By Debra King

We live in Madison, Wisconsin.  It is very safe to say that Madison is a political arena, being the capitol of Wisconsin.  With that in mind, Madison is a wonderful place to raise a family from conception to adulthood.  The University of Wisconsin brings with it many different cultures and diverse backgrounds.  The people of Madison are educated, politically active, family oriented and primarily supportive and open minded.

It is somewhat of a tree hugging, natural environment.  One wouldn't be surprised to find a gathering of demonstrators picketing for too many numerous issues to count.  However, on this particular day I was caught very off guard.

It was a warm summer day in July, shortly after the birth of our second son, and we wanted to take the boys out on our first family of four outing.  We packed a picnic lunch and headed out the door looking for fabulous adventures.  It was a beautiful day and Madison has many places to choose from which to spend a wonderful family day together.  We could go to any number of local State Parks; there are too many lakeshores to count as lakes and beaches surround Madison.  Every neighborhood has picnic areas and playground equipment galore!

We chose to spend our day at the local zoo and park.  Villas Zoo is free to the public with camel rides and petting zoos.  It is situated on Wingra Lake and is host to thousands of ducks and geese.

After our excursion though the many animal exhibits, we decided to find a quiet spot under a shade tree to enjoy our picnic lunch.  As we lay our blanket and get everyone's lunch ready, including the baby, we hear in the faint distance, chanting and yelling and horns and drums.  Kids yelling and cheering.  We look down the path that cuts through the park and what do we see?  A parade of parents and children, some are walking, some are being pulled in wagons, and they are holding banners and yelling!  We are thinking, is it someone's birthday?  To our amazement, it is a parade exclusively for the support of breastfeeding mothers!

Support Breastfeeding Mothers!  They yelled and clapped and cheered.  One demonstrator noticed that at that very moment I was in fact breastfeeding my youngest son and quickly pointed me out to the rest of the crowd of demonstrators and bystanders.  All eyes on ME!  They were clapping and cheering and yelling, because I was breastfeeding my baby.

Now the funny part is, that previous to this experience, I was a little uncomfortable breastfeeding in public.  Not so much for me, but I can feel that other people are sometimes uncomfortable with the whole thing.  Earlier while we were in the zoo, we were looking for nice, little quiet spot for us to just get away and enjoy our lunches - all of us, including the baby - some place where we wouldn't be in anyone's comfort zone.  I just wanted to enjoy my lunch casually and relax.  We looked at several different spots until we found this one!  Then suddenly out of nowhere... The Breastfeeding March for support of breastfeeding mothers!  We were laughing so hard I thought my husband was going to pee is pants at the irony of the whole event.

He did manage to snap one picture of the event just to remind us of what a wonderful experience we had that day.  I recently had our newest addition to the family, our daughter Anna.  My strong healthy children remind my every day of the wonder of breastmilk. I now lead the Breastfeeding March!