Time magazine image of breastfeeding

[banana87]

Apparently this image is kicking up a hot debate in the US.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/time-magazine-cover-showing-mother-828267

I really wish people would educate themselves about the benefits of extended breastfeeding before proclaiming its child molestation. Utterly crap.

i don't think it has much to do with extended breast feeding. If mum and baby/toddler/schoolchild want it that is their business.

It's more to do with the picture, the whole "look at me, look what I'm doing, aren't I a wonderful mum?" message that the woman is giving.

No love, you're not. Just a silly exhibitionist who is exploiting a child who has probably had no say in whether he wants to stand on a chair being photographed sucking your nipple and doesn't understand what is going on or why.

It is bizarre, I can't see why it is remotely interesting or remarkable to others.

"so far from normal mothering" how totally ridiculous.How you feed your child has nothing to do with mothering.

I loathe bfeeding as an activity for myself but I most certainly don't find it ick,nor do most of the population I suspect.I have many friends who bf,why on earth would anybody find it ick?

People just don't give a stuff really they don't as a)it has no impact on their day to day lives if Mrs Miggs from down the road bf or ff and b)half the time most people are far too busy working to even notice-or care.

Seriously the amount of interest people think the rest of the population have on this subject is staggering.I love to read to my kids and have done it every night from babies but I don't have the rather arrogant assumption that anybody else cares or gives it a moments thought.

It''s a parenting choice,there are hundreds of parenting choices,just feed the way you want to feed and get on with it-I most certainly did.

I love the photo, even if it has been chosen for shock and marketing rather than an honest shot of a breastfeeding toddler.
The strap line a bit too much of a 'them and us' comment which will put the backs up of all the ff mums who couldn't breastfeed.

If I had the figure I would totally be photoed feeding my 3.7 and 1.8 year olds. In fact I was asked for a local publication and I would of loved to do it if time would of allowed.

And I wholehearteldy support anyone who wants to ebf and if they want to do it in public then why not. I think nothing of feeding my now 1.9 year old in public although she is starting to monkey around out of the traditional cradle hold. Her favourite position is stood up inbetween my legs

Now, if I had a guarantee that I'd look like that then I'd have done extended breastfeeding with my youngest!!

Well, it is a bit of a weird thing. 200 years ago people probably wouldn't have glanced twice at a woman bfing her baby or toddler. These days, however, when you see pictures of women's breasts on the covers of magazines, in newspapers, on adverts, on tv, to the extent that they are pretty much unavoidable, people suddenly get all puritan and sniffy about a woman breastfeeding her child. Why is that?

Also, just to MrsHeffley's point, a quick breastfeed is far more effective as a way of soothing a distressed child than a cuddle, ime. Having had lots of friends with children of the same age, I found I always had a failsafe way of comforting my DD - a bf was a pretty much instant cure, whereas cuddles, dummies etc. seemed to take much longer. But then, why listen to me? I speak from mere experience, whereas you speak from prejudice, which clearly has far more authority.

Ok, I own up, here it goes: my happy, bright and beautiful 4 y/o still has a bit of milk from my breasts at night, it takes about a minute and I think it´s a comforting habit. In my family we don't really give it much thought. I find the Time picture exploitative, and I don´t understand what the big fuss is about. Other people give their toddlers Coke and burgers, and nobody blinks an eye. The ignorance and misogyny are staggering.

...plus there are many pressing issues relating to child abuse that could do with a Time cover, is this really soooo odd?

Mrs Heff, I did say 'physiologically' normal mothering.

As for it being one of 'hundreds of choices' you make as a parent - well, that's one way of trivialising the whole issue.

Talk about a MILF! If I was a bloke that is. Her son is a very tall three year old. These are the only thoughts I have on the subject... doesn't really bother me what people do with regards BFing, as long as it works for both mother and child.

I hope people who BF their children to a late age don't judge me for not being any good at it - I don't judge them. I am happy for them more than anything!

"It's more to do with the picture, the whole "look at me, look what I'm doing, aren't I a wonderful mum?" message that the woman is giving."

How very dare she? She should be hunched in a corner or a toilet wearing one of these: <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1C1ARAB_enGB443GB443&biw=1280&bih=899&tbm=isch&tbnid=PRIRnfNUlnNIqM:&imgrefurl=www.ez-cape.com/&docid=zbfHYvMRSDGw9M&imgurl=www.ez-cape.com/images/IMG_0335.JPG&w=200&h=300&ei=6QSwT6LrCozZ8QOQkdydCQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=399&sig=103472035180222175814&page=1&tbnh=150&tbnw=100&start=0&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0,i:76&tx=20&ty=98" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here

Shagmundfreud NO NO NO! Mums shouldn't even leave the HOUSE. No appearing ANYWHERE in public, doing anything, especially NOT feeling like they're wonderful at mumming. I don't want to see mums anywhere, not even wearing capes-of-shame, and certainly no looking smoking hot, posing proudly for magazine covers, NO, NO, NO! Get back in the house. Preferably the kitchen. Wearing a burlap sack, and looking like Terry Jones in The Life of Brian.

