Dr. Sears Attachment Parenting featured on Time Magazine - Page 2

[4evermom]

Originally Posted by crunchy_mommy 


Well not always... I pretty much hated breastfeeding DS but kept up with it for his sake... But maybe there is something wrong with me!
I think the picture is a little weird, mostly because the mom looks all posed & model-y and defiant. I did read an article about the photo shoot for this cover and it sounds like there were good intentions behind having the kid standing like that, but I don't like the execution of it. DS has nursed standing like that before but it just doesn't have that same look/feel. It's too showy or something I guess. But I do love that there is a 3yo nursing on a national, mainstream magazine cover. I hate the headline. Also, I have never read Dr. Sears book(s) or anything, so yeah it bugs me a bit that it's framed like we are some cult following of him. But I don't have a subscription to Time so I didn't read the whole article...

Since it's a posed photo and the child is just a child and the mother isn't even a model, it probably would look slightly off or awkward no matter how it was done...

Anyway, I was happy to see a photo of an older nursling because there have been so many situations where families have been torn apart because they innocently took a photo to be developed. There are mothers who are afraid to comfort their older nurslings when they desperately need it because they are afraid someone in the hospital will call CPS. There are mothers who can't feel comfortable nursing their kids in public because they are afraid some random stranger is going to spew all sorts of nasty filth at her in front of her child or call the police. Having a photo on the cover of a public magazine offers some small measure of protection. People won't automatically assume they should call CPS because they saw it on the cover of a magazine.

[Cathlin]

Husband just told me about the article, so I haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet. I'm optimistic that even what seems to be negative publicity will have a positive outcome.

I never knew about AP, we just determined to do what felt most right for Baby Girl - I found out later there was a name for it! As Christians, we respond to negativity about AP by reminding ourselves that when Eve was in the garden she must've just done what her mama instincts told her! 

I think it's terribly sad that the Western ideas of parenting seem so rooted in selfishness - that it's somehow gross and wrong for a mother to give, give, give to her children. Sad that they're missing out on that two-way giving street of selflessness, the best parts of my day are those extreme mama moments.

Husband said part of the piece/response to the piece is that AP is for rich women who can afford not to work. I think that's a really snide attack on families that sacrifice income in order to be a stay at home mother. 

The idea that any rigid framework for parenting is applicable to all children is crazy to me, maybe that's why the core of AP makes so much sense: it's about responding to your child's frame, not constructing a frame to squeeze them into. 

[Blessed_Mom]

Originally Posted by 4evermom 

Are you saying there is no place for silliness or goofiness in the mother child nursing relationship? It all has to be sacred, gentle, and done in bed? Kids have different personalities that they bring to the table in the relationship. I find it strange you think other ways are a mockery of yours.

ETA, just think of all the controversy and shouts of incest if this picture were taken in bed. Showing a nursing couple in a private place like bed on the front cover of a national magazine would be more inappropriate, imo.

No... I am saying - this 'grab and go' mockery isn't the 'true' representation of EBF for me and I also asked other EBFers what they thought?

For me - this pic seem to want to display the 'extreme' rather than the norm....

...and going by the other responses it doesn't seem like I am the only one!

To illustrate: There was this video of a lady I saw who so completely believed in the benefits of BF that she is still BFing her 9?12? year old daughter, son and EVEN her DH!

Now not all of us EBFers nurse our DH even though pretty much all of us believe in the benefits of BFing. If that lady's pic/video were to be shown as advocating the benefits of BFing- wouldn't that be a disservice to all and clearly sensationalist ? Sure you can question me if I thought BFing a 12 year inappropriate and whether my cut-off was the cut-off for all....

....but try and understand that that is not what I am saying!

[Cathlin]

Originally Posted by Blessed_Mom 

No... I am saying - this 'grab and go' mockery isn't the 'true' representation of EBF for me and I also asked other EBFers what they thought?

For me - this pic seem to want to display the 'extreme' rather than the norm....

...and going by the other responses it doesn't seem like I am the only one!

To illustrate: There was this video of a lady I saw who so completely believed in the benefits of BF that she is still BFing her 9?12? year old daughter, son and EVEN her DH!

Now not all of us EBFers nurse our DH even though pretty much all of us believe in the benefits of BFing. If that lady's pic/video were to be shown as advocating the benefits of BFing- wouldn't that be a disservice to all and clearly sensationalist ? Sure you can question me if I thought BFing a 12 year inappropriate and whether my cut-off was the cut-off for all....

