On the cover of this week’s Time magazine, we see a mother breastfeeding her son of nearly four years. In my book, that’s too old for a child to breastfeed.
What I’m really worried about, though, isn’t the child’s age. It’s the baring of a breast on the cover of a mainstream magazine. This is just lurid. How could an image of a breastfeeding mother ever be allowed in public?
Oh, wait . . .
Milk Giver
madonna-che-allatta-il-bambino-madonna-nursing-the-christ-child
Francesco_Andrea_di_Anguilla_-_Madonna_Nursing_the_Christ_Child,_with_Angels_and_Two_Donors_-_Walters_37443
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Hans-Memling-Virgin-nursing-Christ-child-325
. . . so much for shock.
May 11th, 2012 | 3:47 pm
Awwww
May 11th, 2012 | 4:01 pm
At first I was getting upset at how narrow minded this article might be in regards to the breastfeeding mother on the cover (not too sure I like to see a 4 year old breastfeeding either lol) then…you made me laugh! Good one. :) Love this.
May 11th, 2012 | 4:03 pm
Lulz.
May 11th, 2012 | 4:20 pm
It’s fine for you to think that three (or four) is too old for your child to be breastfeeding, but if it’s not your child, it’s not your call. You can choose how to parent your children, including having a say in how long they breastfeed for (if at all), as long as you don’t pass judgement on others who have made equally conscious choices based on reliable evidence and on what makes sense for their family. I’m not suggesting that your comment is necessarily judgemental, you do firmly state that it is your opinion after all. I wanted to comment though, because I know how easy it is for an opinion to be treated as fact or ‘common sense’ when difficult or potentially uncomfortable topics are being considered.
It might make you uncomfortable, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
For a different point of view on nursing toddlers: http://briobirth.com/articles/time-magazine-cover-stirs-questions-about-why-moms-nurse-toddlers?page=0,0
May 11th, 2012 | 4:26 pm
That’s great Matthew; this subject in Christian art has always struck me as very sweet and tender, even with the slightly alien take on anatomy. (Your second offering, by Orazio, is especially adorable in its realism–there’s something priceless in the looks on both faces.)
About that Time cover: of course, it was pronounced “controversial” upon release, prior to anyone actually having seen it, let alone commented upon it. I guess our chattering-class masters figure, “Why wait for the bitter clingers to protest? Let’s just assume a controversy in advance, and fill in the names as they inevitably arise.”
But has anyone REALLY made a big deal about the cover? I mean, I assume that Time maintains some connection to reality. Yours is the first post I’ve seen on a conservo-site that even mentions it.
Of course, they always seem to use these “controversies” as an excuse to run a cover with a great-looking chick in some state of dishabille. And speaking for the hetero-male minority: no complaints here, baby. Although–nothing against the moppet at her breast, but he looks like he’d be more comfortable with a cigar in his mouth.
May 11th, 2012 | 4:46 pm
The picture on TIME’s cover was so provocative. As the beautiful images of Our Lady show, a mother breastfeeding her child, when shown tastefully, is a beautiful display of maternal love. This picture really sexualized the relationship, as many comments I have read about it prove. I am sure she did not intend that to happen, but TIME sure knew what it was doing.
May 11th, 2012 | 4:48 pm
Hard to believe we’re so sexualized in our culture that we consider such a cover to have shock value. That said, I think the cultural change predates the sexual revolution by quite a few decades. I place it with the introduction of formula, “scientific nutrition!”, at the beginning of the last century and our culture’s then obsession with being perfectly clean. I suspect that also gave us the benefits of white bread as the staff of life. Not to mention the horrors of eugenics.
Today, though, breast-feeding is probably equally denigrated as being an unfair imposition on the woman, at least by a subset of our population.
May 11th, 2012 | 5:27 pm
It’s fine for you to think that three (or four) is too old for your child to be breastfeeding, but if it’s not your child, it’s not your call.
Yeah, I’m sure that mother put her child on the cover of Time because she was thinking of what’s best for him.
The rest of his life will be so enriched by having that photograph following him around.
May 11th, 2012 | 5:31 pm
The picture on TIME’s cover was so provocative. As the beautiful images of Our Lady show, a mother breastfeeding her child, when shown tastefully, is a beautiful display of maternal love.
it’s “provocative” because the mother knows she is outside of norms, and is proud of it.