Shagmundfreud (great screen name by the way)

The problem with the picture is nothing to do with breast feeding- it is exploiting a small child, that is the problem.

"Wearing a burlap sack, and looking like Terry Jones in The Life of Brian."

"The problem with the picture is nothing to do with breast feeding"

Except that it's a picture of someone breastfeeding.

"it is exploiting a small child, that is the problem"

What - like if there was a picture of the same mum and child but she was giving it a bottle of milk it wouldn't be exploitative?

Shagmundfreud

The term "happy medium" comes to mind. There is a halfway house you know between hiding yourself away as if it is somehow shameful and "look at me showing off" what is normally an intimate mum and babe (or child in this case) moment to all and sundry.

So if having a photo of yourself, doing something you're proud of, featured on a magazine cover is showing off, then all
those fishermen that feature on "Carp Fishers Weekly" are just SUCH divas! How dare they flaunt their enormous catches at the world? They might make the other fisher-folk jealous!

If every woman lived in that "half way house", (like the good, sweet, modest, self-deprecating lady she ought to be) then we'd never see media images of women doing anything other than modelling. Breast feeding is something women do. Mothering is something women do. Feeling PROUD of those two things is NOT something that women commonly feel able to express to their friends, let alone the world.

Some women have the guts to make a statement about something they feel good about. It's not something we see very often in our culture, but it does happen. Women are often the under sung overachievers.

I can guarantee if that image was of a man doing some epic fathering, we'd all be bloody cooing over him

What are media images of women meant to represent us as doing exactly?
Something more socially acceptable maybe? Something more typically "feminine"? Like what?

This woman is being assertive. Get over it.

Also, this woman is NOT exploiting her child. She is breast feeding him, in a photo, on a magazine cover.

Since this is something he clearly enjoys (yes, he enjoys breast feeding - squirming yet?), and something he probably does every day, I imagine it makes not one iota of difference to him whether someone publishes a photo of him or not.

I saw the picture on the Time magazine cover the day it came out in the States, and wondered why there was no discussion of it on MN - till now! In a nutshell - good topic, bad photo.

Nothing wrong with EBF per se - if mum isn't drinking a lot of alcohol or taking drugs/narcotics that pass through the milk, it's a healthy drink. If the child is intolerant or allergic to cow's milk, it's a sensible choice.

Just disliked the TIME cover photo which looked as though it was deliberately meant to shock and make EBF look stranger than it actually is. And mixing it up with the topic of attachment parenting. The two are not always related.

no.its a staged provocative picture
specifically to get a result
shes not bf and by the way got photographed
no.she purposefully is making a statement, a staged unnatural pose
shes used her child like a prop
to make some point
provocative and attention seeking picture

Thank goodness my children don't remember being born as 2/4 of them came out of my vagina. You can't get much more intimate than that!

To top it all 3/4 are extended BFers!

We are so screwed up and confused re sexuality in this country. Breasts are sexual AND there for feeding babies. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I am quite disappointed as I showed my DD1 the pic and she went "yuck"

I then asked why and she said he was too old I then explained he was 3 and she is 7 (and has breastfed at this age) so why is it yuck. She did not know why but is already picking up that it is not the done thing, even though she does it.

Disclaimer: DD1 has only BF occasionally at age 7.

She is exploiting her DC - she is not breast feeding him in that picture in that position and he knows it- he is posing for the camera- you can tell - he is looking at the camera. I agree with Scottishmummy. Had they gone to her house on a normal day I wouldn't mind, although even then I think it wrong to expose DCs to publicly) but someone, possibly the mother staged that photo and decided to make it look quite powerful, almost military. The mother is an attention seeker.
That picture will also never go away, the DS's mates will be able to find it in 10 years time and embarrass him. I have one or 2 embarrassing pictures of my DS but I don't show them if they don't like them and they could destroy them if they wanted. The boy in the picture has no control- he has been exploited by his mother and furthermore put people off breast feeding with such a dire, staged photograph.

My first reaction was awww. So no, not squicked by it. DS2 (17 months) regularly feeds standing up, btw if I'm on the sofa at my laptop and he wants a quick fix. That aside, I do have massive reservations about the way in which it's been staged, and the strapline 'Mom enough?' is just vile.

The phrase 'on the cover of Time Magazine' has become a byword for fame in America, so I hope it doesn't come back to haunt him, but there again, I suspect he'll be brought up to respect breastfeeding and maybe will merely be proud of this photo. Who knows?

Incidentally, and it's only anecdotal, but I believe a lot of older children look back fondly and with pleasure on their memories of breastfeeding at 3 or 4. (Ref for this, 'Hot Milk', a compilation of breastfeeding-focussed stories and essays.)