Breastfeeding Mom Banned From School Grounds

Maegan Shoemaker and her 9-month-old daughter, Arya. Photo by Nick Tomecek/North Florida Daily News

A mother in Florida was banned from the grounds of an elementary school after a discussion about her breastfeeding rights got heated in the school’s office.

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Maegan Shoemaker was at the Plew Elementary School in Niceville last week with her 9-month-old daughter, Arya, to watch her niece, a third-grader, participate in a weekly “Mile Club” event at the track. Afterwards, Shoemaker decided to walk a bit before her nephew, a Kindergartner, had his event. “[My daughter] started getting hungry, so I figured I would sit in the bleachers and nurse her,” Shoemaker, 25, tells Yahoo Parenting. “I chose to sit in the top row of the bleachers so no one could look over my shoulder, and I used my baby carrier as a cover as I took down my shirt.”

Still, as she finished nursing, Shoemaker felt a tap on her shoulder. Principal Carolyn McAllister, Shoemaker says, asked her to use a nursing cover when breastfeeding on school grounds in the future. “I knew what my rights were as a breastfeeding woman, but I didn’t know how to explain in a nice way that, no, I didn’t have to use a cover, so I didn’t say anything and just nodded.” After a few minutes, though, Shoemaker says the exchange didn’t sit right with her so she approached the principal in the school office. “I said that I don’t eat under a cover, so I’m not required to nurse my daughter under a cover, and that it’s illegal to ask me to. I thought maybe she didn’t know my rights.” Shoemaker says McAllister told her that she needs to either be more discreet, or find a better area to nurse.

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“They don’t have the right to ask me to move,” Shoemaker says.

Neither Principal McAllister nor the district superintendent responded to Yahoo Parenting’s request for comment.

The conversation in the office escalated, Shoemaker says, though it didn’t turn violent. “I didn’t use any cuss words, I was not being aggressive, I was not coming at them with my body,” she says. “I just wasn’t going to back down or concede the point.”

According to the North Florida Daily News, the school thought otherwise. “She was hostile. She was not in control of herself,” Principal McAllister told the paper. “She was belligerent. She upset my secretaries to the point that they were calling the resource officer.”

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A few minutes after the altercation, Shoemaker was issued a trespass warning, which banned her from school property. Since then, Shoemaker has received a letter from the school stating that she can return to campus provided she doesn’t exhibit any more “argumentative, belligerent and confrontational” behavior. (A warning report that Shoemaker received Monday from the Sheriff’s office, which she shared with Yahoo Parenting, shows the ban is still active.)

Shoemaker says she plans to return to the school to support her niece and nephew, but that it will be awkward when she returns. “I want an apology,” she says. “I would like it if they would send emails to all the principals in the district explaining how to handle these situations—or even just an email to the faculty. I’d also like to see something in the parent-teacher handbook so that breastfeeding mothers know their rights.”

In a perfect world, Shoemaker says, teachers would even use this as a teachable moment. “It would be nice if they used this as an educational opportunity to say to kids, ‘this is what breasts are used for, they’re used to feed babies,’ but I understand most parents don’t feel that way and that’s fine,” she says. “It’s about a mother’s rights. If she wants to feed her baby covered or uncovered or she wants to use formula, that’s her right. I want women to be empowered to have the final say in how they feed their babies. Everyone I’ve spoken to had no idea that breastfeeding mothers have specific rights—no one knows the breastfeeding law.”

Monday night, Shoemaker and other local moms are going to the school board meeting for a “nurse-in,” where a number of mothers breastfeed in one place at one time, and they plan to get on the agenda for the next school board meeting in December. “This is a common problem that women everywhere are having,” Shoemaker, who says she’s heard from a number of mothers in similar situations, says. “Women felt uncomfortable speaking up before, but we need to be heard.”