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 absolutely love the picture. She looks beautiful and assertive. Yes, its a posed picture, yes its a CRAP picture in terms of normalising EBF to the general public, but as a feminist and as a woman who already practices and supports EBF, I just think its great.

This is the picture that the photographer and the editor chose, not the mum. There are a number of other photos that were taken in more traditional breast feeding poses. The standing photo is a powerful image and was chosen for the reaction it would provoke. It plays on old traditions from art history where women were depicted as either, Maiden, Mother, or Whore.

The maiden and mother would always cast her eyes down, sit demurely, be depicted as a loyal, pliable, submissive supplicanst. Any woman who stared out of the picture was considered erotic in some way. Manet's Olympia, Giorgione's Venus d'Urbino, even Vermeer's Girl With a Pearl Earring. These depictions of women were daring and provocative, simply because of the assertive nature of their gaze.

Time magazine's motives behind their choice of picture and article are the usual media BS. But in my eyes, it shouldn't invalidate the power of this photo, and the issues about representation of women and mothers that it raises.

I don't believe this woman is "attention seeking". We're conditioned to believe she is due to the way women are traditionally depicted in contemporary fashion images and in the light of art history. The photographer and editor are playing on this fact ABSOLUTELY, to fuel the thrust of the article.

I also don't believe it exploits her child. He is being depicted as part of a normal relationship. I expect in years to come, having been raised by such a switched on, assertive woman, he could very well grow to feel proud of being part of such a powerful image of motherhood.

This image was subject of an article in the Huffington Post that said EBF was "macho" mothering. How disgusting to equate such a womanly act with such negative male stereotyping.

Our cultural ideas, as about what Motherhood entails, as well as what it means to be "feminine" (passive, demure, sweet) are extremely damaging to the role of women in our society.

I think negative reactions to this photo really exemplify that.

I find it a bit unsettling. I believe that every woman should do what she bloody well likes as far as bf'ing goes, but I stopped bf'ing my DS at 2 and a half. The reason is this... he was at an age where children start to lay down long-term memories. I thought that sucking your mum's breasts was perhaps not a nice memory to have as you get older. I cannot remember being bf by my mum, and I'm glad that I can't.

Is that silly? Does anybody else feel like this?

" I thought that sucking your mum's breasts was perhaps not a nice memory to have as you get older. I cannot remember being bf by my mum, and I'm glad that I can't."

This is a common attitude, but I really think you need to examine what you feel this? You're not "silly" but I would say on some level you've been conditioned to be ashamed of BFing, and to think it's dirty / wrong? Otherwise what's bad to remember?

I feed DS who's 3.5. I hope he does remember us lying together in the mornings BFing. It's a lovely start to the day.

No, not at all, threeleftfeet, but I think that memory would be a bit, well, yuck. As an adult, anyway.

That's what I mean. Why's it yuck exactly?

My opinions of BFing have changed a lot since becoming a mum.

The general view of our society is that that BFing is a bit "yuck".

The result of that is that many women stop BFing a long time before it would be in their DC's interests to do so. (Understandably, the pressure of being made to feel a freak for BFing in public is very real!)

But why is it "yuck"?

Is it perhaps partly because our society sees boobs as primarily for sex, with BFing being a secondary function - you lend them to your DC while they're too young to know any better.

But if you think about it that's madness. Nature designed boobs for babies!

DD2 would do just that on the stairs.

(For fun, if she wanted feed properly she cornered mum in bed or on the sofa).

We gave up BFing when she no longer needed the step

I like the picture, though agree with others that the chair prop is used to make the child appear bigger and older than he actually is. But of course it is posed, all magazine covers are.

Its interesting how some of the comments on the Time website seemed most affronted that this woman is attractive. Like, attractive women should only get their breasts out for adult men, not for feeding children. If mothers are going to do this breastfeeding thing, ought to be matronly, frumpy and holding their child in a passive position, to make sure they don't incite the male gaze further.

We can argue about whether or not parents should let their children appear on the cover of magazines. I'm not comfortable with the idea of being on the cover of a magazine and I'm an adult, so I would hesitate to have my child photographed for a mag too. However, I don't think this issue of privacy should be confused with what the child is doing in the photo. Its no different to a child of a similar age being pictured bottle feeding or eating solids.

Children are photographed and filmed for magazines and adverts all the time, often having their nappy changed, using a potty and pull up pants, being bathed or bottle fed. I'm much less concerned about a child being posed breastfeeding in order to have a debate about full term feeding, than one being posed to market 'growing up milk' in order that formula companies create brand awareness for their infant products.

I was also amused by comments that the child was old enough for regular milk (perhaps even to fetch it himself, as well as to ask for it). Its funny how its seen as odd, unusual, unnatural for a child to continue to breastfeed until they self wean, and yet we see drinking milk obtained from a cow's udder as healthy and natural not only in childhood, but right into old age. Clearly, the child is not 'too old' for milk, it is the drinking vessel that upsets people.

That and there is no profit to be made in a mother's milk (particuarly if she chooses to feed it directly rather than express), so no one to advertise and lobby on its behalf.

(I may have just finished reading 'The Politics of Breastfeeding' and be a bit politicised on this issue )

Applauds Badgerina Yes, exactly!

I do agree with others though that the headline is unhelpfully devisive. I don't expect anything different from the media though.

