SpringfieldNewsSun.com

"If my child is hungry, I will feed it."

That's what Genine Compton said in a TV interview about her arrest on charges of child endangering.

Kettering police said the Harrison Twp. woman admitted to breastfeeding while driving her children to school during the Feb. 26 incident at the intersection of Far Hills Avenue and Dorothy Lane.

She further justified her behavior by stating "just walking down the street can be dangerous."

Now — no doubt to her own astonishment — Compton finds herself the most-talked about mother this side of the so-called Octo-mom, garnering mentions in the New York Times as well as newspapers in Canada and Germany.

Will the international publicity surrounding the case give a black eye to the breastfeeding movement? La Leche League leaders such as Ann Davis, after all, often are called upon to defend a mother's right to nurse in some very public places, from restaurants to restrooms.

Davis, an Oakwood mother of four who serves as state coordinator for La Leche League of Ohio, believes the public will have no trouble making the distinction: "This isn't a breastfeeding issue; it's a parenting issue. It's about making the right decisions for the safety of your child."

Kettering Police Officer Michael Burke has repeatedly emphasized that same issue.

He said the department hasn't received any complaints about its handling of the incident.

Instead, he said, the public seems appalled by the mother's behavior.

La Leche League officials sprang to the defense of a mother in Lebanon, when Wal-Mart employees asked her to stop nursing her baby. Don't expect the same response in this case.

"It won't kill a baby to wait for her milk," Davis noted. "Even a quick stop could launch the airbag into that baby. We want moms to breastfeed their babies, but please, first think safety, safety, safety."

As the survivor of a baby who was a "car seat screamer," Davis knows just how difficult it can be. The family took fewer long car trips during those years.

"I wish this poor mom luck and the ability to take care of herself better, to take the time to sit down with her baby," she said.

Another, more surprising source of sympathy: Chris Cahill, the driver who rolled down his window that rainy morning and demanded of Compton, "Are you the dumbest woman in the world?"

He hopes Compton has learned her lesson, that her case will serve as a cautionary tale to other moms.

"But I don't want her to have a bunch of fines, or to go to jail," he said. "That wouldn't be good for the kids, either."

Cahill doesn't regret his decision to call the police because "that little girl could have been killed so easily."

He understands there's one thing more imperative than responding to a baby's hungry cries:

Keeping her safe.