....but try and understand that that is not what I am saying!

I know that I'm dreading the call from my [anti-BF] mother when she sees this cover. It is only going to confirm her negative ideas.

Make no mistake, this is a PR war, and we all know that decontextualized snapshots like that cover are meant to rattle, not rally.  

[BroodyWoodsgal]

Originally Posted by 4evermom 

Are you saying there is no place for silliness or goofiness in the mother child nursing relationship? It all has to be sacred, gentle, and done in bed? Kids have different personalities that they bring to the table in the relationship. I find it strange you think other ways are a mockery of yours.

ETA, just think of all the controversy and shouts of incest if this picture were taken in bed. Showing a nursing couple in a private place like bed on the front cover of a national magazine would be more inappropriate, imo.

But it's NOT inappropriate. That's the point...and there are ALREADY shouts of "incest" at the picture the way it is.

OF COURSE there is room for silliness and playfulness in the nursing relationship...and a picture of a mother and baby laughing and tickling and poking each other while the kid nurses would have been JUST as good, IMO, as a picture of a kid and mom in bed nursing...both of those images would have been more accurate illustrations of what nursing an older toddler ACTUALLY looks like. A boy standing on a stool nursing while his mother stands with her hands on her hips is NOT an accurate illustration.

The way this mother is posed, makes it look like "I'm breastfeeding to prove a point, so screw you".

Who here among you nursed your child so you could prove a point to someone else about how "Crunchy" you are or to prove that you are, in fact, "MOM ENOUGH"?? Not me. Not for a second. My DD was a pleasure to nurse but my very HN son was KILLING me by the time we hit two years in to our nursing relationship. I didn't stand there on a stool letting him nurse so I could stare down passers by like "yeah, see, try and stop me!" - I nursed him curled up with him on the couch, under a tree or in bed...so that I could hold him, touch him, sing to him, CONNECT with him.

Of all the lousy sentiments that I've ever been subjected to when NIP, the looks of "you freak" and "that's sexual and it's incest" don't even phase me as much as the idea people have in their heads that if you are nursing a child past the point when they are walking, you are somehow doing it to try and BE something or PROVE something...that you are some militant booby nazi. That irks me.....and this magazine cover just scooped that already present misconception and went ahead and plastered it all over the place, once again.

The cover takes the "I'm queer, I'm here, get over it" tone...and I don't appreciate that. That works in a gay rights parade. But I don't nurse with that attitude when I'm in public because it's not helpful.

[BroodyWoodsgal]

Originally Posted by Cathlin 

I know that I'm dreading the call from my [anti-BF] mother when she sees this cover. It is only going to confirm her negative ideas.

Make no mistake, this is a PR war, and we all know that decontextualized snapshots like that cover are meant to rattle, not rally.  

EXACTLY. It's not about the article, it's not about "Who is Dr. Sears"...it's about what 90% of people will see...the cover. Period. We all know the age we live in, we're not idiots...it's about the opinion formed in the ten seconds that we stare at this in the checkout line...followed by the cementing of those opinions around the water cooler the next day ("yeah, I saw it, can we say FREAKS!" - hahahah "Yeah you know, I here Dan in accounting, you know him? Yeah I heard his wife nursed their FIVE year old at the company picnic last year. It's sick.") - a conversation that is a lot easier to have when the face on the mom on the cover of Time is making a "say something about it, I DARE you" face.

I don't want to fight people with my nursing...I want to allow them a peek into how lovely a super bonded relationship with an older toddler can be. I don't stare them down...I stare happily into my childs eyes and coo at them and sing little silly songs. Let them look. They won't see an angry, militant "aggro-mom" trying to prove a point. They will see a healthy, bonded relationship. What they do with that image, how they twist it, or don't, in their mind...that's up to them. But you won't EVER catch THIS mama letting anyone see her nursing with the intent to shove my lifestyle into anyone elses eyes/space. It just is what it is and it's fucking lovely.

And I'm now OFFICIALLY DYING to meet my new nursling so I can be nursing somebody again...this whole thing is only making me love nursing even more. I feel so blessed to come from a long line of proud breastfeeders and have a immediate and extended family who all honor me and have full love and respect for me as a nursing mom.

