Mum breastfeeds seven year old
Tuesday May 13, 2008
Categories: Culture
I'm all crunchy about breastfeeding mothers and all, but this British woman is about five crunches too far for my tastes. When your child can tell you that your breast milk is "better than mango," and who has named one...
Filed Under: breastfeeding, seven
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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gross
so...
first the bird story out of Britain about their Great Tits...
now this...
it's good to be kept abreast of such major world issues...
you go, Rod...
I say...
breastfeed only up to school age...
milk faith hope love joy peace to all...
Forgive God...
Rod, I think that picture / initial frame is NSFW. It's certainly not something I'd want someone in my office coming up behind me and seeing, if I was looking at this site from work. You might want to put it under a click-through "read more" link or something like that.
And no, I didn't click the picture to see the rest of the clip. I got the idea from the first image and Rod's description. Ick.
Man, what ever happened to Ovaltine?
This is udderly wrong. Someone must nip it in the bud. This child will grow to be a man haunted by his childhood mammeries.
I take it - and I could check with my wife to make sure - that anthropologists have shown that children in "primitive" cultures wean themselves naturally between the ages of four and seven. It wouldn't be my choice, but I don't see how we - for whom on-the-job viewing of pictures of breastfeeding mothers is apparently grounds for firing - have any grounds to object. She's certainly a lot wiser than the vast majority of American women, who don't breastfeed past six months.
What a weanie.
Thanks for the mammaries - I'm an absolute suckler for these stories; not since Dolly Parton's Biggest Hits back in the vinyl age have I so enjoyed, after my Draconian tastes, getting my LPs around the jugular.
"better than mango," - Little Limey
No; as Chris Kattan fans will note, The Mango still rules.
After "The Whistler", Jethro Tull, Songs from the Wood:
[mandatory for the Tull-curious, and gooseflesh-and-tears for oldtimers: youtube.com/watch?v=w3Q2L1Tt1Hk]
I'll nosh on your nipples, from morn until midnight
Eight hours to dream, then back in a snap
I am the imbiber who drains the sweet musk
But I must have rest, and swap nip' for a nap
CHORUS
So come on, I'm The Suckler
I have a thirst, and a gut to fill.
Get ready, for The Suckler
I've suckl'd along each of seven years
Suckl'd along each of seven years...
[extended Ian Anderson Scots-trill'd flute riff]
Deep red are the hickies on areol'd places
Black is my mood when I'm denied milk
We'll find the means to make this a lifetime
'Cos Mum's cup's for free and she's smooth as the silk
So come on, I'm The Suckler
I have a thirst, and a gut to fill.
Get ready, for The Suckler
I've suckl'd along each of seven years
Suckl'd along each of seven years...
All kinds of foodstuffs I've left behind me
Many's the treat that I have turned down
But I'll be nursing now and forever
Unbind your strap and let's go to town.
So come on, I'm The Suckler
I have a thirst, and a gut to fill.
Get ready, for The Suckler
I've suckl'd along each of seven years
Suckl'd along each of seven years...
so, i should have weaned my son when he was 18 months? At that point, he had named my breasts and could compare breastmilk to the foods he came into contact with regularly. I mean, how can anyone just put out an arbitrary age and say "that's the limit, that's when we should stop." How would you choose the age? Women should stop nursing older children because it makes you uncomfortable? You don't have to watch, you know. In fact, you probably won't be given much chance to watch. Most people I know who nurse kids older than 2 pretty much do so in secret so as to not have to listen to the uninformed opinions of random passers-by (or the drivel from an otherwise enjoyable blogger).
Children WILL wean on their own, and its practically impossible to force a child to nurse. Most children, if left to their own devices, will wean on their own between 2 and 7 years old.
A child nursing at 7 will NOT be nursing "forever."
"Dear Earth, Dear Sun...."
Nice family prayer. :^)
I suspect our current crop of Presidential candidates and celebrity preachers (including those of the candidates) and members of the House and Senate didn't breastfeed past 2 years. I suspect that some of them didn't breastfeed at all.
I'll take my chances with people like this woman and her kids.
