Why is this particular "controversy" with the mother and not with Time for using that photo which was an obvious attempt to sell magazines? I'm extremely annoyed with Time for using that photo and most especially for the headline "Are you mom enough?". What the freaking hell does one have to do with the other? And to pit moms against each other on Mother's Day Weekend was just icing on the cake. Mommy Wars? No thanks!
Am I mom enough for what? To nurse my child? To nurse my children past 6 months? To nurse a 3 year old on the cover of Time? The question is rude and frankly (not to copy from The Honey Badger), but I don't give a shit.
Will this Time cover ultimately be helpful or harmful? The general consensus is that this does not do anything good for "the cause". What cause is that? I was originally of the mind that it did more harm than good by making extended breast-feeding mothers look like freaks who couldn't cut the apron cords. But after several conversations with friends, good friends and acquaintances where I piped in and said that my 12 year old was nursed for 23 months and my 6 year old nursed until she self-weaned at around 3, I think I might have changed my mind RE: is the cover harmful.
By people like me standing up and saying that we did it, I think it takes away the freakishness that the cover photo brings out. The conversation stops, and people look at me as if trying to find the freakishness that they didn't know existed before. (at least not on this particular topic...there is the knitting after all) It was never a secret in my family that we nursed past 6 months but being that my girls are older now, it isn't something that comes up in conversation a whole lot.
Ultimately I'm told that no press is bad press so I hope it is the same for this topic of conversation. Maybe people who thought Jamie Grumet was a freak after seeing the cover will now talk about "the controversy" and someone like me will pipe up and tell our story. And just maybe the rest of us will put a personal face (two beautiful little faces in my case) to the controversy.
I was way more militant about breast feeding when my oldest was little and I'm way more relaxed about it now. If it is right for your family then great and if it isn't, then that's ok too. I mean, we are all moms and as long as we love our kids and try to do the best for them, the logistics don't really matter so much do they? If you give your child cow's milk at 10 months and I nurse my daughter until she is 3 is there really going to be any difference when they are in their 40's?
I weaned my 12 year old when she was 23 months because she was not a sleeper and wanted to get up and be nursed back to sleep throughout the night. By 23 months I had had enough and we weaned her. Now my 6 year old only ever got up once to nurse in the middle of the night when she was an infant and was generally a much better nurser than her sister. We decided that we'd see if it worked for us that she self wean and she did around age 3.
Nursing a toddler and nursing a baby are two totally different things and I think the Time cover makes people think that the 3 year old is nursing like an infant would. I do not know the family but I'm guessing that is not the case. Nursing a baby (this varies a LOT) but generally is about every 2 hours and their only sustenance. Nursing a toddler on the other hand is mainly about comfort for the child. They are eating other foods and from my experience just need a bit of comfort to get through the day and eventually when they self wean each of these nursing sessions drops off one at a time. They get shorter and shorter and ended up only being morning and night for us. My little one dropped the morning one and so the bedtime one was last to go. Since I never offered and it was always driven by her needs the night nursing just sort of got sporadic and eventually one day I realized that she was weaned. That's how it happens. That's why I say "around age 3" because I don't know when the exact last time she nursed was. I weaned my 12 year old and so I know she was 23 months at the time.
My oldest rubbed the inside of my arm while she nursed and did so for years after weaning while I was putting her to sleep.
My little one still to this day (she's 6), does what she calls "belly to belly" with me. Actually she'll do B2B with any family member that will let her, but mostly me. She still needs that skin to skin comfort. She raises her shirt to expose her belly and she raises my shirt to expose my belly and we sit together skin to skin for a minute or so. She rubs my belly with her hand sometimes. In the morning before she leaves for school, she raises my shirt and just lays her head on my stomach for a few seconds and then she's off for the day.
If extended nursing isn't for you than it isn't for you but that does not make the rest of us freaks. Until there are personal faces for these people to put to their idea of what extended breast feeding is, then they will never understand. Having a "nurse your toddler in public day" won't help either. I believe it stands to those of us who did it, to speak up and put our faces to the term "extended breast feeding" to the people who know us.
I'll leave you with this photo of a button that I STILL have and used to have pinned to my diaper bag.