I personally don’t believe that mothers who breastfeed late are doing it because it’s good for their kid. I don’t think it is good for the kid. I think it’s disturbing and suggests there are boundary issues here that need to be resolved.
I am all in favor of breastfeeding – and I think women ought to be free to do it in public – but not if we’re going to have to live with this. (It’s creepy because it’s aggressive and it’s inappropriate.)
May 11th, 2012 | 5:43 pm
Four years old? No son of mine — sorry.
May 11th, 2012 | 5:54 pm
My mother weaned me from breast-feeding when I started biting. No more needs to be said.
May 11th, 2012 | 6:02 pm
I don’t really know this, but it seems to me that if a male child was breastfed for a long time, especially to an age where he would have memories of it later in life, he may be less likely to oversexualize that part of the body on women he meets later in life. Perhaps our culture would benefit if this were common practice?
May 11th, 2012 | 6:37 pm
My father breast-fed until he was four or five years old. I don’t think it was all that unusual in the country where he was born and grew up. This is a tempest in a teapot, as far as I’m concerned.
May 11th, 2012 | 6:51 pm
This is great! Thank you for sharing these beautiful images of the Blessed Mother breastfeeding. Puts the argument about nursing mothers in perspective.
May 11th, 2012 | 7:24 pm
Yeah, you can justify pictures of breastfeeding in principle from those representations shown above. And breastfeeding up until age four does not necessarily have to be problematic.
You can’t justify that Time cover. There was nothing sweet or natural about that cover. That was in your face, if for no other reason than that what was depicted is not how any normal person goes about breastfeeding an older child, when it is done, nor was the expression on the woman’s face and her overall affect all about being nurturing and what’s best for her child. It was all about sticking it in people’s faces provocatively and trying to shock, and then falling back to legitimate arguments about the value of breastfeeding past infancy. It’s kind of like equating Playboy with Michelangelo, and then asking if people have a problem with Michelangelo, if they have a problem with exploitative pictures of naked women. It doesn’t work, but it’s a fair shot at being subversive.
May 11th, 2012 | 9:02 pm
Tim,
Actually, plenty more needs to be said. My daughter got teeth when she was 3 and a half months old. She bit when she was teething after that, but it was pretty easy to teach her not to, and it only ever lasted a day or two because her mouth was in great pain. I was not about to deny my daughter the best nutrition that could be provided to her at that very early age when she was in more pain than I was, and the breastfeeding provided her more relief from that pain than anything else could have.
I am not in any way intending to judge your mother. It hurt, and if I hadn’t had the information to know that I could help my daughter stop that, I probably would have quit also. However, the idea that a child needs to stop breastfeeding as soon as s/he gets teeth is common and unfortunate, given the proven benefits of continuing to breastfeed.
May 11th, 2012 | 9:50 pm
If memory serves, those images are still fairly common in Italian Catholic churches.
May 12th, 2012 | 12:06 am
It isn’t the breastfeeding that is shocking, and it isn’t the age of the child, it’s the mother, in that skin-tight whatever-it-is, striking a blatantly sexual pose. Not to mention that she looks completely disassociated from her child. There’s nothing sexual about nursing a child; why go out of your way to portray it in such a light? (Yes, I did nurse my children, fairly publicly, considering it was the 1970s and still considered radical.)
May 12th, 2012 | 8:29 am
The cover is pathetic. It was shot to draw attention….which it has.
breastfeeding is important and while Time was disrespectful to the breastfeeding mothers out there, I can only hope that the attention it drew will have some positive effect in getting more awareness raised and foster proper understanding of the benefits of mothers’ milk to infants and the fact that infants (humans for that matter) should not consume cows’ milk.
May 12th, 2012 | 8:31 am
Mrs. Mutton — spot on.
May 12th, 2012 | 9:01 am
There is a wonderful issue of the Blessed Virgin nursing the Christ Child at the shrine in Saint Augustine, Florida under the title of Our Lady of the milk and safe delivery (de la leche y buen parto). However, my favorite breast feeding image is a pair of stained glass windows in one Our Lady squirts breast milk in a white stream over to the adjacent window where Saint Bernard of Clairvaux stands with open mouth.
