12 Towards Social Maternity: Where’s the Mother? ... 303The socio-economic, ethnic, and religious background of Jacob’s
donors is surprisingly diverse, causing MacDonald to reconsider some
of his assumptions about heterosexual men from other socio-economic
backgrounds he would quite likely never have chanced to meet. The
gradually emerging mutuality of these relationships speaks to the ele-
ment of benevolence that results from sharing. For some, the donations
might be motivated by a sense of duty, but most donors were keen to
share what they regard as a precious resource that would otherwise go to
waste, and were keen to assist because the experience was rewarding in
itself, as well as extending their social network and building capacity for
exchanges of other kinds within their community.
On one notable occasion, MacDonald’s partner arranges to meet a
father in a car park at night to deliver his wife’s supply. MacDonald
wonders how this might look to a police patrol, should it be passing: a
burley male with ‘abundant tattoos’ unloading the boot of his car. ‘Ian
imagined cops arriving right then. The police would take one look at
Byron in his muscle shirt, the two parties meeting late at night in an
empty lot, the transfer of product, and they’d all get hauled down-town.
It’s only breastmilk, I swear!’ ( 2016 : 220). As an exotic substance, this is
not such a fanciful fear: breastmilk has been subject to legal scrutiny,
from nursing mothers with addiction problems or who have a crimi-
nal record for drug taking, to divorcing mothers seeking to retain full
custody until weaning, or mothers continuing to breastfeed their child
beyond a socially acceptable age, to instances when mothers have been
detained by security at airports for having bottled expressed milk in
their hand luggage.^11
In relation to Byron and his partner Katrina, MacDonald and his
partner are initially concerned they will not find MacDonald’s transgen-
der parenting acceptable, but they end up offering Byron and Katrina
a room in their house to stay overnight, in effect exchanging hospi-
tality for milk. Strikingly, only one encounter with a stranger while
breastfeeding in public results in abuse. Yet even on this occasion,
MacDonald also receives reassurance, from a man who had witnessed
the harassment ( 2016 : 192).