In 1977, singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie did something very unusual: she fed her baby on Sesame Street.
The Indigenous Canadian-American singer-songwriter wasn’t doing anything that millions of other mothers hadn’t done before—she was just feeding her baby. But the fact that she was breastfeeding her baby was important because breastfeeding rates in the U.S. hit a record low in 1971 and were just starting to rise again. The fact that she did it on a show for kids made it even more interesting, since “What if the kids see?” is often used as a reason to criticize breastfeeding in public.
But the most interesting thing about the “Sesame Street” segment was how Big Bird and Buffy Sainte-Marie talked to each other when he asked her what she was doing.
“I’m feeding the baby,
Buffy Sainte-Marie told him.
See? He’s drinking milk from my breast.
Sainte-Marie didn’t show anything that could be offensive to anyone, but she also didn’t hide her baby under a blanket. From where Big Bird was standing, he could see exactly what was going on, and Sainte-Marie seemed fine with that.
Big Bird thought about her answer, then said,
Hmm…that’s a funny way to feed a baby.
Lots of mothers feed their babies this way,
Sainte-Marie said.
Not all mothers, but lots of mothers do. He likes it because it’s nice and warm and sweet and natural, and it’s good for him. And I get to hug him when I do it, see?
As they talked more, Sainte-Marie answered Big Bird’s questions with simple, factual, and nonjudgmental answers. It was a beautiful thing to see. Watch the view below:
That part of the show was filmed 46 years ago, so it’s hard to believe that some people still don’t like seeing a mother breastfeed in public. Waves of education and advocacy have tried to make breastfeeding more common, but it wasn’t until 2018 that every state in the US had laws protecting breastfeeding moms from being ticketed or fined. Some moms still get criticized for not feeding their babies in the bathroom or car.
Sainte-Marie discussed how that segment came to be in a recent interview. During her second season on “Sesame Street,” she got pregnant, and she always had her baby with her on set. She would breastfeed behind the scenes, and one day she asked if the show could do something about it.
The reason why I did that really was because when I woke up from delivering my baby, I was in the hospital, and over here on the table was a big basket of stuff from some formula company. And I preferred to breastfeed, but the doctors didn’t understand about breastfeeding. They hadn’t learned it.
Even today, the CDC says, most doctors don’t have enough education and training about breastfeeding. This shows that, as far as education on this topic goes, we still have a long way to go.
Watch Sainte-Marie talk about how she got to show people on “Sesame Street” how to breastfeed:
Thank you, Buffy, for giving us a beautiful example of how to talk about breastfeeding that is just as relevant today as it was 40 years ago.
