Umm, not to rain on anyone's parade, but I think the inappropriate part is the age of the child, not the activity. Infants need to be weaned off milk as their main source of nutrition around 12-months-old. Otherwise, they are at risk of iron-deficiency anemia, among other health problems. That age is also appropriate because of behavioral concerns, i.e., the older they get the harder it will be to wean.

Approaching the age of two we are really getting to that place where it starts to become a problem, or a symptom of other problems. It starts to become similar to the issue of children sleeping with parents, or in the parents' bed. These issues are fairly non-controverial to the majority of people who close the door to them by weaning early or not going down the slippery slope of children sleeping with adults. Children derive easy comfort from the "ba," or the "ma," or sleeping with mommy/daddy. Children also, naturally derive easy comfort from "gratification behavior," (Google it) yet we're pretty clear that we need to gently and consistently consistently redirect children's attention and behavior away from establishing problematic behavior. We are the parents. In our society we owe our children the ego strength to discover self-soothing, and self-direction with limits.

So, without being there I can, with the maternal quote as a context clue, pretty well imagine at least some of the agenda in-play. There is the elephant in the room of the the "lactation nazis" who intervene into the business of and inflict guilt on ambivalent or non-breastfedding moms, or early weaning moms. Who might advocate a position of breastfeed for as long as the child wants, etc., (Google it). These are few, but zealous. So, for intellectual-honesty's sake let's bring to the fore what was probably really going on in the incident, as the issue - inappropriate, solipsistic parenting versus common norms and even (the banished notion in an overly pluralistic society) wisdom, not breastfeeding, infant-maternal bonding, infant well-being, nutrition and health versus easily prudishness.

I am not against breatfeeding. I am for healthy children. I am for children who are not at high-risk for iron-deficiency anemia, and who parented toward more and more self-sufficiency, a la Wendy Mogel. I am against parenting practices that fly in the face of societal norms, which may be as they diverge from the norm, more and more abusive to the child, in their effect. Again, I'm not against breastfeeding. I'm for it.

Prediction time: I will be flamed out by lactation advocates. Please, someone redirect the discussion back to the late weaning issue. Thanks.

about truth-telling and intellectual honesty despite how it might require eating crow that was served up in a polarized rhetorical power-struggle. The Pro-Choice/Pro-Life struggle is a prime example; I used to work for Planned Parenthood. The debate has become mainly stubbornly holding to cherished talking points and refuting the other side, not stipulating or speaking to the truth. Both sides are right in some respects, both sides are wrong in some respects. The whole thinig needs a do-over in the form of courageous truth-telling and consensus-building. It's like a public, messy divorce.

Also, this little tidbit (Grrr, I can't make the tag work) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1434540.ece about senior US generals threatening to resign if an attack on Iran is ordered somehow escaped going by my awareness, I don't know about anybody else.