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'm just curious as to how long people think milk should be part of a young child's diet. At the age of 2 they still need about 1/3 of their calorie requirement from milk if breastfed and most parents would still offer cow's milk in a glass to a young child on a regular basis. I find it very strange that cow's milk is seen as a nutritious and wholesome part of a young child's diet but breast milk is derided as being of no nutritional value after the age of 2/3/(insert your own number here). The fat content of breastmilk increases as the child gets older so it actually becomes more calorie dense.

If the magazine cover showed the mum handing her son a glass of milk it wouldnt even warrant a second glance. I have lived in countries where extended vast feeding is widely accepted and it has nothing to do with contraception as most mothers go on the mini pill after delivery anyway. There is adequate sanitation and safe, clean drinking water and a good standard of living but extended (by western standards) breastfeeding is still seen as a good thing for the child. This western hang up about breastfeeding is both sad and ridiculous at the same time.

It is nothing to do with the age of breast feeding - it is to do with the dreadful photo and exposing your DC to publicity.

exactly exotic, its just a horrible photo, that is anything but loving and nurturing and does nothing for extended bf, but fuel the stereotypes

i bet that she does not feed him like that in real life

They also wouldn't have had any interest had she not been thin and attractive. And who suggested putting a small DC in combat trousers and her in black? Someone with their own agenda- possibly the mother and certainly not the DC who has been exploited.

Love the photo.

Hate all the stupid comments about 'breastfeeding isn't necessary' at this age, to which my answer would be, so what? If you and your child are happy to breastfeed and want to do it then why the fuck should it bother anyone else?

There is no proof that long term breastfeeding is detrimental to children. The opposite in fact. So why all the hysterical objections to the picture? Oh hang on, that would be because we see breastfeeding as intrinsically indecent and private and not suitable for the public eye, or for children who can remember and talk about the act of feeding.

Love the photo?! Dire!

at all the posts commenting about what breastfeeding 'should' look like.

Again - narrow western preconceptions about what breastfeeding should be and what it shouldn't be.

If mother and child are happy then why on earth should it worry anyone else what they're doing?

This picture shows a big healthy child sucking on his mothers breast and looking a bit defiant and bullish. Kids this age often ARE defiant. Especially about the things they really enjoy, which in the case of this child is probably breastfeeding!

Why 'should' it be a 'loving and nurturing' pose?

Breastfeeding shouldn't have to be anything. It is what it is. Some children feed standing up of kneeling by the side of the bed. So what?

Estya - most mothers who stop breastfeeding do so because THEY don't want to do it any more.

We have no problem with women stopping breastfeeding because it doesn't suit them or their parenting style. Why do we have such a problem with women CONTINUING to breastfeed because it suits them and their parenting style? Especially when you take into account that breastfeeding an older child is pretty much always consensual whereas weaning a baby from the breast is rarely so!

If you were writing a PHD on cultural ambivalence and hostility to breastfeeding in Western society you'd never run out of material for your thesis judging from the response to this story!

Perhaps if I had kept going that long I would have a fab figure like that.

The message is ' look at me, I am an alpha female- I am young, slim, attractive, intelligent,highly employable-breast feeding isn't just for lentil weavers, overweight in print skirts and sandals with no make up'!
In reality most women are somewhere in between, get on with it quietly and it is no big deal.

No most people have said they don't give a shit re how long mothers bf.Seriously nobody cares,I know that's disappointing to the ebf brigade who want to jump up and down saying look at me,look at me but the sad fact is nobody is interested,nobody is bothered and hostility is in your head.

What people do have a problem with is the exploitation of a young child for a mother's need to have her ego stroked over her parenting choices.

You wouldn't find a formula feeding mother feeding her pre-schooler from a bottle doing the same thing and having it put on Time for the whole world to see in order to push their parenting choices as for some reason they just don't have the same level of arrogance.If they did you'd get the same response.

