America Ferrera proves that *any* place is an appropriate place to breastfeed

In a perfect world, a mama out with her baby in a public place would have a choice when it’s time to feed the baby: Sit on a bench or find the lactation room.

But when actress America Ferrara took her son Sebastian Piers to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York when he was just over a month old she couldn’t find either.

“We get there and I’m like, ‘Surely the Met will have a pumping room for mothers. It’s so civilized. And there was nowhere. Not even like a bench for me to like, not even pump but like feed my 6-week-old baby,” she told Busy Philipps on a recent episode of Busy Tonight.

Ferrara tells Philipps she didn’t know where she was supposed to nurse so she headed to the cafeteria and did it there. She got some disapproving looks from fellow museum-goers but still “whipped them out” because when baby’s gotta eat, baby’s gotta eat.

This is Ferrara’s experience, but the Met does have a designated “Mothers Room” which is marked on the floor plan, it just seems that Ferrara didn’t notice it. But moms don’t have to go to a lactation room to nurse in public, as a Museum spokesperson tells Motherly.

“The Met encourages mothers to breastfeed wherever they would like in the Museum, including in our designated Mother’s Room,” the spokesperson explained via email.

But the story Ferrera told on Busy Tonight is about more than the Met’s breastfeeding policies. It’s about how all public spaces and our fellow citizens do or don’t make breastfeeding mothers feel welcome.

Ferrera had as much right to feed her baby in the cafeteria as the other patrons had the right to eat there.

This isn’t Ferrera’s first time talking publicly about how she asserts her right to breastfeed anywhere she needs to. During World Breastfeeding Week she took to Instagram and set her feelings to a tune.

We love it. And we love how America is bringing attention to this issue. Mothers are part of society. That means babies are going to eat in public, even at fancy art museums.

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