law because they do a great thing most of the time.

I honestly think these people all need to leave. I'd like to see them all resign.

Here is her story.

My sister and I are staying in the Ronald McDonald House in Houston because one of her 17 month old twins had to have brain surgery to remove a tumor last week. The RMH has been great and we have felt so blessed to find such a safe and homey place to take care of her other two children and my daughter while we are here for Tobin's recovery. However yesterday my sister, who is nursing the twins, was asked to stop nursing in the communal area of the Ronald McDonald House and to take it up to her room. She was shocked! After his surgery her son will basically only drink breast milk and it is the only thing that eases the constant pain and anxiety he feels.

She told them that it was illegal, according the Texas state law, to ask a breastfeeding mother to stop nursing in any public or private place. She also tried to explain to them how inconvenient it would be for her to take all her children up 3 floors to their room every time her sick child needs to nurse. Unfortunately after 30 minutes of arguing, and being threatened with being kicked out, she was in tears and they weren't backing down. So I headed down there to talk to the administrator because I am also nursing my three year old daughter. I even pulled up the state law on my laptop and after a lengthy discussion the administrator acted as if she was going to examine the law so she understood it and move on. I thought that was the end of it. Today I find out they may be kicking us out of the RMH because we refused to comply with what they call their "interpretation of the law". Their interpretation is that if they provide somewhere else for us to nurse they don't have to let us nurse in public places.

Since when do laws get to be personally tailored to an organizations needs?This is a ridiculous and terrible situation for all of us, I am not sure what else we will do if we can't stay here but we can't just not nurse our children. The Ronald McDonald is such a great resource, why do they have to discriminate against nursing moms?If you would like to send a letter(s) we would appreciate it. Arlene Whatley is The Director of Operations of The Holcombe location of the RMH where we are staying and one of the people who Jessica spoke to about this. It is Arlene that seems to be making the decision here. Her email is awhatley@rmhhouston.org and her phone is (713) 795-3570.Also her higher ups, The Executive Director can be emailed at nscott@rmhhouston.org and the Director of Administration is srichard@rmhhouston.org. This message may also be shared and reposted as you see fit. Thank you all for your support.

**Update**..please read Update posts for a more info but as of Saturday Afternoon(4/14) we are still being asked not to nurse anywhere but our rooms and Arlene, who I spoke to today by phone, has informed me that she will be contacting the Executive Director and their attorneys on Monday about the situation before any other decisions will be made. I have been told by Arlene that she will do what she needs to do and that I am to "be very careful" about what I decide to do. We are being told that we are not being asked to leave right now and that they never meant that we should have to...despite the fact that Arlene told my sister in front of another RMH employee on speaker phone that families who could not acclimate to the environment at RMH should find somewhere else to stay. She admitted this to me on the phone today, that yes she did tell Jessica that...but that did not mean we actually had to leave. Also the day after she was asked to stop nursing(yesterday) Jessica's social worker was contacted by RMH and was apparently told that she may need to help us make other accommodations. The RMH actually contacted my sister's social worker who handles Tobin's case while he is in the hospital and got her involved...because Jessica was nursing and they are not ok with that? I guess nursing means not acclimating to their environment and she was just trying to intimidate Jessica into stopping the nursing of her sick son. I do want to say that aside from Arlene, and the original employee who asked my sister to stop nursing, we have been treated very well here and want to say that the RMH has great employees as well as the ones bullying us.

Here is the update... it gets worse... the Director compares NIP to smoking.

I am still updating the original thread but someone suggested I also post a new one so that it will be easier to find the new information. I just spoke to Naomi Scott, the Executive Director of the RMH Houston, and we(Me, Jessica, Arlene and Naomi) have a meeting this afternoon (tentatively) at 4pm. She came back from her vacation early to handle the situation. Naomi needs to speak to some people before the meeting she said.

Unlike Arlene, Naomi was very pleasant on the phone but she told me that although they are not kicking us out right now that it is a guideline(an oral one) to ask all breastfeeding mothers to go to their rooms to nurse. This is the first I have heard of any oral guideline from anyone. It was never mentioned before. She told me this was because they had multicultural residents here and that they need to protects all the residents from feeling uncomfortable. Because of this they are not changing their stance on us breastfeeding downstairs. She also said that she has received calls from corporate but that each RMH is run independently. They have also received calls from national donors and she said that was uncomfortable and that all of our emails crashed their server(although they have fixed it now) which was costing them money.This is all I know for now but I will be contacting the LLL about representaion of some sort at the meeting and I am going to try and get ahold of corporate myself right now. Thank you all for your continued support..and please keep the pressure coming, we will need it now MORE THAN EVER to make sure all moms have the right to breastfeed at the RMH. Please call or email Naomi Scott at 713.795.3560 or nscott@rmhhouston.organd call or fax corporate if you feel you can as well. Corporate RMHPhone: 630-623-7048Fax: 630-623-7488Please let them know that their apparent "oral guideline" as Naomi put it, of directing employees and volunteers to ask mothers to nurse only in their rooms is not acceptable and that we should be able to nurse anywhere we are allowed to be at RMH. Especially since bottle-feeding is perfectly acceptable in these same communal areas(there was a woman in the common area feeding a bottle last night).

BTW. she never called me back.