Fans of the English sketch comedy Little Britain might give a miss to this post centred round a suckler aged merely eight (so says the YouTube, rather than seven), 'cos in our precincts, a bloke's introducing his fiancé to his veteran habit, when past thirty, of making the milk run with the mum
youtube.com/watch?v=UhTIASwqg9E
is both a way of Ensuring a wardoff of bone loss when he's 64, and an indispensable screener for fiancial fitness: "if thy suckle *maketh* her to falter, she *proveth* unworthy unto thine altar" (I Calcinthians).
Sarah, we breastfed our firstborn till he was after two. The second weaned himself before two. The third is still going strong at 19 months. If she still wants to nurse at this time next year, I'll be surprised, but not scandalized. But come on, seven years? That's strange.
Scott, funny you mention little Britain, because the entire time I watched the video I felt I was watching a Catherine Tate sketch.
I love Catherine Tate - especially her character who screams in alarm at the slightest provocation. Glancing at her vast YouTube archive, it occurs to me that she and Kristen Wiig of SNL, also a fave, overlap a bit (e.g., Wiig's Surprise Party lady, Two A-holes gumcracker paired w/Jason, &c.).
I've always said that breastfeeding is good, for the children and for their fathers. Maybe there's a dad in the background encouraging this seven-year-old to continue.
"Milkior"? LOL
Well, who can blame somebody for wanting to milk it for all its worth? I can't say the kid's really making a boob of himself -- it'll be years before he's married, so cleavage to his mother is perfectly appropriate. If this gets out at school, though, he's gonna get creamed.
Years from now, maybe his kids will read about this in his dairy.
(To quote Glen Hansard after one of his jokes died, "And there was blood everywhere.")
Richard
Rod -- did I ever tell you my granddad's favorite joke? He was an Arkansas farmer. The joke: "How do you know when it's time to wean your son? When he comes in and says, 'Paw, gimme a chaw of tobacco. Ma's been in the bitterweed again."
I nursed my kids well into toddlerhood, but I dunno...seven? that's a bit extreme. I have a seven year old...can't imagine her nursing!
Now, my babies loved to nurse, that's for sure. But they did reach an age where they were busy with other things and then if I didn't offer, they didn't ask for it and after a bit they just sort of forgot about it altogether. It never seemed to bother them much when they weaned, but it was a very emotional time for ME.
I didn't nurse them publicly after about fifteen months; not because I was ashamed, but because by then they were so distracted by everything going on that they'd be practically standing on their heads trying to simultaneously play and nurse. That was when I would start offering a cup of water instead and they seemed eager to have that freedom. Bedtime and naptime were a different matter, of course, as even an ornery two-year-old will turn back into a cuddly infant when tired.
I would imagine that this mom had to *encourage* her child to continue nursing after a certain point. Which makes me think it is more for *her* than for the child -- difficulty letting go? difficulty watching them grow up? having a hard time setting limits?
Of course, I say the same thing when I see four-year-olds drinking out of baby bottles or sucking on pacifiers, which one could argue is a lot worse for their teeth than nursing.
Can someone explain how calling something "weird", "extreme", etc. is supposed to give us reason not to do it?
You know what's really weird? Adults chewing on gum or cigars or cigarettes to get their "oral" fix. Shouldn't a 37-year-old have grown out of that?
Why does everyone keep calling the 7 year old a "he?" Eliza is a she. Not that it matters.
This whole thread reminds me of my prenatal class with my firstborn. The group got into a discussion of when one should wean a child. My husband started with his jokes. He finished a series of jokes by saying that you should wean them when they are old enough to ask for the car keys. What was rather funny about the whole thing was how angry he made many of the mothers. I thought that one was going to come over and smack him. Breast feeding is very serious business.
I weaned my son when he was one and gave him a cup. I ran out of milk with my twin girls at about 8 months. My one breast was never a big producer(surgery in my 20's), and the demand from the 2 babies was too much. Maybe I just got sick of it. I don't know. This is, probably, more info than you all care to know about me. Anyway, I agree with Rod. This Mom is weird. Kids need to be loved, hugged, and snuggled. They don't need to be sucking on Mom's boobs for comfort. People in 3rd world countries do that until a later age for physical nourishment.
I don't think that it's abuse or anything. I do think it's weird.
My son loves breasts. He is really going to be a breast man when he gets older. I often wonder if it has anything to do with his subconscious memories of breast feeding.
I know a woman who waited until her daughter was 3 or 4 to wean her. Her daughter's a lesbian. I wonder if there's any correlation.
