by Jessica Martin-Weber, illustrated by Jennie Bernstein
Served Fresh Daily.
BOOBS IN PUBLIC! WATCH OUT!
Ok, that never happens. Breasts are never out in public, they are always put away in a containing device that doesn’t bring any attention to them whatsoever.
Except for beer ads.
And car ads.
And lingerie ads.
And gun show ads.
And vacation ads.
And watch ads.
And jewelry ads.
And mall ads.
And liquor ads
And that’s just what I saw today on my train ride. The lingerie ad was on the side of a bus and each breast was bigger than my head.
But otherwise breasts are totally hidden from view.
Which is good because can you imagine what would happen if we saw breasts? Specially breasts feeding babies.
Breasts are particularly always hidden from children because seeing breasts will leave them thinking breasts are a normal body part for women scar them for life. Even more so if the manner in which they see breasts doesn’t involve lacy bras or pasties or provocative poses.
We can’t have that now, can we? I mean, how would we explain to kids what is going on if they see a mother breastfeeding? The horrors! The mountain of therapy bills! The child that will think maybe women have bodily autonomy! (Here, if this nightmare should happen to you or someone you know, here’s what to tell a child should they see a mother breastfeeding. We can hold your hand through this, don’t worry, it will be ok.)
Thankfully, most of the time breastfeeding moms aren’t going to encounter any issue when they feed their babies in public. Given how often it is in the news and social media you would think it happens every single time a woman feeds her baby but alas, no. (Does anyone else wonder how all these shop owners and managers have missed the gigantic social media memo DON’T BOTHER BREASTFEEDING MOTHERS OR YOU WILL BE TORCHED ON THE INTERNET IN A HUGE PR NIGHTMARE!) Though the stories of women being harassed are what make the news, millions of mothers around the world feed their babies every day without interference. Shocking, I know. The most negative response the majority of women will ever receive may be a dirty look.
But what if you’re one of those unfortunate women who ends up with an ignorant and pushy individual demanding you leave an area or cover your baby and yourself while you feed your little one? How do you handle it? How do you handle it and keep your sanity intact? How do you handle it and keep your sanity intact and not end up going to jail?
We have a few suggestions. Take them or leave them. They’re not all going to apply to every situation and they may not be the best in the moment but hopefully they’ll provide some levity to the situation and keep you from losing your mind. What’s left of it from baby brain anyway. (You guys, that’s a thing. For real. Science says so. Maybe not quite what you think but it is a thing.)
How to handle negative reactions about feeding your baby in public.
We could go on, there are as many ways to handle such an experience as there are people willing to make those experiences happen. We’d love to hear your ideas, comment below with your suggestions.
This post doesn’t have anything to do with what’s in your baby’s diapers… unless you’re looking for valid information about what’s in your baby’s diapers, in which case it might be a very useful tool for you. The CRAAP test doesn’t have anything to do with crap and a whole lot to do with determining if the information you’ve found, regardless of whether that information is in a print resource or online, is valid, partly valid, or if it’s… well, just plain crap.
What is the CRAAP test? The CRAPP test is a tool that can be used to facilitate evaluating information resources. It was developed by librarians at the California State University at Chico’s Meriam Library (www.csuchico.edu/lins/handouts/eval_websites.pdf). CRAAP is an acronym that stands for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. The CRAAP test poses questions in each area that it assesses to help you to determine if a particular source is more or less valid—it’s really a fluid scale not a black or white answer.
While the CRAAP test was developed by librarians for use by college students in evaluating resources to support research papers, it can be used by anyone to evaluate the validity of any resource used to answer a particular question.
Currency
The first questions in the CRAAP test are about the currency of the source. They ask questions about the timeliness of the information:
It is very important to think about whether the answer to your question requires current information and, if it does, to determine if the source you are evaluating is current, has been revised or updated and (if it is an online resource) has functional links. An online resource that contains a bunch of broken links is almost certainly not up to date. And if a print resource has a copyright date before your grandparents were born you might want to consider more recent material.
Relevance
The next set of questions in the CRAAP test are about how well the resource relates to your information need:
If you are using the CRAAP test to evaluate a resource for answering a particular question, but not necessarily for a research paper, it is important for you to think about what kind of information resources you think will answer your question and if the resource you are evaluating is that kind of resource. For example, if you have a question that you think will best be answered by a scholarly research article and the resource you are evaluating is a newspaper article about the research the newspaper article will probably not thoroughly answer your question, because it will probably only provide a very brief summary of the research. And, some newspaper articles and blog posts about scholarly research are notoriously bad at summarizing scholarly research and occasionally present conclusions that the research does not actually support.
Authority
The next group of questions in the CRAAP test relate to the authority of the source of the information in the resource:
Again, even if you are not writing a research paper it is still important to think about the authority of the source of information in a resource. Anyone can publish anything on the Internet, so it is important to understand who the source of information is when evaluating a resource in order to determine if the resource is valid. URL’s can reveal information about source, because some URL’s can only be used by certain kinds of organizations. For example, only academic institutions can have a .edu URL and only government agencies can have a .gov URL.
Accuracy
This set of questions pertains to the reliability, truthfulness and correctness of the information:
The type of resource provides clues to whether information has been reviewed or refereed by other experts. Scholarly articles are usually peer-reviewed, which means experts in a field have reviewed the research and determined that it meets rigorous standards. Even if a resource isn’t peer-reviewed, the information it presents can be supported by evidence in the form of citations or links to other sources of information (which may or may not themselves be valid). Be wary: satire, spoofs and intentional falsehoods abound on the internet. There are whole web sites dedicated to non-existent species of animals that unfortunate people have been tricked into believing are real (e.g. look up “tree octopus”).
Purpose
The last set of questions in the CRAAP test pertain to the reason the resource exists.
Knowing the purpose of a resource can help you to determine whether it is valid or reliable. You may find good information on a commercial site that sells products related to your question, but it probably shouldn’t be the only resource you use to answer the question since it is quite likely that they will present information that is biased in favor of their products. Sometimes it is easy to determine bias and sometimes it is much more difficult. Sometimes to answer these questions you have to consider answers to previous questions. For example, you may need to consider an author’s affiliations and expertise to determine if there is bias of some kind or whether a resource he or she wrote is fact, opinion or propaganda.
Answering all of the questions in the CRAAP test will help you to determine if a resource is more or less valid for the purposes you need it. If you are not confident that a resource meets the level of reliability or validity that you need to answer your question you can move on to other resources. If you find a resource that meets the level of reliability or validity that you need, but you want or need more information you can use that resource as a means to find related resources by looking for other resources that it cites or that cite it. When you’re doing your personal research to assist you in your decision making, it is a good idea to ensure it all passes the CRAAP test even if you won’t be publishing it anywhere.
And, if you aren’t sure or you get stuck, ask the expert searchers: your local public or academic librarians. We excel at knowing the difference between CRAAP and crap!
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