Cover shot on BabyTalk magazine causes outrage.
In this country, we want our breasts to be large, full, and barely covered by skin-tight Hooters' t-shirts. What we DON'T want, apparently, is to see pictures of babies doing what babies have done since the dawning of mankind: nursing at the nipple of their mother. The outrage over a cover shot on BabyTalk magazine for an article on breastfeeding is hysterically ironic.…
Article comments
126 - Martin Lav
French women have small breasts?
127 - Chanda
This is a good read, I like to see everyone talking about Breastfeeding because it moves us in the right direction. I really hope we are coming to a tipping piont here where breastfeeding in public will be just feeding in public and breast milk will be milk and if you want cows milk you will have to ask for that by name. The more we see it the more normal it will become. I am one mother who is working for that by supporting Breastfeeding women and feeding my son when ever he needs to eat or recive comfort.
Thanks to Les who put things so well from the male perspective. Your wife is a blessed woman.
As to #65 I think you were rebutted by Snipe #119.
It was the Victorian era that made pregnat women stay indoors once they were showing and got so turned on by legs that chairs and tables had to be fully covered.
And then you throw in the powerful formula companies and the HUGE profits that they make. I could write volumes on that outrage, giving it away in third world counties so the women ues it and then thier milk dries up and they have to buy the stuff.
Dawn, I really do love your blog, and I do get your humor, LOL on the mel thing, but to balme the poor for being poor and doing the bottle thing may not be so fair. Yes, some people get there, or stay there for good reason, by making bad choices in life. Others end up there due to life handing them lemons and they are unable to make lemonaid. If ALL moms had more support, if we had paid leave for ALL new moms, time and a space to pump at work, then ALL children would recive the benfit of breastmilk. I wish that was the country we lived in. America has many great things, but support for women and children...we lke to think we do, but when you really take a deep look at it we still have a long way to go as a nation. So yes, some low income women choose formula due to lack of education on the topic, and others work hard to BF but face an up hill battle. I am on a hotline that is for BF women to call with questions and I got a call from a WIC mom who was BF but could not get a job when she asked where she could pump. Her case worker told her to give up and just go with formula. She called us to get support in educating her case worker. So the working poor are not all doing bad by their kids.
My parting comment is, we all see what is in our hearts. If you see sex in the breast, then it is sex. If you see love and milk, then there it is. The wonderful thing is, it is both, it just depends on the context, and on the cover it is the latter.
128 - lactivist
After reading this thread, I am still amazed at the attitudes toward breastfeeding. I'm nursing AND pregnant. I can only imagine what someone would say if they saw me nursing my one year old once I started to show. You know what, there's nothing wrong with it! You know what else? Most women who nurse in public get so good at doing it (without a stupid blanket that many babies would hate) that only another nursing mom would catch on. You don't have to have the whole thing hanging out in order to nurse.
I'll stop nursing my babies in public when everyone else learns to chew with their mouth closed and not commit other gross behaviors while eating. Oh, that and when I don't have to see many of the other gross things out there.
129 - Brian
The anti-semetic charge against french people, (yes french people, not french officials) is equally disgusting Dawn Dawn. It is just an excuse to be an anti-french bigot. Tell me why it is bad to be against jews but a-ok to be an anti-french bigot? And I'm sure there are cool jewish people to, but to be honest most I have worked with fit the stereotypes fairly well, sorry.
130 - Stan the man
Another classic double-standards example of America's penchant for getting its priorities wrong ... and a slap on the wrist here for you, too, Dawn. Gibson's real crime wasn't that he got outrageously drunk and like plenty of other drunks of all creeds and persuasions said things he shouldn't have (as I've said elsewhere, a crime punishable only by extreme and cringe-worthy embarrassment). No, the real crime was that he was driving while drunk (yes, Mel, the car is a Lethal Weapon in the wrong hands). I imagine the outcry would only have been marginally less hysterical had he simply hit someone in a car smash.
Also, can someone tell me how can I get fined for smoking in many public areas of New York, just as an example, and be treated like a leper because of it, with people histrionically coughing as they walk past in the street (let's not worry about the diesel fumes spewing into the air, though), but I can go out and legally buy so-called cop-killer bullets in a gun shop a few blocks away, and be congratulated by half of America for owning a gun (I don't, by the way) under a 200-year-old law that was aimed at letting specially raised 18th century civilian militias bear arms to fight King George's redcoats? Long time ago, that.
Come on America, time to get ALL your priorities right.
131 - 44 and breastfeeding
My 4th child is 14months and I am still feeding him 6 times a day/night. I wouldn't have it any other way. I was blessed to have another child at this late age in life and I will give him the best. My other children are 16, 18 & 23. I will be a grand mother next year and happy about it. I breastfeed in public no shame in that at all. I don't even associate guilt or bad feelings to doing so. It's natural it's free it's the easiest while out and about to do and it's the best for your child. I feel sorry for mothers that can't breastfeed for whatever reason, I also feel sorry for the mothers that have to leave their child in day care and go back to work. I don't have an income, not wealthy, just get by on one income but would not have it any other way. All children need their mother to guide them and money does not replace this time spend with them. Regards Proud to feed in public.
132 - Martin Lav
Glad you are home raising your child, more women should do that and 1 income should be enough. In regards to the breast feeding, for some reason (maybe my own hangups, I dunno) I feel uncomfortable with a 14 month old running up to his mom and taking a drink in public. I bet your other kids are mortified.....be honest....
133 - 44 and breastfeeding
Martin Lav,
No actually my others kids were breastfed (son)till 12 months, the 2 daughters till they were 18 months so they don't think anything of it. My youngest will only be fed in public when there is no other option, usually tired and goes to sleep. The funny thing when my 16 year old is watching TV and the little one get's loud she say's to him "Booby" to try to get him to go to me and be quiet for her.
134 - Craig Cockburn
In Scotland, it's now illegal to stop a woman breastfeeding in a public place (this includes pubs, restaurants and any other place where children are admitted). Wake up America, join the 21st century.
135 - larry
az has passed a law that breast feeding is not decent exposure. i still think that this should be a private time between mother and child not a time shared with the general public!!