May 12th, 2012 | 9:22 am
I agree with Louise and Mrs. Mutton. I too breastfed my kids and support it for as long as the mother and child are comfortable with it. However, the Time photo was not about breastfeeding – just look at the little boy’s face! It is highly sexualized on both sides and is an example of the not so subtle promotion of “intergenerational intimacy.” Please.
May 12th, 2012 | 10:17 am
No one seems to get the big story here: That poor kid! That issue, and the parodies it’s undoubtedly spawned by now, will remain on the interwebs forever. His mom’s name is on the cover of “Time,” for gosh sake. Won’t his life be a chair of bowlies in middle school the first time a peer gets wind of this and googles his sad self? I guess they could enter the Witness Protection Program…(remembering the character named ‘Milkman’ in Tony Morrison’s ‘Song of Solomon’ if you think a guy ever lives this down…)
May 12th, 2012 | 11:41 am
Dear Pentamom and Mrs. Mutton (now there’s a salutation I don’t write every day): Thank you; you’re right.
May 12th, 2012 | 11:49 am
The breastfeeding, even the age of the child, is not the problem. It’s the deliberate sexualizing of the image. If you have any doubts, replace this mother and child with Mary and the young Jesus in the same pose, even with less revealing clothing.
May 12th, 2012 | 12:32 pm
Isn’t there a work of Christian art with the Virgin mother feeding the great philosophers with the milk of wisdom?
May 12th, 2012 | 3:52 pm
Well, all of mine were definitely weaned before they lost all their milk teeth ;-)
May 12th, 2012 | 4:42 pm
“You can’t justify that Time cover. There was nothing sweet or natural about that cover. That was in your face, if for no other reason than that what was depicted is not how any normal person goes about breastfeeding an older child, when it is done, nor was the expression on the woman’s face and her overall affect all about being nurturing and what’s best for her child.”
I agree completely. Breastfeeding at older ages is fine. The Time cover was not.
May 12th, 2012 | 6:42 pm
I don’t really know this, but it seems to me that if a male child was breastfed for a long time, especially to an age where he would have memories of it later in life, he may be less likely to oversexualize that part of the body on women he meets later in life. Perhaps our culture would benefit if this were common practice?
Or it could have the reverse effect.
But what is wrong with men finding the female breast desirable? The nurturing aspect of the female is part of her attraction, and why shouldn’t it be?
May 12th, 2012 | 6:43 pm
Or it could have the reverse effect.
But what is wrong with men finding the female breast desirable? The nurturing aspect of the female is part of her attraction, and why shouldn’t it be?
May 12th, 2012 | 9:04 pm
What Mrs.Mutton and others in the same line of thought have said. The picture is not really of nursing a child. There is nothing maternal about that woman.
May 12th, 2012 | 10:42 pm
It might interest some here to know that breastfeeding until four plus has been found common in all primitive cultures, which is a fancy way of saying that that appears to be the way we humans are designed. Such an approach serves to delay the next child as demand breastfeeding has contraceptive properties. This also explains why those cultures transitioned boys over to the father at about age five for training in the responsibilities of being male.
As to the cover, I think Time clearly intended it to be shocking to sell magazines. How often it’s repeated in the rest of the press is a testimony to Time’s success. It’s a shame the mother chose to be part of the exercise, though her intent was probably to popularize Dr. Sears’ teaching.
May 13th, 2012 | 7:51 am
Fr. Rob Jack, a professor at Mr. St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati, during a day-long series of talks on the Immaculate Conception said that in the non-canonical Proto-Gospel of James, Mary presented Jesus at the temple when he was four years old. Fr. Jack opined that Jesus was probably weaned at that age. The talk was given at Presentation Ministries’ Bible Institute at Xavier University, July 28, 2004.
May 13th, 2012 | 1:15 pm
Art historians describe depictions of the nursing Madonna as “Madonna lactans”. Most were painted in Italy, although I have seen them elsewhere.
May 13th, 2012 | 3:54 pm
Congratulations, Matthew. The use of renaissance and earlier religious art depicting nude or partially nude figures and then equating it with pornography is the exact same tactic successfully used by Larry Flynt during his obscenity trial.
