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 like the image at all but have no issue with "extended" breastfeeding. I fed DS until he was 23mo - not that long in the scheme of things but longer than many - but at that point we were both ready to stop and it was easily done.

As for the title - blah. Load of crap and entirely designed, yet again to try to make women who can't BF or could only manage it for a shorter-than-they-would-have-liked period to feel bad about themselves.

I think its very annoying. Nobody breastfeeds like that (i.e. standing on a chair while staring confrontationally at passers by). I think the image is also designed to make the boy look about 8/9. The strapline is even worse. It will do nothing to promote breastfeeding, extended or otherwise, or attachment parenting.

People who don't like the idea of breastfeeding in public anyway will see 'debate' like this as backing up their views.

Strange I just had a 'debate' with my DM about me still BFing my DD who was 2 this week. She thinks it's wrong and actually told me I had corrupted my DSis as she is trying to BF her 1 week old! I get this attitude all the time, about how it's not for DD it's for me and how being an 'AP' mum is wrong. Lazy - yes, wrong - no!!

I love the picture and think we need to get more pictures of BFing out there to normalise it. The big stumbling block for my DSis is that she doesn't feel comfortable about feeding in public, particularly as a local pub was in the papers recently for asking a BFing mother to leave.

I read somewhere that the boy is only 3. But is tall and the pose makes him look older.

TBH it makes me very uncomfortable. I certainly would never take issue with someone I saw breast feeding a child that is no longer a baby. I would probably have the discussion with dh later that I find it pretty grim. Before I get lamped by the extended breast feeders I am as entitled to my opinion as you are to yours. Only one of my friends breastfed after a year and I am sure she would have no idea I felt like this.

She was an attention seeker, out to shock. If you are an extended bfeeder there is no need to expose your DC to publicity.

It's personal choice. Personally I am uncomfortable bf my 3 month old in public. Think bf is a personal thing and if she chooses to bf her 3yo it is her business .... Just why share a personal experience with the world

Shock value rarely helps normalise anything or make people change behaviour. The only thing that will normalise EBF is by EBFs doing what they are doing. On balance I think the picture does exactly nothing to help mothers take up BF:

EBF'er may like or not like the picture, but continue what they are doing anyway
Experienced BF'er may like or not like the picture and will stop BF whenever it comes to a natural stop for them and their child
Inexperienced BF'ers may like the picture, but if they are already struggling such imagery isn't going to help them, especially not as,
Chances are that non BF will be freaked out by this and support for any BF mum will dwindle even more

Just imagine being on the front of Time in such a pose, at three, nearly four! Not something you can hide in an envelope at the bottom of a drawer. That's the exploitation factor.

I don't like it at all. I've bfed 2 kids til 2.

I don't understand why it was posed in that way? It ijust makes BFing seem outlandish, strange, kinky etc and I can see why it would put some impressionable Mum's to be off. This has done BFing no favours in my opinion.

Shock value puts everyone off. It is very damaging.

Scarily the photo didn't even generate a reaction in me. I honestly didn't understand what my Yank friends all over FB were upset about. "It's a breastfeeding woman - and?"

I breastfed for 13 mo with both DCs but came out as a "Sears Sceptic" when I did their test.

Even someone who isn't shocked should realise that other people will be - and that it isn't fair to expose your DC to negative publicity. (I wouldn't expose mine to any publicity).

Sorry was that to me?

My observation was more that I found it curious I didn't sort of...get it.. Maybe because the whole bf/ff seems very far away now. NOt really sure.

Think the argument about not exposing your kids to publicity is lost on many segements of humanity now!!!

The cover photo was clearly for shock value, and nothing else. I don't buy for a minute the intention was to open up conversation about EBF. Not to mention that the photo has little to do with the cover story either...

This will do nothing to increase awareness/practice of EBF at all.

I did a slight double take but that was it. He's three, he breast feeds, good for them.

The media love to make things devisive though.

Im rolling my eyes at the mirror comments though. Did one of the mirror employees log in with two names to get the bun fight started?

What annoys me is I've been all over town and can't get the US time to read the article, the uk version isn't carrying the story.

Thought this, with the mum, was interesting healthland.time.com/2012/05/10/q-a-with-jamie-lynne-grumet/

Personally I think a lot of the "this is sexual" bollocks comes from people finding her sexually attractive and confusing how they find her with what she does.

I like her, I'd be her friend!

The picture is so obviously posed and, as others have said, says more about the photographer's/editor's hang-ups re BFing than any reality of it that I have ever come across.

The headline however: . 'Are you mom enough?' What on earth is that ment to imply?? I was plenty mum enough to feed my kids in a variety of ways and none of it had anything at all to do with my worth as a mother. FFS. I am actually quite speechless.
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And I misread the thread title thinking it would have something to do with the cover photo on last week's Sunday Times (some catch-up reading happening here). That certainly opened up discussion with my DSs about Thalidomide and the consequences of its use...

That picture won't do anything to encourage breastfeeding. I found it freakish.

I like the picture. I hate the title of the article but and agree it incites a them/us debate. But I like the picture. I think she has a kind of "so what" look about her which is the point really. Why do people hate extended breast feeding so much? Why do they care?

Fab picture. It has done what it intended and got people talking. Alot of the western world has very odd ideas about BF. Only issue I have is the little boys peers making fun but at 3 is that an issue?

I think it's a nice picture but somewhat unrealistic. The boy is standing on a chair so is made to look older than he is but that is obviously for shock value.

What I find freakish is that you can't get through a day without women's boobs being shoved in your face by the media for sexual entertainment. But someone gets their baps out for their original natural purpose and people get into a flap about it....

"What I find freakish is that you can't get through a day without women's boobs being shoved in your face by the media for sexual entertainment. But someone gets their baps out for their original natural purpose and people get into a flap about it...."

Couldn't agree more.

What's shocking is that something that is absolutely natural and as nature intended it is seen as "freakish".

Our attitudes are what needs examining.