I seem to have taken the title slightly differently to other people. I took it to mean are you strong enough rondo believe
what you believe is best even if all around you are condemning it.
Last night I tried to video record (and failed) ds3s response to the people who say its only for the mothers benefit. It involved me trying to put ds to bed last night and telling him there was to be no feed tonight as he was a big boy now. With him getting agitated (I stopped before it got to meltdown point because that wouldn't be fair) and saying things like ' not a big boy' ' I want feed' 'mummy want feed, mummy do'.
Ok maybe it's for my benefit in that I don't want to upset my smallest boy but why should I as what he wants isn't actually wrong or harmful in any way.

He's 3+1

Update. Just showed my DH the Time cover to see what his reaction was (I am pregnant with our first and planning to full term BF if possible). He said that years back Demi Moore appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair and it was seen as controversal, but 20 years later photos of pregnant women are more normalised. He reckoned the same would happen with breast feeding ones.

Looked up the Demi Moore cover to see what he meant.

He's right about the Demi More cover.

That pic doesn't seem shocking at all now. Many women have pregnancy pics taken these days, it's pretty normal now isn't it?

But there was a right old hoo-hah at the time wasn't there?!

Progress :) Hopefully we'll go the same way with BF!

Very interesting discussion. IMO they chose the pose they did as when the magazine is on the magazine rack you may only see the top half of the image if it's behind another magazine. In this context it makes the child look much older if you can't see he's standing on a chair which makes it much more shock worthy and make people double take and potentially make more sales this way.

My DD is 14 mo and I still bf 2 times a day. Tbh it's things like this that makes me more likely to be a bit about telling people as I think it panders to the freakish aspect people see extended bfing as.

have bf all three DCs but wouldn't have dreamed of continuing it this long. don't feel they need breast milk at that age. don't like the picture at all.
How much of extended bfing is for the mother's satisfaction and inability to let go?

Dementedma, I am still bfing a 2.7 yo, and not enjoying it at the moment. But he does still cry for what he calls 'real milk' and he isn't well at the moment, so is asking more for milk. I figure if je was asking for more cuddles or more stories to be read to him. I would acquiesce, so why not do the same with the comfort of milk?

I want to stop feeding him soon, but will wait until after his sister is born next month, and things have settled down here.

what threeleftfeet and badgerina said :)

and as for children remembering bfeeding, well i fed ds2 till almost 4 yrs (his choice) and he is now 9 almost 10 and can remember bfeeding, he isnt bothered by it, he understands its something he did when he was little (nearly 4 is still little!) and knows that bfeeding is just a normal thing to do. :)

hotheadpaisan same here my attitude was to give bfeeding a go, i did and ds1 fed to 18mths and then self weaned. figured i would do the same with ds2 only he showed no signs of stopping at 18mths, i got pregnant and had ds3, ended up tandem feeding for well over a year, not something i had ever thought about doing, let alone planned, it just the way it worked out :)

I don't have a problem with EBF or the picture. I BF my children but the longest was till 11mos as he self weaned-I would have gone on as long as I could maybe 2/3. I agree that much of people's fear of EBF is because the breast is sexualised in Western cultures. This is not the case universally or cross culturally so it is a construction in this culture. EBF is natural and should be applauded. I often wonder how people just go along with feeding babies the milk of another species without even trying their own. I am not bashing FF, I FF my 1st from 10 days. But I am sad for people who don't try because 'their tits are for their blokes' (their words) or 'don't want saggy tits' or 'other half says I am selfish not to let him share all feeds'

'" I thought that sucking your mum's breasts was perhaps not a nice memory to have as you get older. I cannot remember being bf by my mum, and I'm glad that I can't."'

Propbably because you associate breasts as sexual?

probably

When I was pregnant with DD2, I asked a midwife about continuing to BF DD1, who would have been about 13 or 14 months at the time. She said "Couldn't you start to bottle feed her?" She was drinking out of a beaker, FFS!

She totally missed the point that the breast milk I was feeding DD1 had very little to do with nutrition. Luckily for me, I found the answer I was looking for in a parenting magazine.

But this is an issue which absolutely needs normalising, if I couldn't even get advice from a midwife!

It seems very unfair on the child to me. Not the fact that he is EBF but the fact that it was photographed and circulated globally. DS1 was in school nursery by that age and I can't begin to imagine what kind of stick he would have got had I done that to him. It seems exploitative.

How many 3 year olds do you know who read time magazine. And even if they did see the picture chidren would only see it as odd if they had been encouraged to do so. Children do accept things like breastfeeding as normal if left to it.

Dementedma, surely the best judge of what the child NEEDs is the child and mother themselves?

Its pretty normal for other mammals to nurse their young until the young stop wanting it, or until the mother gets fed up with it. Why do we think that this doesn't work for humans, and if they don't chuck the baby off the breast before the nursing pair want to give it up themselves then they will end up nursing an adult?

I get that you personally might get fed up with it before another mother, and so would give up sooner, that's fine, its your body, your boundaries. But surely that's no reason to imply that mothers who feed for longer have some kind of unhealthy emotional attachment to feeding their child in the biologically normal way?

We don't need to drink milk from other species as toddlers, children or adults. But most people in our society choose to and see it as a healthy part of their diet. Why is human milk seen as something icky that needs to be ditched at the earliest opportunity? Whilst milk from a cow's udder is seen as wholesome? I reckon its because of the way we view women's bodies as sexual objects, and therefore its a social construct that can be ditched in favour of a more logical idea, that the child and mother should stop nursing when they want to, which is biologically normal between 2-7years (on average, no offence intended to those just over the upper end of that range).

A child that age (grand old age of 3!) doesn't need a teddy bear, blanket or bedtime story. But we acknowledge that children need comfort and don't deny them it in the name of teaching them independence. (And if you do believe in taking teddy bears off of children at 3 then you're just mean! )