"What Would You Do?" Part 2 (Spoiler)

"What Would You Do?"

Uh, for starters, I would rewrite that entire segment.  I was SO disappointed with how they did the nursing in public scenario.

It took place in a little cafe.  A mom purchased a cup of coffee then sat down, unbuttoned the top couple buttons of her shirt and started breastfeeding her baby.  A man walked by (the manager) and proclaimed (in a disgusted voice) "Oh god. Excuse me, could you do that somewhere else?" and proceeds to tell her shes disrupting customers, hes trying to run a business, etc.  A lot of the customers sat and watched at first, most didn't say anything, until the Manager told the woman "Well if you wanna put milk in everybody elses coffee.." at which point several people spoke up and told him that he crossed the line and needed to stop.  The Manager was asking people passing by if it was bothering them.  One lady said "I have several young children and I wouldn't do that in public." Another man said "I'm not offended, but it makes me uncomfortable."  Several people responded that the conversation/the way the manager was talking to her made them uncomfortable.  One man, told the manager that he was not uncomfortable, it didn't bother him at all and she was fine.  One woman got very outspoken and said she wasn't buying anything from his store because of the way he was acting and that it is a blessing to see a mother breastfeed in public.

While I was pleased by (most) of the reactions of the customers, I think they went about the scenario the wrong way.  The first thing I take issue with is that they had the Manager be the one attacking the nursing mother, instead of another customer.  While I, personally would probably stand up to anybody going after someone breastfeeding, I can also see how most other people would be intimidated when it is the manager/owner of a business, assuming "his business, his rules" etc.  I think the reactions would have been different if it had been another customer going after the mom. 

The "mom" was an actress, and the baby was actually a doll (that amusingly enough had a fake pacifier in its mouth).  I would have preferred that it had been an actual baby and that the mom actually nursed, instead of pretended with a doll.

I also think it would have been better if they had not only done a "newborn" scenario, and had used an older baby to see what the different reactions were, if people were more offended by the nursing of an older baby or a toddler.

They usually do several different versions of each scenario.  With this one they did White Mom, Black Mom, Young Mom, Mom drinking a beer while nursing.  In the drinking a beer scenario a man started lecturing the mom telling her how bad it was and that he didn't think she should be drinking a beer while breastfeeding.  She said "its just one beer its fine, and he sleeps better at night" ugh, I couldn't believe she said that.  They said they included that variation to see what would make the mom lose the support of the customers.  I think a much better (and realistic) variation would have been how much of her breast the mother was exposing.  A mom nursing quietly and discreetly not showing anything, vs a mom with her entire boob pulled out, or something similar.

Overall I was happy that most of the patrons supported the mother and stood up for her, it was much better than I expected.  I expected that the reactions were what would upset me, not the poor writing of the scenarios.

Here is a link to the video in case you missed it,
http://abcnews.go.com/whatwouldyoudo
(under the WWYD Recent Reports)

What did you think?