Letters to the Editor
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Why this topic?
I work for an environmental research institute affiliated with a university. Awhile back, I fielded a request from Salon regarding scientists's responses to Michael Crichton's "State of Fear." A couple of us dropped what we were doing to help out, but the story never materialized. Months later, when news surfaced that James Hansen was under pressure to pipe down about climate change, I fielded another request but to my knowledge, that story didn't materialize, either.
And yet Salon has time to air the innermost turmoil of a woman whose four-year-old son wants to nurse on her dry breasts. It's not a big deal, she tells us. Okay, so why is she writing about it? It's bad enough she wants to engage in behavior that offers no nutritional benefit to her son. It's a little sad she also feels the need to raise as many eyebrows as she can by publicizing this awkward bedtime ritual to the world.
And I bet the Bill O'Reilly types are lovin' this.
If Salon's got time for this, how about making more space and time for *real* issues? You know, climate change, a war we can't win, a deficit big enough to eat the planet. I encourage Salon to focus on that stuff and let the emotional exhibitionists set up their own web sites.
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Little Britain
I have seen this mentioned in a couple other letters - the skit from Little Britain where the 30 year old guy is still "feeding" on his mom. He asks for it by saying "bitty" in his British accent - so funny!
Here's what I don't get. Where do you draw the line? If it's okay for this 4 year old to keep sucking on his mom's breast, and there's no milk but supposedly nothing sexual about it either, then when does it become wrong? At what age might it become sexual abuse? Or at the very least just plain fucking weird that these people can't seem to find another way to bond appropriately? Also, if this is not something this mother would do in public, then should she be doing it at all?
I guess I had always thought a pretty good guideline was believing in the benefits of breastmilk for the first several weeks/months (or whatever it is) as many of the studies say, which seems reasonable. If a kid is old enough to be off the bottle then shouldn't they also be off the breast? If not, wouldn't we have 7 year olds walking around with bottles? We are not a third world nation. Is 10 to old to still be on the breast? The bottle? If so, at what age does it become inappropriate? And all this talk about bonding? Why can't these mothers bond some other way? If breast feeding is supposedly so crucial to bonding, how do the fathers bond? Please. This is about *nutrition* people, not bonding. Give me a break.
I find it alarming that some people here are so bothered that many of us find this inappropriate.
Again I ask, how old is too old?
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This is what I AM appalled at...
I just scanned over a number of the letters written, and what appalls ME is the number of letter writers, including in the "Editor's Choice" group, who actually think they're amateur therapists who think they know what's going on for a woman and a child they've never met.
Sometimes it seems to me that parents are divided into two groups: those who basically trust their children's feelings and have the bedrock belief in following their kids'inner voices, and those who believe children are basically messed up and need to be straightened out (because the children need to "face reality"). The parents who believe in their kids will often, at some point in their kid's childhood, find their belief tested by the fact that the kid will want something a little wacky or outre (like the breast before bedtime at age four). These kids will often, at six, eight or 11, be outspoken and a little sassy (though not really "wild," because their parents DO place loose but reasonable, age-appropriate limits). Sometimes they won't easily fit into the box.
But at adolescence, these kids are not the ones taking drugs or cutting themselves. That's because they've learned to trust themselves and their feelings -- because their parents trusted them. (And, BTW, it has nothing to do with breast-feeding per se. Some breast-feeding "attachment parents" are ultra-controlling. It's a matter of how reflective and self-aware the parent is.)
As a therapist, I've observed that it's more likely the kids whose parents did not listen to them, who judged them by how good they were, who end up in the therapist office or substance abuse clinic at 13 or 14 or 15 or 16 -- because they never learned how to trust and pay attention to their own true wants and feelings, and because they transfer their childhood obedience of their parents onto their peer group.
I heartily recommend "The Heart of Parenting" by John Gottman, Ph.D., most famous for his groundbreaking research on marriage, who also did some fabulous research on parenting styles and their effect on kids. He identified four styles of parenting: Dismissive, Disapproving, Laissez-Faire (which actually turns out to be "avoidant") and Emotion-Coaching. If you want a real idea about what works and doesn't in parenting, not based on anecdotes but on in vivo research, do find this book and read it.
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Hot air
"It is perfectly acceptable to breastfeed your child, both for bonding and nutritional benefits, but if your child can walk up to you and try to lift up your shirt, then you crossed the line long ago. Using statistics of extended nursing on a global basis do nothing to support this. Of course mothers in third world countries breast feed for longer. They lack many of the things we have available to us that insure the health of our children."
Bull&*^*&*t!!!
Some kids get teeth at four months, walk at 8 or 9 months, and most are pretty darn capable of "telling" us they want to nurse from day one. When they're tiny, they cry...when they're a few months older, they crawl or walk up or tear at our shirts or use whatever words they call mama's milk.
Where is it written that when a child can "communicate" he should immediately be weaned? On which stone tablet is it inscribed that human milk is only for the weakest and tiniest and most helpless of babes?
Nursing is ok "as long as it's for less than a year," say some of you oh-so-opnionated letter-writers. Huh.
And, "women like this shouldn't have kids." Huh.
The immunological and health benefits of nursing continue past a year, people. The emotional and psychological benefits continue...well, who knows? Who the hell are you to decide for Woodman? She's brave enough to risk your contempt and do what she feels her child needs. It would've been lots easier for her to formula feed and not risk offending those of you with serious issues. Yes, serious issues. Why are you so damn heated up over this??? GET A LIFE. Most of us are f&$##ed up and it isn't because we were breastfed for 3 weeks or 3 years. Save your scorn for those parents who really are messing up their kids. And leave us nursing mothers alone.