A Senate committee voted today to remove the current age limit for breastfeeding in public, but not without some senators fretting that they were going too far.
“Is 35 a child?” asked Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson. “I know that sounds crazy, but I’m thinking of a situation in a bar where maybe things got a little crazy.”
“I know I’m going way out on a fringe thinking a 14-year-old, but weird things happen in our society,” said Watson.
Sen. Ophelia Ford, D-Memphis, said she had “read somewhere” of a mother breastfeeding a 5-year-old in a restaurant and that would make people uncomfortable.
Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, declaring that “at some point there should be some sort of line,” proposed an amendment to allow public breastfeeding up to age 3.
“There are a lot of strange people in this world,” said Campfield.
But Campfield’s 3-year-old amendment was voted down after the bill sponsor, Sen. Mike Faulk, R-Kingsport, said it was wrong for government to be setting an “arbitrary” limit on a matter that should be between a mother and her child.
“In the first place, why would a mother be charged with indecent exposure for breastfeeding a child and why would that be the business of the state?” said Faulk. “And, third, who’s going to (check the) ID (of) the child (for age)?”

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