The image of the breastfeeding twenty something mother and her child that Time Magazine chose to put on their latest cover was deliberately designed to stir up controversy – and it worked.
Jamie Lynne Grummet still breastfeeds her child who is almost four. She practices a method known as attachment parenting and if you watch this clip of Jamie’s interview with US ‘Today’ you’ll find out more about why she does it. But to be honest you won’t hear a lot from her: because every time she tries to speak she is interrupted by Aram.
The attachment parenting method also includes “baby wearing” which I think every parent I know practices – baby wearing is just carrying your baba in a sling or baby backback yoke. And another technique is co-sleeping – the whole family in bed together every night. Which as I know from my friends with kids is the easiest way to give yourself sleepless nights and a sex free existance.
But it’s the extreme breastfeeding that’s really gotten everyone riled up.
All that guff Bill Sears is spouting about “natural, living on a desert island” is just crazy talk. Jamie is not on a friggin desert island. She’s breastfeeding because she wants to: no other reason.
Now I have no kids and couldn’t give a hoot how people choose to rear theirs. But as a completely disinterested observer this just seems… wrong. Obscene even. Squirmingly uncomfortable. And as soon as I saw the Time image one thought immediately sprang to mind.
Bitty.
So what do you think of this whole controversy? A lovely natural way to raise a child? Or a shortcut to years of therapy for the boy when he grows up?
Your thoughts!
(Please remember to respect the views of others and keep the thread on topic).