I don't know how I feel about the pic - it is very strong, very in your face, but it doesn't help, and it's not realistic (and DS has those trousers.. they're Boden - perhaps the middle-class-ness of that distracts me)

At least it opens up the discussion though - people at work don't know I feed my nearly 2 year old - they all assumed that I don't, but now they know that I do I've done my little bit for normalizing it.

The ridiculousness of the idea that it's only for the mothers benefit at that age makes me laugh though - I couldn't force DS to feed even if I wanted to much as I can't force him to eat some things.

lastly, I'm pretty sure that if he remembers feeding it won't be a yuck memory, it'll be a warm, sweet, snuggly memory of shared time together.

Mrs Heffley - that's because people would barely raise an eyebrow at someone handing a 3 or 4 year old a bottle in their buggy at the end of a school day - they'd just see a nice, indulgent mother looking after their baby.

If a woman sat on the school wall, hoisted that 4 year-old onto her lap and gave him a BF there would be Looks, and hippy-earth-mother comments.

I'm pretty sure that if he remembers feeding it won't be a yuck memory, it'll be a warm, sweet, snuggly memory of shared time together.

See, that is the bit that I personally have a problem with. I feel - but I may well be wrong - that as you grow up, memories of sucking your mum's breasts could be a bit unsavoury.

Nonetheless, I fully support a mother's right to do extreme bf'ing if she so wishes. And I love the way that the Time photo challenges stereotypes. And if that weren't enough, she is also bf'ing her adopted Ethiopian 5 year old. Good on her, I say.

I think that's the thing - I don't think he'll particularly remember that that's what he was doing, just remember the closeness..

I know that I don't have many memories that far back anyway, and they're all just flashes, so I'm sure that the last thing he'll have is a vivid picture of slamming himself into my boob (such a delicate little flower DS...)

I can remember very clearly having my nappy changed, so I was under 3 as I started nursery (un-nappied) at 3. I dunno, maybe being bf'd is a nice memory at 5 years old, but I am not sure if it will still be viewed with such affection once the child reaches teenage years.

Again, I may be wrong.

Love the picture, though it does not inspire me to EB. The cover, picture & headlined are all designed to be provocative, and they are!

Chunky how ridiculous people are far more judgy re 3 and 4 year olds with bottles than boob,certainly on here.The sad fact is bm can damage teeth just as much as cows milk.Also most 4 year olds I know would find it hysterical seeing one of their peers still being fed from a bottle. One wonders what the reaction would be with a boob,I hope for that little boys sake it wasn't the same as he'll be growing up with that pick for years to come.

Also I think we need to hear from some adults who were breast fed into primary school,maybe it does make them uncomfortable in years to come.Does anybody know it doesn't?

Most people really won't give a stuff either way,they may think I wouldn't be doing that in the same way as one thinks on seeing 3 year olds in nappies,with dummies,bottles etc,etc or they may not but hostile sorry life is far too busy. People just get on with life having far more in their own life to worry about than other peoples parenting choices.

Agree with mariefromsanmoritz
It would be weird to remember sucking your mums nipples when you are older.
You might not even like your mum when you grow up, so the memory of breast feeding at 3/4 would be gross.
I have very clear memories of being that age, and I would hate to have that particular memory.
Also, although I bf'd for a year, and had no sex drive at that point, my breasts are sexual actually, as well as functional.

well my almost 10yr old can remember bfeeding and he is in no way freaked out by it, he just knows its something he did when he was little and at 3 almost 4 he was little, it was comforting and by that point generally just before bed or in the morning, very occasionally if he was upset in the day.

and regarding people juding bottles at that age, people do on here, ihave never seen/heard anyone doing it in rl, there is a little girl at ds4's pre school who until very recently always had a bottle in her pushchair on the way home ,she was tired, ds4 saw her and didnt riddicule her, he didnt even comment on it.

"the memory of breast feeding at 3/4 would be gross."

It's sad that you feel that way IMO.

I would see it as no different to remembering cuddling your mum.