Attachment Parenting & Time Breastfeeding Cover

[Sliver]

There is a photo of a woman breastfeeding her three-year-old son on today's cover of TIME Magazine, with an article about attachment parenting. Here is the cover:

NSFW!

^ Note, that is not a model; it is actually the MILF with her son suckling on her breast.

The article doesn't appear to be available online, but the Calgary Herald had a piece on it with the following snippets:

Shocking or no big deal? A woman breastfeeding her 3-year-old son is the cover photo of this week’s Time magazine for a story on “attachment parenting,” and reactions ranged from applause to cringing to shrugs.

Reaction to the cover underscored a cultural rift between traditional childrearing and what some have deemed “extreme parenting.” The attachment philosophy encourages mothers to respond to their babies’ every cry and form close bonds with near-constant physical contact through “co-sleeping” (letting them sleep in the bed with parents rather than in cribs) and “baby-wearing” (carrying them on slings instead of pushing them in strollers).

Sooooo, thoughts?

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Nice!

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Thoughts?

She's hot, that kid looks about 7 not 3 and WTF is wrong with people?

The cover isn't really a big deal but the freaks featured on it might be.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

There is a massive difference between having a baby in a sling and having a kid sucking on your tit on his first day of school. I think that breastfeeding is a much better option for children than formula but the kid is plenty able to eat a balanced diet on his own afterall. I have no doubt that this is to satisfy the mothers emotional demands rather than the needs of the child.

[Daradon]

I went through this argument with a feminist I was dating. (Rush would have a stronger term)

I lived through it. I said (and still think) cut him off at 1 latest. I lost. She wanted to go as long as he wanted it! But I prevented her from doing that, which her hippie books told her was a good idea.

At that point it's not about nourishment and love (and safety?), it's about independence, and learning. Gotta drop to fly.

She had strong behavioral issues after that FWIW. Which I also got to be the 'nice guy' about cause 'she just couldn't take it anymore'.

CUT THE CORD PLEASE! Every animal does it. For the good of their children.

[TurnedTheCorner]

It seems perfectly natural and sane.

NSFW

Spoiler!

[Suave]

Originally Posted by Daradon

I went through this argument with a feminist I was dating. (Rush would have a stronger term)

I lived through it. I said (and still think) cut him off at 1 latest. I lost. She wanted to go as long as he wanted it! But I prevented her from doing that, which her hippie books told her was a good idea.

At that point it's not about nourishment and love (and safety?), it's about independence, and learning. Gotta drop to fly.

She had strong behavioral issues after that FWIW. Which I also got to be the 'nice guy' about cause 'she just couldn't take it anymore'.

CUT THE CORD PLEASE! Every animal does it. For the good of their children.

The Canadian Pediatric Society and the World Health Organization all recommend breastfeeding up to 2 years of age.

Recommendations


Support exclusive breastfeeding with vitamin D supplementation for the first six months (level III-A [Table 1]).


Encourage continued breastfeeding up to two years and beyond if desired by mother and infant, while providing appropriate nutritional guidance (level III-A).

http://www.cps.ca/english/statements...ecommendations

[CaptainCrunch]

NSFW!

[Dion]

We knew exactly what we were going to get in to,” Grumet said about the cover and story, which focuses on the theory of attachment parenting. What Grumet, who said she was breast-fed until the age of 6, didn’t expect was the public’s immediate, almost visceral reaction.

“This isn’t how we breast-feed at home, it’s more of a cradling, nurturing situation,” said the Los Angeles mom. “I do understand why Time chose this picture because…it did create such a media craze to get the dialogue talking.”

[QUOTE]Grumet, who also has a 5-year-old adopted son, says she hopes Aram will stop breast-feeding in his fourth year, though she's leaving it up to him because she believes in self-weaning. She cautions that her method of attachment parenting isn’t right for everyone.[/QUOTE]

http://moms.today.msnbc.msn.com/_new...r-old-son?lite

[troutman]

A few years ago there was a story about a woman breast-feeding her 7 year old.

http://nitabita.blogspot.ca/2008/05/...-year-old.html

[ken0042]

Let's keep this about discussing the issue; and not about who can post the best picture of somebody sucking on a boob.

[Bigtime]

Got MILF?

[TurnedTheCorner]

My picture was less to do with boob sucking and more to do with Lysa and Robin Arryn being bat **** insane.

[Wormius]

I was listening about it on the Current this morning.

I prefer that over the parents that seem to think their children are simply accessories. I honestly have no idea why some people procreate. I am just on a bit of a rant, after we invited one of our kid's friends out to fly some kites, and the other parent asked if we could pick the kid up since they were busy and had errands to run on a Saturday. Or else treat playdates as babysitting (you pass me a diaper bag for an uninvited child??)

That said, I for the attachment parenting, I am not bothered by how parents connect with their own kids if it doesn't affect me.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Suave

The Canadian Pediatric Society and the World Health Organization all recommend breastfeeding up to 2 years of age.

Recommendations


Support exclusive breastfeeding with vitamin D supplementation for the first six months (level III-A [Table 1]).


Encourage continued breastfeeding up to two years and beyond if desired by mother and infant, while providing appropriate nutritional guidance (level III-A).

http://www.cps.ca/english/statements...ecommendations

Ok, I can live with that. Not especially excited, but I can live.

This kid was way past 2...

If you've seen me fighting the gay marriage cause, and women's issues, you'd know I'm cool...

This kid was way past 2...

[habernac]

When they can talk to you, you've been breastfeeding them too long.

[Regulator75]

Yeah, well, fortunately for you, not too many people I know... read your little Time magazine, or whatever it's called.

[Drury18]

I can't believe stuff like this, the women who do this are whackjobs. And I'm saying this as a mother myself who has a strong bond with their child.

Attachment parenting is basically wanting complete and total control over another human being. You are robbing your child of independence when you do stuff like this. Which is only going to end up leading to behaviour where the child is 16 years old and expects Mommy to come to school and fight the bully for him or open his can of soda. These kids will grow up learning to be fully dependent on others.

[TurnedTheCorner]

All I know about parenting is that everyone is an expert.

[Textcritic]

Attachment is a funny thing.

I am the father of three boys through adoption; all were foster kids who were place with us after they were babies. Septimus came to live with us a few months before his fifth birthday, and Diocletian and Theodosius were 20 months and three-years-old when they moved in three years later.

All three had what are considered to be "attachment disorders," but Diocletian was probably the least affected, most likely because he was the youngest when he moved in. When Septimus was still seeing a family therapist until the age of six, one of the things that he liked to do was to snuggle into a blanket and to drink from a babies bottle. We were also encouraged as parents of children who had experienced attachment disruption to foster this sort of role playing whereby our kids would "regress" to assume infant or toddler behaviours as a natural part of the nurturing process. The idea is that all human beings participate in "stages" of nurture that will result in attachment, and that we must pass through all these stages in building secure relationships with our parents. This meant that our kids would continue to respond to us as parents in ways that babies or toddlers did, even years after they were no longer toddler-age. As our attachment grows, it seems that this biologically triggered need for these early stages of nurture subside over time.