[Luckiestgirl]

I have no doubt that TIME's motive was to sell magazines (and revive their mag) by creating controversy.  And I dislike the "mommy wars" and "extreme" slant of the copy.  However, I kind of like the defiance of the cover model.  Some of my memories of nursing are all warm and fuzzy and some are more like the cover image ("Screw you, I'm this kid's mother and I know what I'm doing!"). 

I live in a region where maybe fifteen percent of mothers attempt nursing at all.  When my second child was born, I had a nurse tell me I was killing my daughter by not giving her formula until my milk came in.  Seriously.  When my third child was nearly two, he became very, very ill with the worst stomach virus I have ever seen.  He lost ten percent of his body weight in a few days and was hospitalized for over a week.  It was very scary.  I am convinced my breast milk helped my child to recover; however, I was treated horribly by the nursing staff, told that "milk was the worst thing you can give a child with diarrhea," and constantly afraid CPS was going to show up at the hospital.  I could see the shock and disgust on the nurses' faces that I was nursing my sick little boy, even though he was keeping the breastmilk down far better than the pedialyte and other crap they kept trying.  No one should have to go through that. 

I guess I'm not convinced that "cozy" depictions of extended breastfeeding would be received any differently.  People are very hateful about this stuff, at least where I live.

[Blessed_Mom]

Originally Posted by BroodyWoodsgal 

EXACTLY. It's not about the article, it's not about "Who is Dr. Sears"...it's about what 90% of people will see...the cover. Period. We all know the age we live in, we're not idiots...it's about the opinion formed in the ten seconds that we stare at this in the checkout line...followed by the cementing of those opinions around the water cooler the next day ("yeah, I saw it, can we say FREAKS!" - hahahah "Yeah you know, I here Dan in accounting, you know him? Yeah I heard his wife nursed their FIVE year old at the company picnic last year. It's sick.") - a conversation that is a lot easier to have when the face on the mom on the cover of Time is making a "say something about it, I DARE you" face.

I don't want to fight people with my nursing...I want to allow them a peek into how lovely a super bonded relationship with an older toddler can be. I don't stare them down...I stare happily into my childs eyes and coo at them and sing little silly songs. Let them look. They won't see an angry, militant "aggro-mom" trying to prove a point. They will see a healthy, bonded relationship. What they do with that image, how they twist it, or don't, in their mind...that's up to them. But you won't EVER catch THIS mama letting anyone see her nursing with the intent to shove my lifestyle into anyone elses eyes/space. It just is what it is and it's fucking lovely.

And I'm now OFFICIALLY DYING to meet my new nursling so I can be nursing somebody again...this whole thing is only making me love nursing even more. I feel so blessed to come from a long line of proud breastfeeders and have a immediate and extended family who all honor me and have full love and respect for me as a nursing mom.

Agree with every word of all your posts but wanted to bold a line.

I cannot wait either. Although my immediate family's cut-off seems to be two years old  Well.. not like they can dictate terms to me.

To answer Luckiestgirl -  maybe cozy depictions wouldn't have been fruitful either but common sense dictates that if you want to convince an opposing party about something then the way to go would be to present the 'essence' of the movement/feeling/stance rather than the 'extreme' stance.

Better to convince than up their ante  - better to cajole than confront.

Sure - we can all say 'screw you' to all non-BFers because we needn't care for their approval but at the same time - it would benefit so many newborn babies if we can try and educate the non-BFers rather than shock them. 

So for the sake of the babies at least I wish the pic were gentler and less confrontational.

[One_Girl]

I heard of the cover from a co-worker who was horrified.  She already has a hard time accepting breastfeeding past a year as acceptable and this picture definitely did nothing but spur a lot of anti-breastfeeding talk at work.  I wish they had chosen a different title and different pictures because from what I have seen so far this is only something that preaches to the choir and pushes other people to feel disgust for mother's who choose to practice child led weaning.

[ursaminor]

I looked at the other pics from the article.  My complaint is that they could have chosen some AP mamas of color or represented some sense of diversity in the AP community.

[Alphaghetti]

We were EBF'ers here, and I don't remember a single person giving me a weird look or any kind of grief over it. I guess I am lucky.

