The Time I Was Advised to File a Sexual Harassment Charge

Warning:   If you are easily offended by everyday, NORMAL (albeit different from some) motherly thoughts and behaviors, you are too uptight to read this post.  Just move on before you call the authorities!

I was reading a blog I am newly following today.  I will be honest.  I only followed her because I loved the title of her blog.  Absolutely Narcissism.  How freakin' perfect is that name?  It called to me in such a beautiful voice, I just HAD to answer the call!  But this blog is awesome and I highly recommend checking it out!!!

This morning, I read about how her blog isn't porn and it got my juices flowing.  No, not THOSE juices!  This isn't mind-in-the-gutter-writing.  The juices I am referring to are the who-the-hell-do-these-judgmental-people-think-they-are juices.

I grew up in a home with an Italian single mother of three.  In fact, I use that excuse for my sailor mouth quite a bit.  Life was different for me than for some.  My mother didn't sensor herself when she was pissed off and yelling at me that I was the reason for her high blood pressure that would lead to her stroke.  Imagine my dismay when she finally did have a stroke.  Our dinner-table talk often consisted of calling each other the most rotten names we could come up with.  My sister, brother and I would start off and Mom would yell at us to "cut that disgusting shit out."  But it never failed.  Mom would eventually win the battle with an awesomely disgusting name for the 3 of us and we would end up laughing our asses off.  I miss you, Mom!!

My sister and I fought like sisters do but for the most part (and the part that really mattered), we were very close.  We didn't cover our bodies around each other.  We took pictures of each other's really cool poops.  She helped me count the newly grown hairs on my pubescent body then proceeded to announce the number at the dinner table.  When I first got my period, she stood at the front of the bus and announced to the entire busload of people who were all 5 years my senior "My sister is on the rag!"  Don't get me wrong.  She embarrassed the hell out of me but it didn't scar me for life.  In fact, it made me realize that I didn't have to be embarrassed about stuff like that.  She made me feel normal and comfortable in my skin (until her friends all "congratulated" me for reaching new milestones).  The point is that when it came to foul language and body parts in our house, there were very few rules.

Doors stayed open while we were in the bathroom unless the stench got to be too much.

Bathtime for one became a family event.  No, we didn't all get in the tub with Mom!  That would be gross.  But we did all enter the bathroom and hang out while she yelled at us, "Is nothing Sacred?!?!"  I would tease her about missing a spot shaving and she would yell at me to get the fuck out of the bathroom (at which point, I would invite the dog into the bathroom because no family event is complete without the dog).

So it goes without saying that by the time I had a family of my own, I wasn't embarrassed and uptight about certain things.  My kids bathed with me until they were 3-4 years old.  My 13 year old son has seen my body quite a bit.  At the age of 9, he watched The Titanic and wasn't the least bit embarrassed or excited when boobies came on the TV.  "Mom, I have seen boobs before!"  To me, a boob is just a body part, just like an arm or a leg.  Now that he is 13, he does turn his head if our paths cross when I am wearing nothing (or I ask him to give me my phone charger when I have just gotten out of the tub) but I honestly think that is more out of respect for me than his own comfort level.  He just shakes his head and says, "Mom, really?"  I don't think he is scarred for life.

Now that he is getting older, I wonder things about his development.  I respect his privacy and don't sneak peeks but I wonder.  I asked my husband to check him out the other day and tell me if he is growing.  My husband told me there is something wrong with me and refused.  He just doesn't get it!  How the hell am I supposed to know if my baby is maturing the way he should be?  "Nicki, the doctor would tell us if he wasn't!"  But what if the doctor is really, really small?  What does he have to compare my son to?   Is there some chart?  There has got to be a chart.  Can he just tell me where on the sliding scale my son falls into?  I want to know if he is going to make someone really happy some day!  Because I am a responsible mother, I will occasionally yell at my son while he is in the bathroom, "Honey, is it bigger than when you were 5?"  He answers back, "MOM!!!!"  Ummm...that didn't answer my question, honey!

I nursed my son until he was 8 months old and I loved every bit of it.  I would have nursed him longer but when his teeth came in, he really used them and nursing became a traumatic event for both of us.  When he was 3 months old, I joined the fire department and became an EMT.  I was on a nighttime team every 10th night and had to respond to any ambulance calls that came in between 10pm and 5am.  It never failed that the calls would come in right at the moment that I was nursing my son.  I told my team members about this dilemma because really, what the hell?  Can't people have heart attacks at a more convenient time?

One day while a bunch of us were at the firehouse, a male member of my team said, "Nicki, don't nurse your son tonight or we will get a call."  Later, an uptight woman called me on my phone and said that I really need to press sexual harassment charges against my male colleague.  I asked her what for and she said that he really shouldn't be talking about me nursing my baby in front of others at the firehouse.  What. The. Fuck.  I told her that I was fine with it and she said it was sexual harassment.  Why?  Because it involved my boobies?  This is what I told her.  "I am perfectly comfortable with and proud of the way I choose to feed my son.  If I were feeding him with a bottle and he mentioned that, would you be equally offended?  It sounds to me like YOU are the problem here.  If YOU have a problem with hearing about how I feed my baby, then YOU can do one of three things.  1) File the charges yourself.  2) Open that tightly closed mind of yours and realize that breastfeeding isn't at all sexual 3) March your ass out of the room if you are that offended by my choices."  The conversation ended there and she never spoke another word of it to me.

What is it with people?  Why is it that the thought or mention of a human body part makes people so damn freaky?  Don't get me wrong.  I don't like porn.  There are definitely inappropriate comments and actions when it comes to bodies.  BUT just because your ways and ideas differ from mine, it doesn't mean that mine our perverted.  I am glad I don't get all righteous about things like this.  I am glad that I am comfortable with the human body and the functions of the human body.  I like to think that makes me a better wife, mother, and  EMT.  It will make me a better Mental Health Counselor.  Can you imagine if a client of mine tells me about a thought s/he has that is a normal thought for most and I tell him/her how disgusting that is?  Even if I didn't say it but felt it, how could I possibly be a good counselor with those feelings?  I am also glad that my kids are learning at a young age that the shit that goes on with our bodies may be embarrassing but it is normal.  I certainly would not want them growing up thinking there is something seriously wrong with them simply because I was too much of a tight-wad and closed-minded to teach them otherwise.