+
upworthy
Cities

A mother was ticketed in New York City while breastfeeding her child in a parked car

A mother was ticketed in New York City while breastfeeding her child in a parked car

Let's face it, no matter how iron-clad our laws are, they are all implemented by humans who can choose whether or not to enforce them.

A judge can throw a ticket out of court for being unreasonable, and a police officer can choose not to ticket someone who's broken the law because they have a legitimate excuse.

In the end, we are a society of laws, but a lot of it is very arbitrary.


There are some excuses that'll get someone out of a speeding ticket such as medical emergency, having to go to the bathroom really bad or of there's a safety issue.

Guillermina Rodriguez thinks she should't have been ticketed for parking in a commercial zone because she had a breastfeeding emergency — and she's right.

Recently, Rodriguez, a mother of four, including a three-month-old girl, was stuck in heavy Midtown Manhattan traffic and her baby began to cry because she was hungry.

via joiseyshowaa / flickr

"There was a lot of traffic. that took me like 30, 40 minutes to an hour to just get from 42nd to 30th street," she told CBS News. So she pulled over in a commercial zone to breastfeed her child because the situation was urgent.

"I'm like I'm not obstructing the traffic, let me just stay there and I can breastfeed the baby there."

RELATED: Mother unapologetically shares what it looks like to 'respectfully' breastfeed in public

Rodriguez hopped in the backseat to feed her starving baby and in a few minutes an NYPD tow truck showed up.

"He's backing up to tow my truck ... so I jump into the front seat to honk," she said. "So he can see, 'Don't tow my truck because I'm in here.'"

Her truck wasn't towed, but a ticketing agent approached the vehicle to fine her for her infraction, not realizing she was breastfeeding and pumping simultaneously in the back seat. "Both my breasts are out and I turn and I'm like 'I'm breastfeeding my baby.'"

The officer averted his gaze from Rodriguez but still left a ticket on the windshield. It was a $115 fine for standing in a commercial zone.

"I'm here, breastfeeding my child and he still gives me a ticket," Rodriguez said in a video she took at the scene of the alleged infraction.

The NYPD claims the ticketing agent wrote the ticket before noticing she was breastfeeding and because they don't have the authority to void a ticket, his hands were tied.

RELATED: Breastfeeding mom's touching encounter with an orangutan has people swooning—and debating

Rodriguez believes that breastfeeding should be urgent enough of an issue for mothers like her to avoid petty fines. A hungry baby is a stressful situation for parents and it means their child is in distress. It could also cause the driving parent to be distracted and make unsafe maneuvers.

The Rodriguez situation should open up a dialog among law enforcement to find a fair way to treat parents who are forced to break the law because their children need to be fed. What was Rodriguez supposed to do in the situation? Sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic with a screaming child? Breastfeed the baby while driving?

She plans to dispute the ticket in court and hopes the judge is a parent.

True

Making new friends as an adult is challenging. While people crave meaningful IRL connections, it can be hard to know where to find them. But thanks to one Facebook Group, meeting your new best friends is easier than ever.

Founded in 2018, NYC Brunch Squad brings together hundreds of people who come as strangers and leave as friends through its in-person events.

“Witnessing the transformative impact our community has on the lives of our members is truly remarkable. We provide the essential support and connections needed to thrive amid the city's chaos,” shares Liza Rubin, the group’s founder.

Despite its name, the group doesn’t just do brunch. They also have book clubs, seasonal parties, and picnics, among other activities.

NYC Brunch Squad curates up to 10 monthly events tailored to the specific interests of its members. Liza handles all the details, taking into account different budgets and event sizes – all people have to do is show up.

“We have members who met at our events and became friends and went on to embark on international journeys to celebrate birthdays together. We have had members get married with bridesmaids by their sides who were women they first connected with at our events. We’ve had members decide to live together and become roommates,” Liza says.

Members also bond over their passion for giving back to their community. The group has hosted many impact-driven events, including a “Picnic with Purpose” to create self-care packages for homeless shelters and recently participated in the #SquadSpreadsJoy challenge. Each day, the 100 members participating receive random acts of kindness to complete. They can also share their stories on the group page to earn extra points. The member with the most points at the end wins a free seat at the group's Friendsgiving event.