The thing that freaks me out the most about this article is the reactions. I know I shouldn't have bothered, but I read a string of reactions via twitter, and the comments were appalling.  More "disturbing" than the cover photo is how incredibly violently people reacted to it... What I mean is, I can understand that it's not for everybody, but why on earth do people care how long my son and I chose to keep our nursing relationship going? What on earth could we be doing that it affects complete strangers. I am pretty sure that most older toddlers and preschoolers aren't constantly at the breast in public, so it's not like it is even prominently on display.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it never ceases to amaze me how involved people seem to want to be in how we choose to raise our confident, healthy children.

[rubidoux]

Originally Posted by Rrrrrachel 

And I course the picture was staged to make it provocative. They're trying to sell magazines! Still a positive thing to have that image in front of people, IMO.

 

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think it's positive.  I think it will be very polarizing  --  making moms who aren't nursing (or aren't nursing "long enough") feel guilty and causing a backlash against moms who do nurse for a long time, with people saying its disgusting and worse.  The cover and article were the topic today on World Have Your Say and I found the whole discussion really depressing.  

 

I also really wish that the cover pic was of a more representative mom.  I know the mom in the pic is a real person and that there are plenty of young beautiful extended nursing moms out there.  But probably most of us don't look like models and we don't get all dressed up and look perfect when we're nursing out little ones.  There are very few moms who are going to measure up  --  either you're not nursing long enough or you're not looking good enough while you do it.  

And, omg, that child is about twice the size of my three year old.  

 

eta:  there are some beautiful pics of nursing moms and babes/toddlers in the video at the bottom of this article:  http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/10/q-a-with-jamie-lynne-grumet/ , which I would have felt great about having on the cover of Time, also, at the link that Crunchy Mommy posted on page one of this thread, you can see the other pics from this photo shoot and I think I like them all better than the cover.  I am curious, though about the choice to have all of the moms pulling their shirts down instead of up.  Ime (totally unscientific) it seems like the vast majority of nursing moms pull their shirts up to nurse rather than down and pulling the shirt down seems much more revealing to me (which, btw, I think is completely fine).  There is one pic there where a toddler might be nursing with shirt pulled up, but its hard to even tell that he's nursing, which is probably more often the case than the pulling the shirt down obvious from a mile away nursing.  

Edited by rubidoux - 5/11/12 at 12:32pm

[Blessed_Mom]

http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/jamie-lynne-grumet-defends-her-time-magazine-breastfeeding-180300346.html

 Here are some of the pictured mom's own comments!

She comments " "This isn't how we breastfeed at home. It's more of a cradling, nurturing situation." 

Really? Then why the provocation? Why worsen an already marred perception in most of the populace minds?

Just - why?

[Rrrrrachel]

I like the picture.

[rubidoux]

Originally Posted by Rrrrrachel 

I like the picture.

In a way, I think it's a nice picture, too.  I just wish it were not THE picture on the cover.

[Contrariety]

There is a response to this article posted on my local news site.  the comments are pretty discouraging.  man, people can really get rabid about this stuff! 

[Luckiestgirl]

Originally Posted by Alphaghetti 

We were EBF'ers here, and I don't remember a single person giving me a weird look or any kind of grief over it. I guess I am lucky.

Yes, you are.  One of my favorite things about visiting big cities was how many other moms were publicly breastfeeding toddlers and young children.   It's quite accepted in some places, and met with outrage in others.

As far as the cover photo attracting the "wrong" kind of attention, I sympathize, but now that it's done we can use the discussions to challenge public ignorance.  Challenge your friends' Facebook posts on the issue.  Speak up at the water cooler.  Sometimes, just knowing that one reasonable person endorses a controversial practices can open people's minds.

[4evermom]

Originally Posted by Luckiestgirl 

Yes, you are.  One of my favorite things about visiting big cities was how many other moms were publicly breastfeeding toddlers and young children.   It's quite accepted in some places, and met with outrage in others.

I got enough nasty comments about pushing a 3 yo in a stroller. I can only imagine if I'd been nursing him in public. And I know I nursed ds while standing with my hand on my hip. I don't understand why people think it's such a provocative position.

[zinemama]

Lisa Belkin is not mom enough. A good response to the Time article.

I am not Mom enough to take the bait. To accept TIME's deliberate provocation and either get mad at this woman for what I think I know about her from this photo, or to feel inferior, or superior, or defensive, or guilty -- or anything at all, if it means I am comparing myself to other mothers.

[iris777888]

Holistic Moms had a good response too - http://holisticmomsnational.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/motherhood-under-attack.html