Extreme breastfeeding: Should children be nursed for years?
The latest cover of Time magazine has caused outrage. Under the headline "Are you mom enough?", a young woman is pictured having her left breast suckled by a boy who appears way beyond usual breastfeeding age.
The woman, it turns out, is Jamie Lynne Grumet, a 26-year old mother from Los Angeles, and the boy is her son Aram, aged almost four.
The cover and accompanying article about "attachment parenting" has re-ignited the debate about whether extended breastfeeding - until the age of three or even six - is harmful. And the magazine and mother have faced accusations that they have exploited the child for publicity reasons.
Much of the criticism has focused on the age and looks of the mother. "Why is this attractive woman breast-feeding this giant child?" asks Hanna Rosin of Slate.
"The image is the natural next step in the hot naked-mama photos that have become an obligatory part of a celebrity career path (Claudia Schiffer, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson) and makes Angelina Jolie, who allowed herself to be photographed breast-feeding a mere infant, look like a wimp."
Others suggest the article is really about the guru of attachment parenting Dr William Sears, and question Time's motives for choosing a photogenic 26-year-old getting her breasts out.
Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett was one of those who queried the cover picture, as Politico.com reported, although she felt there were two sides to the debate.
"My first thought was, it's a really cheap shot. It's a piece about Bill Sears, it's not about an attractive blonde woman breast feeding," Tett said on the chatshow Morning Joe. "And yet if you look across cultures across in the world today, attitudes about breast feeding and breasts in general vary enormously. In many ways, this is at least making us think about our approach toward parenting and our approach toward breast feeding. But it still makes me wince when I look at it."
There were angry reactions from mothers,according to Storyful, which aggregates news analysis and social media reactions to events, many worrying that Time's coverage will make it harder for women to breastfeed in public.
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