What a strange world we live in -- one in which a mom breastfeeding her baby at a Starbucks makes another woman angry enough to complain, but gets a compassionate response from ... a male teenage barista? Yep.
Julia Wykes stopped in to a Starbucks in Ontario to grab a drink and realized her 5-month-old was hungry. She decided to, oh, you know, do the only humane thing possible and feed her child, gasp, from her breast! This was enough to royally piss off a customer who clearly hadn't had enough caffeine that day. The woman walked right up to the young barista and reportedly told him in a very loud voice, "Could you get that woman to stop doing that in public? It is disgusting."
Well, his response was priceless -- and a model for how ALL companies should treat women who breastfeed in their establishments.
The 18- or 19-year-old gentleman (and he has earned the right to be called one) reportedly refused to engage in an exchange with the nasty woman about her opinion on keeping the human race alive, healthy, and thriving.
Instead, he walked right up to the nursing mom with a smile on his face -- and offered her a refill, as well as a voucher she could use for a free drink. He also apologized to Wykes for having to put up with horrifyingly unpleasant people who stick their noses where they don't belong (oh, okay, those are my words, not his).
What a class act!
It never ceases to amaze us that, in this day and age, breastfeeding is still not deemed socially acceptable. How could anyone put their fear of seeing a real life breast ahead of a crying child's need to eat? It's a cruel, inconsiderate way to think about women, and it's important that we continue to hear about stories like this one to remind us of how ignorant and wrong it is.
And -- Starbucks price hike be damned -- this young barista makes me want to run out and throw down $10 on a Venti Frapp ASAP. All businesses should train their employees to handle situations like this in a similar manner. What a gem of a worker and human they've got there. It's just unfortunate that all women and men don't respond to nursing moms the way this obviously well-raised teen did.
Are you surprised another woman complained about this mom? What do you think of the way the Starbucks employee responded?
Image via @istock.com/josiephos