Source: LWA/Dann Tardif / Getty
Dating after the birth of a child can be difficult to navigate. There’s a chance that feelings are still involved. You want to ensure that parenting responsibilities are being shared equally or as close to equally as possible. And, with a new life entering the world, there’s the increased likelihood of the two parents spending increased time with one another because newborns require more attention than older children.
Recently, a couple experienced the stickiness of this situation when a new father asked the mother of his child for a picture of the baby. The mother must have assumed that he meant a picture of the child in that exact moment. So she snapped a picture of the baby right as he requested it. And at that moment, he was laying next to her, asleep, suckling on her breasts.
When he opened up the picture, his new girlfriend saw it and she was not too pleased. The boyfriend/baby daddy relayed the message.
The text exchange eventually made it to The Shade Room.
I have to admit I’m on the fence about this one. I think there is a lot of shame, stigma and unnecessary sexualization around breastfeeding. And the mother is right, this is far from a nude photo. It’s a photo of a nursing baby. And the baby happens to be on her breast. I would hope given the fact that a newborn is here, she would be cognizant of the fact that this may not be an attempt for her to send a tit picture to her ex. There are some mothers who intentionally don’t cover themselves when they nurse their children in public because they believe they shouldn’t have to. If she’s of this mindset, why would she cover herself in the privacy of her own home—with the father of her child?
At the same time, if the mother knows that her ex is in a relationship, perhaps she too could be more considerate of the new woman and her feelings.
Someone in the comment section for The Shade Room brought up a good point though, “It’s not like he hasn’t seen them before.”
Then another person suggested that any woman who gets involved with a person who just had a child should expect this or shouldn’t get involved in the first place.
What do you make of all this? Was the girlfriend wrong for making the request for no more photos like this? Was the mother wrong for sending the picture in the first place?