Keep ReadingShow less
Democracy

This Map Reveals The True Value Of $100 In Each State

Your purchasing power can swing by 30% from state to state.

Image by Tax Foundation.

Map represents the value of 100 dollars.

As the cost of living in large cities continues to rise, more and more people are realizing that the value of a dollar in the United States is a very relative concept. For decades, cost of living indices have sought to address and benchmark the inconsistencies in what money will buy, but they are often so specific as to prevent a holistic picture or the ability to "browse" the data based on geographic location.

The Tax Foundation addressed many of these shortcomings using the most recent (2015) Bureau of Economic Analysis data to provide a familiar map of the United States overlaid with the relative value of what $100 is "worth" in each state. Granted, going state-by-state still introduces a fair amount of "smoothing" into the process — $100 will go farther in Los Angeles than in Fresno, for instance — but it does provide insight into where the value lies.

Keep ReadingShow less

Peter Bence's piano cover of "Africa" by Toto

Peter Bence’s performance of “Africa” by Toto has over 17 million views on YouTube because of his creative reimagining of the song and, well, just about everyone loves “Africa.”

Bence is a Hungarian composer and producer who has become a viral sensation for his Michael Jackson, Queen, Sia, and Beatles covers. He has over 1.1 million followers on YouTube and has toured the globe, playing in more than 40 countries across four continents.

His performance of “Africa'' is unique because it opens with him creating a rhythm track and looping it by strategically tapping the piano and rubbing its strings to create the sound of shakers and congo drums.

Keep ReadingShow less

The grandmother was suspicious.

A grandmother always felt her middle granddaughter Lindsay, 15, looked slightly different from the rest of the family because she had blonde, curly hair, while the rest of her siblings’ hair was dark “I thought genetics was being weird and I love her,” she wrote on Reddit’s AITA forum.

But things became serious after Linday’s parents “banned” her from taking things a step further and getting a DNA test. If the family was sure their daughter was theirs, why would they forbid her from seeking clarity in the situation? After the parents laid down the law, the situation started to seem a little suspicious.

“I told my son and [daughter-in-law] that there was something fishy around her birth she needed to know. They denied it and told me to leave it alone,” the grandma wrote.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Family posts a very chill note to neighbors explaining why their dog is on the roof

“We appreciate your concern but please do not knock on our door.."

via Reddit

Meet Huckleberry the dog.

If you were taking a stroll through a quiet neighborhood and happened to catch a glance of this majestic sight, you might bat an eye. You might do a double take. If you were (somewhat understandably) concerned about this surprising roof-dog's welfare, you might even approach the homeowners to tell them, "Uh, I'm not sure if you know...but there's a...dog...on your ROOF."

Well, the family inside is aware that there's often a dog on their roof. It's their pet Golden, Huckleberry, and he just sorta likes it up there.

Keep ReadingShow less
Family

12 hilariously relatable comics about life as a new mom.

Embarrassing stains on your T-shirt, sniffing someone's bum to check if they have pooped, the first time having sex post-giving birth — as a new mom, your life turns upside-down.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

Some good not so good moments with babies.



Embarrassing stains on your T-shirt, sniffing someone's bum to check if they have pooped, the first time having sex post-giving birth — as a new mom, your life turns upside-down.

Illustrator Ingebritt ter Veld and Corinne de Vries, who works for Hippe-Birth Cards, a webshop for birth announcements, had babies shortly after one another.

Keep ReadingShow less
Education

3,700-year-old Babylonian stone tablet gets translated, changes history

They were doing trigonometry 1500 years before the Greeks.

via UNSW

Dr. Daniel Mansfield and his team at the University of New South Wales in Australia have just made an incredible discovery. While studying a 3,700-year-old tablet from the ancient civilization of Babylon, they found evidence that the Babylonians were doing something astounding: trigonometry!

Most historians have credited the Greeks with creating the study of triangles' sides and angles, but this tablet presents indisputable evidence that the Babylonians were using the technique 1,500 years before the Greeks ever were.

Keep ReadingShow less