This thread is now about Box A Rox 'War on Boobies'
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Time magazine cover does disservice to nursing mothers
I am sure everyone has seen the Time magazine cover of the woman breast-feeding her 3-year-old son. And I am sure everyone has been involved in some debate over it in one form or another. Here is mine. I truly believe the headline, “Are you mom enough” was damaging. The picture was pretty damaging by itself. Put together, I believe, Time magazine set breast-feeding back decades. First, I take issue with the ridiculousness of the photo. Who does that? No one stands around and has their child, at any age, pull a stool up to stand next to them and whip out their breast and nurse. It would’ve come across so much better — especially to the dissenters — if they had her curled up on a couch with him and a blanket. Much more natural, much more nurturing and little less antagonistic to the masses. Worse was the headline: “Are you mom enough?” Just making the decision makes anyone “mom enough.” It’s not easy! It’s very difficult, it hurts, it leaves you with dry and cracked and bleeding nipples. Sorry, fellas, but now you know why it’s the ladies’ job! Not only that, but there are no breaks. You can’t sleep through a feeding and get your husband/partner to take over so you can sleep a little. It’s all mom. So now you have saggy, sore, chapped, bleeding breasts and no sleep at all. But I guess this isn’t enough? Not only do I take this personally, as I nursed all three of my kids for about two years each, but because I watched my mother and her friends and the La Leche League, and heard so many different women’s stories growing up. There were women who couldn’t have babies and were adopting and trying to trick their bodies into thinking they were pregnant in the slim hope they might lactate and be able to breastfeed their newly adopted newborns; the women who had breast cancer and lost one breast, hoping they could still nurse from the one that remained; the women who lost both breasts but still hoped there was some way, any way. But apparently they aren’t “mom enough.” Really. Going out in public when my babies were small was always a terrifying event for me. I knew I was going to have to feed them at some point. It didn’t matter that you couldn’t see anything. It didn’t matter that I always got the knowing nod of approval from certain women passing by, because there was always one person who either frowned at me or had the nerve to tell me I was a pervert, should take it in the bathroom, stay home, etc. “Fine,” I would say, “When you eat your lunch in the bathroom, so will he”... or “when you stay home because of your poor fashion sense, etc.” But inside I felt ashamed, and I wasn’t doing anything wrong! This cover has brought all that back. I’m hearing it everywhere I go! People are actually saying she is doing it for sexual satisfaction! That is just pure ignorance, but that is how far it has gone! It’s disgusting! And it’s making women who have no choice feel [lousy].
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