May 13th, 2012 | 4:29 pm
The use of renaissance and earlier religious art depicting nude or partially nude figures and then equating it with pornography . . .
Anthony Tackman,
The Time cover in question may be disconcerting or even shocking to many people. (I find it creepy.) But it is certainly not pornographic.
May 13th, 2012 | 5:21 pm
mothering is not disgusting
May 13th, 2012 | 5:23 pm
Beside the point, David. The same defense is being utilized to defend what is tasteless and shocking, then. Feel better?
May 13th, 2012 | 8:40 pm
[...] haven’t seen Matthew Schmitz’s posting on First Thoughts: A First Things Blog entitled The Horror of Time’s Breastfeeding Cover. Check it out. I promise, it’s not what you fear it’s going to be. Share [...]
May 14th, 2012 | 12:19 pm
Lawrence, I love the painting of Alonzo Cano’s painting of Mary squirting breast milk into Bernard of Clarivaux’s mouth. Saw it recently at the Prado. She’s got great aim. Mary knows how to care for each of us.
http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/08/st-bernard-of-clairvaux-mellifluous.html
May 14th, 2012 | 5:30 pm
Thankyou, Matthew, for your balanced approach to seeing a mother breastfeeding her child. You give the mother the freedom to do what she feels is right for her and her child, as you introduce us to historic portraits of Mary breastfeeding Jesus.
May 15th, 2012 | 3:23 am
mothering is not disgusting
Actually mothering that we view as healthy is not disgusting – if anything, we get the same response we get in the presence of the sacred (which is IMO a lot to do with why people don’t want to look at breastfeeding moms).
But unhealthy mothering does raise revulsion in us, and rightly so.
If you or someone you know is mothering in a way that routinely repulses others, you might want to take a cold hard look at your assumptions, your motives, and exactly why you are justifying engaging in practices that others find disturbing.
May 15th, 2012 | 12:21 pm
“Thank you, Matthew, for your balanced approach to seeing a mother breastfeeding her child.”
The proper objection is not to “seeing a mother breastfeeding her child.” It is to an unrealistic and exploitative picture that serves to make breastfeeding of older children (not to mention breastfeeding in general) appear lurid and bizarre.
That is why the icons and artistic representations Matthew posted don’t really address what’s wrong with the Time cover.
And Blake, there are many mothers who believe that breastfeeding IS in the best physical and emotional health interests of their children, past whatever age you seem to think is appropriate. I won’t venture to speculate on the percentages, but I think you are wrong to assume that no one does it for the sake of their children. You don’t need to justify it by “necessity for survival” if in fact it has genuine benefits and only potential, not necessary, harm. Some twisted person doing something does not endanger the mental or moral health of a child whose mother is not twisted.
May 15th, 2012 | 2:10 pm
JFM: the image I saw was a pair of windows once used in a Trappist church in this country but now safely stored away – the sensibilities of the current age are no match for sensuous piety of the twlefth century Cistercians who, as one great critic wrote, gave up everything for God except the art of writing well.
May 16th, 2012 | 8:52 am
And Blake, there are many mothers who believe that breastfeeding IS in the best physical and emotional health interests of their children, past whatever age you seem to think is appropriate. I won’t venture to speculate on the percentages, but I think you are wrong to assume that no one does it for the sake of their children
I don’t assume “no one does it for the sake of their children”.
In fact, I would guess that most late breast feeders simply like what they’re doing and don’t see it as a problem, and so they don’t stop.
But when they start getting in-your-face and militant, and/or attacking people who raise the perfectly legitimate question of whether excessive breastfeeding is in fact beneficial – or whether there might be cause for concern – I think that’s an inappropriate response.
I realize that wanting to study a thing further, or wanting more information, could be a euphemistic way of describing ‘an agenda’ (malicious intent against whatever needs to be “studied”) but I don’t intend that here. I am just saying that we would do well to gather real information – reliable, objective information (as difficult as that can be, in highly emotional situations like the controversies involving the “best” way to raise a child) – about when the point comes where breastfeeding is not only no longer necessary, but actually harmful.
I think we can all agree that the kid should be weaned before he goes to college, at any rate. (That was a joke. Laugh, darnit.)
May 17th, 2012 | 2:32 pm
It’s the title that irks me: “Are you Mom Enough?” Are you kidding me?
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