My mother breast-fed me until I was 6 years old. I remember it well, and please believe me when I say that those memories are NOT the happy ones that you are wanting for your child. I was told that I didn't want to stop nursing, but children often don't know what is best for them. As I got older, those memories of sitting on my mother's lap, with her shirt undone (and you all know the other details), became more and more upsetting. I tried to talk about it with my friends, and all they did was tease me about it. I felt like I had done something horribly wrong. I do believe that my mother meant well, but the memories I have are very hard for me to deal with. Even now, 30 years later, I have a hard time looking my mother in the eye. Its hard for me to talk to her, and I don't feel like I could give her so much as a hug. I feel bad for her that it has come to this, but seeing her makes me feel uncomfortable. Please don't do this to your child.

To all of you who say that it happens in other cultures... the culture you grow up in makes all the difference. If breast-feeding your older child is accepted in your culture, your child will not feel like an outcast that has done something wrong. If you feel the need to breast-feed your child in secret, that is a good sign that it is NOT accepted by your culture. How can you expect your child to grow up feeling positive about having done something that you didn't feel comfortable having other people know about?

no wonder the democrats can't win an election...these comments are pathetic.

I am a mother PROUD to be nursing my 2 children; a 3 year old and a 1 year old. For all those who think that nursing is sexual stimulation obviously you have never nursed! It is NOT. While it is not painful, it most certainly is not pleasant.

My children nurse as a comfort--when they fall, or to help them get to sleep. Nursing is a loving relationship between a mother and her children and it should be revered as such--not as a sexual relationship. You all are just projecting your own sexual inhibitions and quirks onto a beautiful relationship. My children are not emotionally ready to wean.

If my children have memories of being nursed--GREAT!! Then they will realize how much they are loved and cherished and how happy I am to be able to comfort them when they need it. They are well adjusted and secure children. They are smart--the skin to skin contact encourages neural development and breastmilk raises IQs. And everyone knows the comfort that being snuggled in a mothers arms can give to a distraught child.

And yes, I set rules for my children. No matter how much screaming is involved, my children do not play in the street. Some people are getting permissive parenting confused with attached parenting.

Get over yourselves people. No wonder so many moms are embarrassed to admit they are still nursing. It is the greatest gift you can give your child. NOT do so is tantamount child abuse, imnsho.

I can't believe the number of negative posts here! Scientific research has proven breastfeeding as the optimal food for a chid up to age 5! And the majority of other countries breasfeed much longer than we do here. (Although we are starting to catch up - notice how every couple of years the recommended age to continue to gets older? first 3 months, then 6 months, then a year, now 2?) I find her article absolutely wonderful and we need more like it to promote the nutrtional and emotional benefits. Because apparently we have a lot of closed minded people who won't accept something just because they aren't used it. There have been NO studies able to show in the least little bit of harm in extended nursing into the preschool years.

In fact, it actually shows benefits - including cognitive. So lets get a grip folks. Do your research. Don't believe the world is flat just because that's what everyone thinks.

Sincerley,

Jen

Ms. Woodburn is rationalizing something that is gratifying to herself and harmful to everyone else in the equation -- her son, her husband, the family. She clings to the idea that breastfeeding is a personal, sacred choice for the MOTHER (although she projects by citing it as "sacred" to her son...).

What about dad here? She mentions casually that dad feels excluded. Why isn't dad-son bonding sacred and important to her? She scoffs at the idea suggested in a book that "daddy's loving arms" might be a substitute for her teets. Why not employ some of the discipline she claims to possess to encourage the substitution, instead of ridiculing it?

Ms. Woodburn wants to be everything to her son. She secretly enjoys that daddy is excluded. She's smart and articulate, so she can dress up her own selfishness as some sort of courageous rebellion against social expectation. I can only imagine how this will play out over time, the new iterations that will emerge once Ms. Woodburn is done breastfeeding.

Dad is being deprived of a nurturing, bonded role with son. And son will be mortified later.

I've spent hours reading the letters on this article and after 23 pages, enough already!

1. I find that I really don't care what this particular mother does or does not do in the privacy of her own home, but I have a major problem with the fact that she took away all the rights to privacy her son is entitled to if, in fact, Judith Woodburn, is not a pseudonym, used for no other purpose than writing this particular essay. If this is her real name, then, her son's friends and family know who they both are and knowing human nature as I do, this essay will come back to bite him one day in the not too distant future. Someone he knows will read this essay, let slip the private moment he has with his mother on a daily basis and embarrass the hell out of him with the knowledge. That, in my opinion, is not only wrong, but borders on the abusive, if not criminal. This innocent little child will be derided for what he and his mother does at night, and that will do more damage than any amount of extended breastfeeding ever could. Didn't we have enough with the Ayelet Waldman experiment on Salon and her constant need to invade her children's privacy in an online magazine? The letter writing campaign against her bi-weekly column in Salon worked. Either she quit or Salon fired her, it was never explained, and everything settled down for a while and now Judith Woodburn enters the picture and does the very same thing with her son.

I think that if Salon is going to continue to allow writers such as Waldman, Woodburn and Annie Lamott to publicly humiliate their children, and the writers themselves don't have the good sense to publish anonymously or with a psuedonym, then Salon should exclude the author's last name to protect the privacy of the innocent children who will surely be harmed by articles written about them in a public forum.

2. On this particular subject, extending breastfeeding into the preschool years, many have written that they think this borders on sexual child abuse; others have stated that it is the natural thing to do. I wonder if the proponents of extended breastfeeding, or in this particular case, where the mother states there really isn't any milk to be had for her son, and that her son is sucking on her breast for comfort reasons only would feel the same way if another type of situation was happening that society frowns upon? Suppose it was a case of a father continuing to bathe naked with his 4 year old daughter? Parents and children bathe together in the early years as a way of bonding and convenience too. Fathers/Mothers and sons/daughters share baths in the first year or two for many reasons, but after the age of 2 or 3 it is recommended that parents of the opposite sex stop bathing with their children for privacy reasons. Now if this had been an essay from a father who still took baths with his 4 year old daughter, there would be letters calling for police action, claiming that the father had pedophilic feelings towards his daughter and should be arrested. How is this situation any different than a mother allowing her son to suckle at her breasts when the food supply had long run out? In 23 pages of letters I saw nothing that touched upon a reverse situation where the father might be involved in a "comfort" or "convenience" situation with his daughter that by all public opinion would border on the perverse.

My question here is "Why are mothers allowed to remain in intimate situations with their male children and there are many people who think this is okay, when fathers, in similar intimate situations would be arrested for child sexual abuse?" Many men I know are almost afraid to show innocent affection towards little girls for fear of being accused of being pedophiles or just plain doing something wrong, yet when it is a woman and a male child, not one complains.

3. For the few letter writers who stated that breasts are not needed for sexual purposes a little anatomy lesson is in order. Breasts, especially the nipple are erogenous zones and stimulation can lead to orgasm on its own, or contribute to it. They most definitely play an active role in sexual intercourse and orgasm. Therefore breasts play two roles in women, sexual zones for pleasure and for feeding babies. All part of the plan.