Too much information.
We all know what it is and why it’s done, thank you.

Sean, Thank you for your informative and insightful comment on the article. I can see your point of view……. oh wait your not making a point- well a meaningful one anyway.

In total agreement with you, at the end of the day it’s the mothers’ decision at what age they breast feed their children to. I have my own opinion as to what age that could/should be but seemingly it doesn’t harm kids in fact the only argument I have heard against it in ‘older’ children is “it looks weird”.

Certainly doesn’t harm the kids except that someone further down here has tried to say a dentist blamed breastfeeding until 4-5 destroyed a child’s teeth…..find that hard to believe though unless that kid was latched on all day everyday. They tend to slow down and only want it once or twice a day after they hit a year old. But then I never encouraged,I just let him wean himself really…..

Where does it say in the article, or does anyone claim that it is the only way?

Why is a three year old child too old?

So is having a xxxx but you wouldn’t do it on the front page of Time magazine. Indulgent nonsense.

@Ruth Because at that stage the child should know, or at least be learning, how to deal with real food. Continuing this style of parenting could lead to them being overly dependent on their mother for food while at the same time warping how they view breasts and women in later life. This is all conjecture obviously but stiil important to consider.

there’s a school of thought that proposes that once a child has teeth, it no longer needs breast feeding by the mother. Sounds reasonable to me.

Because hes old enough to pour himself a glass of milk Ruth.

More like an A cup I’d say!

by the time that young fella is finished it will be!!

That or he’s getting plenty of nutrition to help him grow

That’s. His. *Mother*. Imagine what’ll happen to that kid in his teens…..

Comment fail!not cool.

LooooooL

Vile

Ah..why can’t I post…Anyway third time lucky? THis is response to above picture and article by comedian Jason Goode, read it and grow up…There are too many issues related to the recent Time Magazine cover for me to address them all. Is the photo incendiary? Yes. Did the boy have a choice about whether to be in the photo? Probably, but I doubt he understood it. Do kids really stand on chairs to nurse? Who cares, but I kind of hope so, because it’s hilarious. Are you a bad mother if you don’t breast feed your child? No. Is attachment parenting better than other kinds of parenting? No, it’s just different. Will I buy Time Magazine? No, I will steal it. Do I enjoy breasts? Yes. Do I like heavy metal music? You bet. Does that have anything to do with anything? No it does not.
I was breastfed as a baby. Honestly, I feel squirmy even typing “breast.” Twelve years after I stopped nursing, breasts became boobs, and then in high school they became tits (and a plethora of other names), and now, as a husband and father, they’re back to breasts. I’ve come full circle. I see them as a means of nourishing children, and as sexual objects. I’m not sure how I feel about that. The fact that I sexualize the one piece of female anatomy from which I once fed, makes me feel grotesquely simple. I think that feeling is at the heart of why people are uncomfortable with the recent image on the cover of Time Magazine.
There are plenty of reasons people have strong knee-jerk reactions to seeing a 3 or 4-year-old boy sucking on his mother’s breast, the most prominent of them is a general feeling that it’s “wrong” or “weird.” When you ask someone what they mean by that, their most common answer is, “Well, it just doesn’t seem right.”
Think about how you might feel if, instead of a boy, the cover showed that same mother breast feeding a 3-year-old girl standing on a chair. It’s different, isn’t it? The sensationalization of the photo isn’t only based in its ridiculous composition, but also on the gender of the child. If you haven’t already, consider the possibility that one of the reasons people find the idea so unsettling is because a boy of that age sucking on his mother’s breast looks and feels sexual.
I understand that we don’t often see pictures of “big kids” nursing. I even do a joke in my stand-up that children should stop breast feeding when they start wearing shoes and jeans. Watching my child nurse while in his halloween costume was surreal. My wife feeding what appeared to be a limp Bob the Builder puppet was funny, sweet, and yes a little weird, but not gross or wrong. And it certainly wasn’t even remotely sexual. We aren’t really sexual beings until after puberty (don’t get all Freud on me here). And no, I’m not saying that kids should be allowed to nurse until they sprout an underarm hair. I’m simply pointing out that if you feel the photograph is vaguely sexual — and I think many do, whether they’re willing to admit it or not — you’re dead wrong. If you extract the misguided sense that the kid is old enough to enjoy a breast as if it were a boob, suddenly all those unexplainable feelings about it being wrong or gross, float out into the ether where they belong.
Any age we might come up with as a cutoff for breast feeding is completely arbitrary. Should a kid drive a Camero to his mom’s house to nurse? Of course not. But should a child be weaned merely because it can walk, talk, eat solids, or change the wallpaper on your iPhone? The gut reaction is yes, but why? Is it because, as a culture, we associate sexual maturity with appearance? If the boy in the photo had been naked except for a diaper, would it have generated the same reaction? How about a tuxedo? Boxers and a wife beater? How about if he was wearing a top hat and a monocle? A fake beard? Holding a gun? Smoking a cigar? What if he was naked and had an erection? The last one is harder to read than the others, isn’t it? That’s odd, given it’s the only one of them that’s natural (and no, erections aren’t always sexual).
Let’s remember that the child is 3. Don’t forget how litte 3 year olds are. It’s why the photographer had him stand on a chair. Otherwise, he’d be sucking his mother’s knee. And that, of course, would be funny and silly, and totally ok, because the knee isn’t something that becomes a sexual object later in the boy’s life. But but but, maybe if he sucks on his mom’s knee, he’ll develop some kinky attraction to knees, and one of his girlfriends might publish a story in Cosmo called “The Knee Sucker.” oh my God, the horror.
It’s puritanical, and all based on highly subjective feelings. There are simply no facts (that I’m aware of) that show nursing after a certain age is bad for a kid. Since it’s such a personal thing, maybe we should just leave it up to the mother and child to decide what’s best. Women are already fighting enough battles over what they’re allowed to do with their bodies. Let’s not add another one.

