Letters to the Editor
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"oh so telling about the readership"
LC,
What the flock is that supposed to mean? I've got the vague feeling that you are slandering men there somehow, or perhaps engineers, but was it really worth it?
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Mother, Wean Thyself
I think this article's about the mother's need for intimacy, not her son's well-being. I loved nursing. It was more satisfying than any relationship I'd had so far in life. (My fault, I'm sure...but it was simple and trusting and so loving.) So I sympathize with her, but not much.
When my daughter weaned herself at about two, she had just begun to bite down gently with her milk teeth, while looking up at me and giggling. I'd go OW! and make faces. Her own expression seemed to say, See...teeth? See...me still nursing? This is silly!
I remember a LaLeche League activist who was a friend's midwife. My friends once went to a dinner party at her house. At one point her five-year-old, who'd been put to bed, bellowed down the stairs at the top of his lungs, "I want BOOBY! I WANT BOOBY!" The martyred mother excused herself from the table and went trotting up the stairs.
Moo!
What I find most unpleasant about this article:
1) Salon's editorial exploitation of women's bodies and tortured self-loathing under any guise while pretending the opposite (there's the true creepiness)
2) The author's (like Waldman's and LaMott's) disregard for her son's future privacy which makes her relationship with him I-It rather than I-Thou
3) Salon's slanted Editors Choices.
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Should have stopped when the nutrition stopped
There are quite a few people here who are saying that breasts were made to feed babies, and that breast feeding is totally natural. I guess I can agree with that. However, she openly admits that her breasts are no longer providing nutrition to her 4 year old. Why, then, aren't those same people telling her to stop? You can't have it both ways. If breasts were designed to feed babies/children, but they are no longer producing milk and the kid is no longer getting fed by sucking on them, then shouldn't the breast "feeding" stop?
I don't care if this woman's breasts are regarded as "sexual" by her son at this point or not. It's still abuse to some degree because *she's* not using them in their supposedly intended way.
Icky.
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Thank you for so perfectly articulating it all
I'm so sorry you got flamed. At least some of the negative writers, I noted, do not even have children (or have children who suck... their thumbs! so much better for them than nursing, I'm sure.) And if kids have cavities, look at how much juice and soda and candy they get, and don't just blame breastfeeding. Our son has not yet had a single cavity in his life, and he's a still-nursing 4year and 2month old. (And yes, we take him to the dentist, so we know for certain.)
But rather than getting caught up in rebutting every single ridiculous argument against it, I actually just wanted to thank you for writing so clearly and beautifully about nursing your son. Both my sweetheart and I really enjoyed the article. Your situation and process getting to this point was so much like mine, and it brought back so many memories of all the changes of these short years.
Thank you...
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OK. Show me...
Anon,
Have you read any of the books I cited? Did you notice I stated that they would be informative, not definitive? Actually, the Hrdy book is written by a degreed and highly regarded scientist.
Oh yeah, ain't nobody wearing tie-dyes in this house, but we do have some professional clothing to wear to work. Can't imagine lecturing at my university in a t-shirt; it wouldn't be professional.
queenlybluebean
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Yes, there are a lot of computer geeks here.
"oh so telling about the readership"
LC,
What the flock is that supposed to mean? I've got the vague feeling that you are slandering men there somehow, or perhaps engineers, but was it really worth it?
-- VB
I'm a woman, i'm a computer geek, kind of. So, if i'm slandering anyone, it's people like myself.
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Tina
I am fully aware of the arguments against feminism and against working mothers re: breastfeeding, but I feel that being able to nurse, and for as long as I wanted to -- but not having to -- and it working so well to nourish my children was a commendation, not a condemnation of being a woman.
I'm on the same page with you, Tina.
Basically I would love to see less judgement of women in general, and a lot less hysteria. I have a problem with people getting nasty with breastfeeders or telling them to take it to the bathroom.
But I also have a problem with miltant "lactavists" lecturing complete strangers on the subject, or commercials which imply that no breastfeeding is on the level of riding a mechanical bull when you are nine months pregnant, or people who want to take away free formula from new mothers (because God knows we can't trust *women* to make their own decisions).
The very idea that the author of the Slate article thought about *not publishing* his findings because he thought it might influence some women to opt out of breastfeeding offends me. Its so paternalistic.
What the research suggests to me is that there are all kinds of ways of caring for your babies that can work perfectly well. One single "right" way doesn't do anyone much good. My money quote from the article:
"I am strongly convinced that there are two kinds of nutrition, physical and psychological, and that both are equally important. This conviction persuades me that it's better for a mother to formula-feed her baby pleasurably than to breast-feed and hate it."
All of this takes us away from the Salon article which is a different bag of apples: This is an example in which nutrition isn't the issue at all. The author is nursing her four-year-old even though there isn't an milk because she has gotten too attached to his attachment, and doesn't want to move on. I can see why people recoil from this. It vertainly does beg a lot of questions.
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Extended Breastfeeding Was Right for Me and my Son
I followed the advice of so-called "experts" and weaned my first and second babies when they were about a year old. Then, while pregnant with my third, I made friends with some women who had allowed their children to self-wean. The idea is that independence, like any other stage of development, cannot be forced, it comes when the child is ready. Some children are ready earlier or later than others, just as some children will walk and sit earlier or later, and forcing independence before the child is ready can be counterproductive. If you take away food while a person is still hungry, he will continue to need the food - by analogy, if you take away dependence before the child is ready, he will continue to need dependence.
I was intrigued by the concept of self-weaning, and decided to see what happened with my youngest. He nurses until he was 4 and 1/2. I asked him, once, why he still nursed, and he answered spontaneously, "sometimes I need to be a baby". What a wise response! Don't we all sometimes need to be babies? When we are sick, when we are tired, don't we all sometimes need to regress a little?
Of course it is possible and necessary to set age-appropriate limits, even in breastfeeding. I was able to tell my son no, we'll not be able to nurse (we used a code word) here and now, but we'll nurse when we get home, or when I finish what I am doing, and my son was able to accept loving guidance in the guise of limits.
My family offered all kinds of dire predictions. He'll never toilet train, was one. He toilet trained himself a year before he weaned, with no effort on my part. He had seen his big brother use the potty, and he wanted to be like his brother. He will never be independent, was another dire prediction. He became the most independent of my three children, however, and on the first day of kindergarten, when other children clung to their parents, my son said, "see you later" and confidently walked into the classroom, secure in the knowledge that he would have his dependency needs met when they arose.
My youngest is now 21, the most perceptive, humane, independent and caring human being.
I know I did the right thing, and my only regret is not allowing my older children to self-wean.