why TIME's cover photo of woman breastfeeding a 3 year old is causing a ruckus
3:53 pm - 05/10/2012
It’s going to be a long Mom War, people.
In case you thought, nay, hoped, that the barrel-bottom had been fully scraped last week when the New York Times asked, in a query straight out of the Onion, “Has women’s obsession with being the perfect mother destroyed feminism?,” now Time magazine has upped the ante with a cover story brazenly challenging “Are You Mom Enough?”
It’s accompanied, by the way, by a picture of a hot blonde and her 3-year-old son standing on a chair to suckle her breast. Yo, take THAT, Room for Debate page! I guess Time felt it really had to bring it after uber-troll Katie Roiphe’s piece last month on why feminists just want a good spanking.
In a feature on the not-at-all-incendiary subject of “why attachment parenting drives some mothers to extremes,” writer Kate Pickert takes on motherhood and its “guru,” attachment parenting author Barry Sears. Sears’ work and the practice of attachment parenting have come under heavy scrutiny since Elisabeth Badinter’s button-pushing “The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women” became an international hit, and you get a sense where Pickert’s piece is going as soon as she fires the opening shot. “Joanne Beauregard is nothing so much as she is a mother.” Then there’s the story’s cover girl, 26-year-old Jamie Lynn Grumet, who admits she was breast-fed herself until she was 6.
On Time’s blog, photographer Martin Schoeller explains of the shot of Grumet, along with similar images of three other breast-feeding mothers, that “I liked the idea of having the kids standing up to underline the point that this was an uncommon situation.” Fair enough. And though my personal feelings on Barry Sears are ambivalent at best, I am all for promoting breast-feeding. I will be first in line to applaud images of mothers feeding their children, both in real life and advertising, and to cry foul when those images are suppressed. But I call massive, massive BS here.
First of all, why, when a breast-feeding mother makes the cover of a national magazine, is it a thin, young one in a tank top? Grumet’s image is so obviously sexualized it’s not even trying to pretend otherwise. But the real problem with the cover story is its obvious, dripping disdain. This is not just an attention-getting MILF shot. It’s a picture of a woman “driven” to an “extreme.”
Sure, extended breast-feeding is unusual – and reliably controversial. Two years ago, the Daily Mail pondered whether the practice was “horrifying.” It doesn’t, however, necessarily follow that a family that chooses long-term nursing is freakishly challenging anybody else to be “mom enough.” That’s what makes the whole thing gross. The entire Time cover story is framed in a way to make the viewer be simultaneously repulsed and aroused. Congratulations, editors. You’ve added to our already rampant cultural dismissal of motherhood as a kooky cult. And you’ve made a venerable news magazine one big hate bang.
source: Salon
*gets into the bunker*
I think they went with a deliberately sexualized image on purpose to court controversy. I don't have a problem with that. Attractive, slim, young women breastfeed their babies too, and if we can't look at them in a non-sexual way that says something about how we tend to think of women only in sexual terms.
The author of this piece seems to be saying we either want women to breast feed in private or to be unattractive while breast feeding, which is what was echoed all over the yahoo comments page.
I haven't read the article so I can't have an informed opinion, but I do find the text implying that a woman breastfeeding a three year old child is doing something extreme to be off putting. I really don't have a problem with attachment parenting other than in our society it's impossible for anyone without a fair amount of privilege, and that never seems to be addressed.
I think they went with a deliberately sexualized image on purpose to court controversy.
Is there any doubt?
NEXT!
What I don't like is the title of the cover paired with this picture, which, to me anyway, sends a message that motherhood is a competition and that breast-feeding your child beyond age whatever makes you better than other moms. There's no room for other mothering techniques that work best for a specific mother and child(ren).
Nordic countries are good about breastfeeding though.
*moves along*
I love all the "he looks bigger than 3!" comments, though. It seems to imply that if he looked like a 3 year old that would make it "okay".
It is OK, though, regardless of what age he looks.
I'm still really torn about whether or not I'll breastfeed in public because holy god the judgmental looks and comments you get for doing stuff while PREGNANT, I can't wait for the crap I'll receive when the baby is actually out and about. (won't even be able to win feeding breastmilk through a bottle while in public either, because then the breastfeeding brigade gets into it too.)
Same thing as every other fucking day
Also, I breastfed both my kids until they were three, and they NEVER stood up to do it-- it'd be damn uncomfortable. At that age, it was a once-a-day at most thing, around bedtime, and it was easy enough to get them to stop when I got sick of it. And it had nothing to do with other moms and how they decided to feed their babies and parent their toddlers. It was because it was the right choice for MY family.
I do think the Mommy wars are largely media driven. It's a convenient way of distracting young or new mothers from more pressing issues like workplace discrimination and restrictions on reproductive freedom. That said, as an extremely crunchy mom who also works fulltime outside the home and sends my kids to public schools, I get shit on from both sides. I'm not AP enough for the unschooling, home-birthing set, and I'm too crunchy for the more mainstream set. Luckily, there are enough moms in the same situation for me to have Mommy friends.
The mommy wars is yet another way to set women to fight against other women, instead of addressing the systemic problems in society.
I'm not a mom. I've chosen not to have kids, especially now that I'm 39 and the older I get, the greater the chance for complications in pregnancy. If I ever decide to be a parent, I'll adopt. But I really, really get angry when I see shit like this, because women have enough pressure to try and balance family and work lives, or to be full-time stay at home moms or whatever. No one needs this sort of bullshit where if you don't breastfeed your kid until they're toddlers or whatever that you're a failure of a woman or a mother. It's bullshit.
That being said, there is no such thing as being 'mom' enough for fuck's sake. The only mark of a good parent or care giver (because there are kids who are raised by their dads or have two dad or are raised by siblings and aunts and uncles and grandparents because families are all different omg) is that you love your children unconditionally and do what's best for them, as best as you can. Kids have different needs, both in general and within different family groups. There's no one-size fits all model of parenthood. It's not a goddamned competition.
TBQH, I'm more intrigued by the "God of Cricket" line on the cover. Because lord knows that is a deep-seated issue that can lead to irreparable conflicts between friends and family. Or maybe that's just my Tamil showing.
Edited at 2012-05-10 11:26 pm (UTC)
And that's...pretty much all I've ever heard about breastfeeding.
2, if your child can hold a fork and/or spoon and feed themselves, I sort of feel like they don't need to be breastfed anymore. At that point, for a lot of people (not everyone), it seems less like "do something healthy for the kid" and more like "i'm a needy person with attachment issues".
IDGAF about the whole OMG YOU CAN SEE PART OF A BOOB ... it's everything else that goes with it. And the fucking Breastfeeding Brigade can go jump off a cliff - sorry, but when I get told i'm MURDERING my child because I gave him formula, I have no desire to listen to a goddamn word you have to say.
Edited at 2012-05-10 11:34 pm (UTC)
I breastfed all of them into toddlerhood.
I was pregnant or nursing for a DECADE.
I have braved band concerts, skinned kness, mental illness, stitches at 6 PM on a Saturday and 10 AM on a Tuesday, stomach flus, disapproval of parents and inlaws, science fairs, college admissions and drivers' tests.
And I have done it all while working two jobs.
If that ain't Mom Enough, I will happily kill you horribly in my next novel. The one I'm writing when I'm not driving a semi.
In short, Time's editors can take a long walk off a short cliff.
Edited at 2012-05-10 11:36 pm (UTC)
*wanders over to