Letters to the Editor
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Yes,Happy mamories
It's interesting to see how many people selectively omit the part of the article where Judith Woodburn emphasizes that she has never had a problem with saying no to set boundaries. The issue here seems to be the cultural effect of decades of nursing as an option ,disconnecting whole generations of children from any experience of it ( a 9-year old neighbor girl was shocked to see me nurse my baby some years ago-she said she didn't know you did that!) and now as adults they have simply no idea what it means . My own experience -nursing my son over 3 years and slowly winding down when he moved on (with lots of encouragement!) to the next phase-showed me that the value of nursing is way beyond nutrition. My son-now 14 ,has been a wonderful,self-reliant person,with seemingly no insecure bone in his body. That's the paradox - loving closeness and responding to the child's needs as only the parents know them- makes for healthy,independent children. Blessings to all mothers who have to do this most normal,instinctive thing in the enviromnment of complete lack of understanding and even hostility. Ola G.
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What I find horrifying...
... is the naked fear and hatred of the breast displayed by more than half the commenters here. Why can't we move beyond viewing them as nothing but dirty pillows, the subject of sinful wet dreams that inspire titillation and guilt?
You're all crying about this mother somehow refusing to allow her child to grow up, but isn't it time we, as a culture, grew up? We have science that tells us that breast milk is good for children. We have sociologists who tell us that breast feeding until the age of 4+ is normal on a global scale. We have photos and stories of cultures where breasts are casually bare while calves are maddeningly erotic. We know better but we cling to our outdated, stupid, restrictive love of the sexual boobie, as if the world would fall to pieces and no-one would ever have an orgasm again if we allowed the breast to function as it does in every other mammal on the planet. As if the sky would fall if we didn't rain a hail of condemnation on any woman who displays or uses her breasts in a way that didn't contribute to somebody's orgasm.
There is nothing sacred or special about our boob obsession. There is nothing natural or pre-ordained about it. What good does it do? It inspires shame and insecurity in our women and a source of arousal in our men, and we know by the miracle of science that the breast isn't necessary to enjoy sexuality. Why not let it go?
Wouldn't it be better if half our population wasn't encouraged to feel shame and insecurity about their breasts? Wouldn't it be better if we could provide our children with the best nutrition available for as long as they need it? Wouldn't it be better if our sexuality wasn't based on the shameful and secretive breast?
Yeah, sure, it's how our culture is, like it or not, right? But if we don't like it, how are we going to shape it into something else by mindlessly and fearfully going along with the status quo?
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Making a Deal, son...
One of the mothers in our 1980s-era London playgroup confided how she tried to negotiate late weaning when her boy was a brawny age four: "I even promised to give up cigarettes if he would give up the tit," she told me in exasperation. But neither side kept to this bargain. It wasn't until the first week of kindergarten that Luke was deprived of the maternal breast during the day. I wonder if he gave up the night nursing before he started smoking.
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Diaperless babies!
Hey, speaking of that: Salon, I think I have discovered an buried treasure here. You can replace the repetitious articles about long-time breastfeeding with NEW articles about people who simply will not potty train their toddlers, and hence have them in diapers until the age of 4 or 5.
This touched a cord. I have a lazy sister-in-law whose four-year-old is still in diapers,and I get tired of the rationalisations. "He doesn't want to!" She says. Pulleeaaase. He is perfectly capable and will if she expects him to. But that is too much like work and gets in the way of shopping.
Thought you might appreciate this: apparently the latest trend among the all-natural attachment parenting crowd (which to me sometimes comes across a a perverse movement bent on punishing women for the feminist movement as much as possible with endless nursing, unassisted birth, etc.) is the diaperless babies.
No diaper at all. When baby needs to poop or pee, you are supposed to know use your maternal intuition and this innately, and hold him over a bucket just in time. All accidents and spills are of course the mother's fault for not being sufficiently "natural" and "in touch" with her baby (who of course never ever leaves the sling even when she needs to take a crap herself).
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What I find horrifying
is the idea that if I don't nurse my child for FOUR FRICKIN' YEARS that I'm a deficient mom.
Also, can we see the studies? That breast milk has a *magical* property to make everyone who nursed a secure, wonderful human being?
I mean there have always been murderers, rapists, and the like, all through human history, and on the global scale of time, they were probably breastfed.
This "mommy's milk mysticism" is way over the top.
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This isn't about what the child wants.
The people who say this is between the mother and her child are incorrect. The child just acts out whatever it feels is right. The child might end up using diapers until they are ten years old if you don't teach it how to control itself. The child will happily go on sucking on your breast as a nightime ritual because that is what it is used to. The mother is the one who has to teach the child not to breast feed anymore.
The mother can make all the excuses she want about how she controls everything else except for this, but it's still not the right way to handle things.
As one previous commentator indicated this is now akin to thumb sucking. It's a habit. It has no value for the child physically and it's certainly not helping the child develop an independent sleep pattern. At what point does the child learn to go to sleep on his own without the mother's breast in his mouth?