Usborne Puberty Book tells children that breasts exist to make milk and to make girls look grown up and attractive

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www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/29/usborne-apologises-puberty-book-childrens-publisher?CMP=share_btn_tw

Breasts are there for 1) milk 2) to make girls look grown up and attractive

Nice to know that our children are being taught that breasts are there to look at

It's like the author has been watching One Million Years BC

Terrifying in it's reality, One Million Years BC show man and dinosaurs together when earth parted continents (in a day apparently), plus they also had dental treatment at that time by way of mercury filings.

Absolute reality!

It is unusual to humans and it is often speculated that the purpose is to be sexually attractive to males.

That's a theory. A theory that is of zero importance to children. Children don't need to know what scientists speculate about.

Why do men have beards? Are beards to make boys look grown up and attractive? Perhaps that is why they evolved, but fact is, we don't know for sure.

"In puberty, some girls grow bigger breasts than strictly necessary, and boys grow beards and get lower voices, that's because hormones cause it. We have no idea what that's supposed to be good for, perhaps it is just a thing that happens" would be the honest answer.

Or, you know, just say "because hormones" and not go into detail.

I haven't read the book but I also wonder if they tell boys that when girls go through puberty they also have hair in the pubic area as well as underarm hair and hair on the legs. Because why did women evolve to have hair in these areas?

Shock - sometimes women get hairs around their nipples as well.

Oh boy!

arent they just simplifying what it means

Maybe that was the intention, but it failed. It stated a reason for girls to have breasts as 'to make them look grown up'.

And why 'simplify' something that's not exactly complex anyway - I seem to remember the leaflets I had about puberty just neutrally described secondary sexual characteristics (breasts, hair etc) as things that happened to girls and boys at this age.

Yes Usborne have it wrong.
Breasts on females are to provide milk for babies.
Breasts (or nipples) on males are to help decide if it is cold out, and time to put a jumper on.
Since in both firming of nipples is often related to temperature, could popping your OH into the fridge for 10 minutes be regarded as foreplay?
Looking at other people is a 'thing', a fact of life both ways around.
When looking at a man are you thinking 'nice sixpack/biceps' or is it 'nice wallet'?

Evopsych always seems to end up boiling down to some version of women having smaller feet so they can stand closer to the kitchen sink.

Evo psych (or evil shy boy- as my iPhone corrects to) is always trotted out by those men by their very nature seem to be proof there is no such thing as natural selection...

So...if breasts are there to attract males, why do women in a lot of cultures wander around bare breasted with nary a glance from men?
Clearly, even if breasts are secondary sexual characteristics, the attraction of men to breasts must be culture specific.

It makes me laugh when men of the Desmond Morris ilk think that all the wobbly bits of women evolved to make them more attractive to men without asking the question why are men attracted to them in the first place?

Breasts evolved to make breastfeeding easier, probably as an indirect result of the loss of fur at some point in human evolution. If men like boobs it's because they mark the woman as more likely to be able to feed children beyond infancy, or because they've become fetishized in our society. Or both.

But it's not like men decided they like boobs so women decided to grow some. I mean FGS!

Next they'll be saying that women lost their fur because men like women with smooth silky shaved legs!

feed children so they survive beyond infancy

The book seems to have come out in 2013 - is this the first time anyone has noticed this section, or have they republished it changing this?

I remember a few years back a poster on here who'd lived in Kenya (IIRC) saying that the part of the country she lived in, women typically went topless, and breasts were seen simply as a useful bit of the body with which to feed babies and weren't sexualised. So much so, that when missionaries tried to get women to cover up, the prevailing attitude was one of puzzlement: "what, you mean white men get turned on by boobies [deliberately using the infantile word here, because in context that's what the women used to get their point across]? That's just weird. Have they got some sort of infantile fixation and never outgrew obsessing about their mother's breasts? Our men grow out of that by about age 3."

That's the thing about evo-psych stories. Not only are they basically just-so stories with a bit of pseudo-scientific window dressing, typically they're also very western-centric just-so stories.

Is that magazine for real Griswald ?
It's an interesting idea that women's bodies have evolved purely to be more attractive and fun for men

I haven't read the book but I also wonder if they tell boys that when girls go through puberty they also have hair in the pubic area as well as underarm hair and hair on the legs. Because why did women evolve to have hair in these areas?

Going by what was written in this book, if they did it would probably say something like

"when girls go through puberty they also have hair in the pubic area as well as underarm hair and hair on the legs. However many men don't find body hair attractive so girls often remove this hair so that they can attract a mate and fulfill their purpose"

Ben Lui and Some Dyke - thank goodness for you and a couple of others. Fact is there is still scientific confusion surrounding WHY human breasts are constantly 'visible'.

It is not proven accurate and not suitable for a kiddies book, even if it had been. This is not demonising men.

Wtf
The book has no place anywhere near boys

There is a MASSIVE difference between reason and purpose.

You can attribute reasons to evolution but it has no purpose @Batteriesallgone gets it.

You also get it @larrygrylls, @Crumbs1 @SophoclesTheFox and other pp who stayed on topic. I respect the alternative theories but I still believe usborne is right based on my assessment of the balance of probabilities.

Evolution is nothing more than a correlation of biological stochastic processes.

I fully expect my confident intelligent dd to be able to cope with that knowledge

Dw and I are nurturing future leaders, you can do whatever you want with your dc.

Christ alive, don't put me in your list of people who agreed with you newdaddie!

I very very emphatically do NOT.

I put you on the list of people who can have a mature discussion with opposing views without lowering themselves to personal attacks.

Have a good weekend @SophoclesTheFox I'm happy to agree to disagree with you.

I'm wondering which of the very righteous 'breasts should definitely be of no interest to boys/men brigade' ever wear push up bras, incy wincy bikinis or chicken fillet bra fillers?

Who says that boys/men shouldn't be attracted to breasts?

'breasts should definitely be of no interest to boys/men brigade'

Nobody has said this.

I'm going to stuff my bra with the straw from your straw man. Scratchy, but righteous.

Why then, NewDaddie are there so many cultures who find breasts entirely uninteresting, sexually? Something which is particularly common in cultures where women habitually go bare-chested.
This doesn't make sense, if breasts are supposed to be attractive to males. You would think that in cultures where they are visible constantly, they would be considered sexually appealing, but the opposite is true.
It seems far more likely that as humans in cooler climates began to cover up more with clothing, and eventually wear clothing consistently, the covered (sexual) parts of the body became fetishised to a degree.
(For example, even slender ankles became sexually attractive for a time, due to cultural factors, and being covered.)
People who say breasts are "supposed to be attractive to men" sound like they're working backwards from an already presumed conclusion, and seeking justification for it.

oops, I missed the fact that I've been approved by newdaddie Thanks!

I don't think I can leave it at "agree to disagree", though. I actually think you're wrong when you say this: "to put it simply women have breasts because men like them". You just can't say that with any measure of confidence. I'm not disagreeing: I'm saying that you have no credible evidence for that claim, therefore that claim is best not made, particularly in books aimed at children where it functions in a damaging way.