Take one ice cream truck and put a giant boob on top and what do you get?
A wacky sight, for sure. But in performance artist Jill Miller’s mind, you also get a much needed service in a mobile public breast-feeding shelter.
Miller (known for provocative art such as when she set up a campsite with 24-7 video satellite looking for Bigfoot sightings) envisions The Milk Truck as a place where women can nurse their babies at any time. The Truck, which will visit public events like concerts, fairs and sporting events, would serve women who are kicked out of and/or made to feel unwelcome in public places because they are nursing .
“We're tired of hearing stories about women being asked to leave restaurants or "cover up" with a blanket while doing something as simple as feeding a baby,” Miller writes in a post on Kickstarter.com, where she is fundraising for the project, which she hopes to launch in Pittsburgh in September.
She explains how The Milk Truck would work:
When a woman finds herself in a situation where she is discouraged, harassed, or unwelcome to breastfeed her baby in public, she summons The Milk Truck. The truck arrives to the location of the woman in need and provides her with a shelter for feeding her baby. The woman feeds her child, the shopkeeper who harassed her feels like a dweeb, and the truck does what it does best - creates a spectacle. (Which is, incidently, the very thing that the shopkeeper thought he was trying to avoid. Alas, some people have to learn the hard way.)
(Watch Miller explain the project in a very funny video here.) Incidentally, the large breast that will be atop the truck is of course for shock value. Miller says it is symbolic of how she and her followers are "superhero-like in our vigilant support of nursing mothers."
The whole idea has us thinking: what other kind of parenting hassles would you like to outsource in a mobile unit? Think of the possibilities. The Time-Out Truck. The Potting-Training Truck. The Mommy-Watch-Me Truck.
What do you think about The Milk Truck idea? Have you ever been asked to stop nursing in public?