I nursed all my kids until they self-weaned, but none of them were even remotely interested after 16 months of age at the latest.
Looking at my kids, I would find it difficult to imagine that any of them would be willing to nurse so long. That doesn't mean no other kid would, but since the benefits are no longer nutritional, I wonder what the child is dependent on, here?
I know a couple of parents who are currently upset that their youngest child has given up holding hands with them when they cross the street or walk across parking lots. He's THIRTEEN years old. They have always babied him and he finds it difficult to operate independently of them. The fact that he's made this stand and won't hold hands with them is a good sign, to me, but they are devastated and needling him about it. Personally, I wish they'd just shut up but it's not my place to say anything.
But knowing them and knowing how resistant they have been to allowing this boy to grow up, it does make me wonder if the same sort of thing is going on with nursing grade-schoolers.
Someone I knew nursed her son until he just turned six. I lost track of them when he hit middle school age, but there didn't seem to be any harm done.
Somewhere along the way to becoming civilized we forgot that we are mammals. :^)
Eric,
Wild dogs begin weaning at 3-4 weeks.
Elephants start weaning some time after the first year of life or when a sibling is born.
Fawns wean at around 5 weeks.
Horses wean around 6 months.
Raccoons wean around 3 months.
Whales wean at around 4 months.
Your point?
My point?
Did you not see my smiley?
She's dependent on the closeness and comfort. Anything wrong with that?
...5 crunches too far... very funny!
John, all my kids are dependent on closeness with and comfort from me and from my husband (their dad). That can be accomplished in numerous ways -- it's not like nursing is the only source for this.
As Salamander noted above in Sal's own family, my kids -- all self-weaned -- simply weren't interested in nursing after awhile. I agree with Salamander's conclusion that the two children in this video were likely encouraged to nurse, based on the mother's demeanor. She spoke at one point about how she couldn't even get dressed because her girls would be wanting to touch her breasts, and they had to set some boundaries. These are healthy boundaries. A mother does need some autonomy in her life, after all -- the simple privilege of being able to put on one's clothes without little hands fondling one's more sensitive body parts. No matter how much they love her breasts and how much they love to nurse, they are old enough to afford their mother the dignity of being able to dress without interruption, as I am sure you will agree.
I am a strong advocate for breastfeeding and self-weaning. I have absolutely no "set age" in mind for when a child should be "properly" weaned. But that doesn't mean that the act of breastfeeding is *always* devoid of dysfunctional behavior or manipulation by either the mother or the child. The potential exists, even if it's a very remote possibility.
I'm in no way qualified to make a 100% accurate analysis of this particular family, but on my second viewing of the video, I was struck by the children's attitude. This could be due to lousy editing on the documentary-maker's part, but the kids really seemed to look at their mother not as a person who deserved dignity and respect, but as a vending machine for their own personal satisfaction. I felt their attitude was dehumanizing toward their mother, and I guessed that the mother had not only allowed this but had inadvertently fostered it, to the point where her own personal sense of modesty and natural desire for privacy when performing personal bodily care were heavily compromised.
As the mother of daughters, I am sensitive to the modesty issue in particular. Our secular society around us is horribly immodest, and it's the girls who suffer most from this. Boys, too, but girls bear more physical, emotional and spiritual risks from the pressure to be immodest. And since girls learn the necessity and value of modesty from their mothers first and foremost, I think a situation in which the mother has sacrificed her own modesty for the children's personal, physical satisfaction is setting the girls up to make some significantly dangerous choices once they hit puberty.
And I am *not* talking about refraining from breastfeeding in public or anything like that. My view is that anywhere it's okay for an adult or child to consume food, it's okay for a baby to nurse...and sometimes babys get to nurse where adults ought not eat. I am speaking specifically of the modesty of being able to say when and where one's body is touched and for what reason. This mother appears to have lost that and had to try to regain it by forbidding her girls from touching her breasts with their hands (*not* nursing, you will note) while she was trying to get dressed in the morning.
I feel that if mother and child are comfortable..it is okay..if the child begins to feel embarrased than it is time to stop breastfeeding...I breastfed my oldest boy till 5 and he stopped on his ownn gradually and my yougest till 6 gradually...on their own not me them...i say to those mothers who breastfeed their todlers or older child when the child is ready they let you know till hten continue...
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