Agreed orela, I bred both mine but never once did I think I was a better mother than anyone else. That is what bothers me about it, the tagline, not the picture. The pic is obviously designed to emote controversy. doesn’t bother me either way. I more bothered that monsanto and nestle patented breast milk.

Apoligies ‘bred….bfed….breastfed…

I’ve seen stuff about that too Niamh. Nestle seem determined to capture the Market for all types of baby milk. Would be worth a column Journal.

Little Britain

Fairly certain that there are many benefits to breastfeeding beyond one, I don’t imagine you stopped providing milk for your children once they turned one.

In the second year (12-23 months), 448 mL of breastmilk provides:
29% of energy requirements
43% of protein requirements
36% of calcium requirements
75% of vitamin A requirements
76% of folate requirements
94% of vitamin B12 requirements
60% of vitamin C requirements

— Dewey 2001

Studies done in rural Bangladesh have shown that breastmilk continues to be an important source of vitamin A in the second and third year of life.
— Persson 1998

The WHO recommends breastfeeding until the child is at least two.

Its an insult to humanity that anyone would have a problem with a woman breastfeeding their child beyond the age of one or feeding two at the same time.

In other countries aside from the western world it is not uncommon to breastfeed up until the age of five and in some countries age seven.

@ Kitalpha & Ruth…. I merely said I did it for one year and don’t see it as a cut off point…it was a cut off point for ME as I was pregnant again when my babies were a year old & I felt it too much of a drain/strain on my body to be pregnant & breastfeeding & that the unborn babies needs took precedence over the breastfeeding baby….the last child just lost interest in breastfeeding when he was just over a year & stopes himself. I was so sad as its such an enjoyable experience & knew I’d never have it again as my family is complete. I still maintain that feeding a 4 year old is strange !! You have to let your child progress & move through the developmental stages instead of stunting their progression !!

Thats not merely what you said though, you said it was sick.

It was a cut off point for you which is fine and feeding a four year old may be strange to you but to many women around the world it is perfectly normal. Its only the ‘civilised westerners’ who have a problem with extended breastfeeding or breastfeeding in general.

How exactly does extended breastfeeding stunt their progression?

kitalpha if u wana go suck a tit cool but stop trying to shove the tit down anyone else’s mouths god. go put the same effort you do preaching into living your life. you would be quite productive:)

Kital, infairness theres bo other source of nutrition in rural Bangladesh.

Well Ciara its a good job they have breastmilk to nourish the kids isnt it!!

@Francis, its hardly preaching if I am helping to educate someone on the nutritional value of breastmilk. Dont worry I put plenty of effort into living my life and raising my children, I really thought I was having a discussion with adults here. I am not trying to ‘shove the tit’ down anyone throat. Grow up.

I’m half convinced that the picture is fake – two separate photoshoots, couple of hours with photoshop and someone who knows how to use it…

Lol

You’re sick!

Which one of your fairies told you that?

Emma. Do yourself and your kids a favour. Read the article. do some research, get informed, its from years and years of research and study by anthropologists etc no fairies involved.

And you need to get off your over opinionated pushy high horse. I’ve read previous comments from you on other similar articles. Your completely one sided. I’m all for breastfeeding too, but it doesn’t suit every woman, not every woman is able for it. As for breastfeeding at 3 and 4 years of age??? What kind of impact do you think that’s going to have on the Childs development? If you breast feed your kids at that age I pity them

I am sorry that you feel my horse is pushy and opinionated, I fully support any woman to feed her baby any way she likes, likewise, I would like the same support, or people to mind their own business if I want to breastfeed my children for any length of time. You have me completely understood.

Take this in the spirit that its meant, people take things WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too personally online, I mean this in the best of intentions, for yourself, and your children, do some research, you might actually find out that extended breastfeeding impacts them in a positive way.

Paul, if you associate feeding a child with masturbation or think that this picture is porn I am seriously worried. A comment like that is highly questionable.

Then report it.

I think we should leave your comment there so everyone knows what ‘emotions’ a breastfeeding image invokes inside of you.

That’s right, kitalpha. I’m a breastman.

Well it personally disturbs me that you can link breastfeeding with porn and masturbation. You have sexualised an image of a child breastfeeding in your mind.

I will leave you with this:

“Well, we do have a peculiar obsession with breasts in this culture. A lot of people think it’s just the human nature to be fascinated with breasts but in many cultures, breasts aren’t sexual at all. I interviewed a young anthropologist working with women in Mali, in a country in Africa where women go around with bare breasts. They’re always feeding their babies. And when she told them that in our culture men are fascinated with breasts there was an instant of shock. The women burst out laughing. They laughed so hard, they fell on the floor. They said, “You mean, men act like babies?”

Carolyn Latteier, the author of Breasts, The Women’s Perspective on an American Obsession, in a TV program “All about breasts”.

kitalpa lighten u u knob

Clown

Well, teh Catholics tend to be a sex negative bunch. Their man at the top is reputed to be sexist.

Pretty sure Mary would have breasted Jesus!!