Full-price, Baby! London Olympics Requires Separate Ticket for Nurslings
Somebody's putting baby in a corner.
Moms who want to bring their breastfeeding babies to the London Olympics this summer will have to get a ticket for the baby as well as themselves, according to current policy. Some ticket holders are challenging the rules — and have even asked the Equality and Human Rights Commission to get involved. A few are even threatening to bring a sex discrimination suit.
Should parents have to pay extra to bring nursing babies? Attending Olympic events is an all-day project and one that would require hours and hours of mother-child separation. Moreover, most under-1 nursers would be strapped to their mom or dad anyway. It’s not as if they need their own seat.
Still think parents should get the extra ticket? Well, consider this:
Tickets for the Olympics are sold so far in advance — most went on sale last April, 15 months before the games — some of the babies in question hadn’t yet been conceived. In fact, many of the young nursing babies in question haven’t even been born yet. As it is, there’s no guarantee that current ticket holders would receive one from the next batch, which go on sale in April.
Expectant parents have been told to try to buy extra tickets, which could prove difficult for the more popular events. Without the ticket, nursing moms claim they may be forced to stay home.
Public outcry over the policy may help, though. London 2012 organizers have agreed to go back and reconsider the policy. No guarantees, of course.
Do you think nursing babies should have to have their own tickets? Should parents be forced to choose between the kid and an often once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
That’s dumb. There’s no good reason to charge for an infant. The whole idea of buying a ticket is you’re giving them your money in exchange for product or service. What product or service are they rendering to a newborn? None. Therefore there’s no reason to charge. That being said, I don’t think they should allow parents of infants to use a seat for holding the baby’s stuff or the baby itself.. If they want a spare seat to place the baby’s carseat for the baby to sleep.. then they should pay for an extra ticket. But I would assume most mothers are going to “baby-wear” so it would be a non-issue.
What is the standard admission policy for infants/babies? They should get the same treatment. The type of nipple in their mouth has no bearing.
And where on EARTH do you get EX- DISCRIMINATION??????
OK- read it’s a blanket policy for ALL babies. So what’s the issue? No one is forcing anyone to go to the Olympics. Either go and buy a ticket for the baby or don’t’ go. Shrug.
Mothers who are breastfeeding infants will be excluded from events if this policy stands up. my baby wasn’t even born yet when we got tickets! i am disgusted by this hair-brained policy thought up by some man, most likely.
If the 3-month-old has remarkable head and body control and requires her own seat so she can use her teeny binoculars to watch the 400 meter dash, then yes.
Otherwise? NO. A ticket = a seat. No seat needed, no ticket. Period. Nursling or not, this has nothing to do with how the baby is fed.
This is completely ridiculous in my opinion and it sounds like they are now trying to take advantage of the situation. Most of the tickets to these events were sold long ago, so where do they think they can get off trying to charge for an infant/baby who won’t even take up a seat. Didn’t it even occur to them that couples who are even willing to pay the extra money for an additional ticket probably won’t even find an extra free seat next to them in the first place? Most parents who would bring a infant will probably wear the baby in a carrier, so there really isn’t a need for them to purchase an additional ticket for a seat they won’t use anyway! I hope the bad press and media attention will give them some common sense and force them to chuck this bad idea.
@Goddess I agree that the nursing thing is not necessarily relevant to anyone other than the nursing mother (and baby) but requiring a ticket purchase for an infant seems incredibly stupid. I wouldnt object to requiring infant ticket (and seat) purchase for on airplanes because it’s a safety issue. This has no such reasoning: its either money grubbing or it’s intentionally discouraging families from attending.
I agree with Meagan. Requiring a seat for an infant who will be held the entire time is money grubbing. I can see an age restriction, perhaps at a year when most start walking and are not going to want to sit there the entire time it not under a year.
It could be a policy set up to discourage infants coming along using the same logic that some first class cabins in airlines no longer allow infants. Maybe they worry the crying, fussing, knee bouncing, toddler chasing and babytalking will disturb the other attendees. The tickets are all super expensive/one-in-a-lifetime type tickets for families in attendance (think $500 for a family of four) so maybe it is the same philosophy. Not sayin that is the right call since nursing Moms will be super uncomfortable (and maybe will have to pump milk in the bathrooms to keep the boobs from aching) but it could be what the organizers had in mind but did not want to say officially.
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