Breastfeeding a 6 year old, is this socially acceptable?

1246

Comments

  • Dai13371Dai13371 Posts: 8,071
    Forum Member
    This is DS. Some feel that being judgemental whilst looking down on others is a an obligation of forum membership.
  • InspirationInspiration Posts: 62,702
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    I think it is. I don't just consider breasts as being purely sexual. Surely no harm in feeing a child this way until they don't want to comfort feed anymore?

    The mistake in your post is "they". IMHO it should be the mother who decides when to stop, not the child.

    What happens if the child still wants to do it at age 10? 12? etc etc.
  • UKMikeyUKMikey Posts: 28,728
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Dai13371 wrote: »
    This is DS. Some feel that being judgemental whilst looking down on others is a an obligation of forum membership.
    Irony alert.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 10,559
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    Skolastyka wrote: »
    Sod 'social acceptability' when it comes to private business, such a term reeks of petit bourgeois curtain twitchers whom tut vociferously (emphasised with LOTS AND LOTS of finger wagging) if you, god forbid, miss the Village Hall bake sale.

    Now, i pride myself on the fact that my poison womb ensures that my life is a child free zone, so breastfeeding is not an issue that i will ever have to personally tackle, so, and BUT, why should i, and anyone else, care to poke our collective noses into whether women do or not choose to breastfeed, and in the case of the former, how long they should do it for?


    Personally I don't care - I find it 'ugh' but that's irrelevant. I don't have to look.

    She's chosen to have herself photographed in a tabloid, with her 6 year old son attached to her tit. I suspect she wanted a reaction.

    My reaction is "why subject your kid to unecessary future embarrassment?"
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 12,881
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    She's chosen to have herself photographed in a tabloid, with her 6 year old son attached to her tit. I suspect she wanted a reaction.

    My reaction is "why subject your kid to unecessary future embarrassment?"

    Exactly! Why does she need to broadcast it?
  • Tom_TitTom_Tit Posts: 6,336
    Forum Member
    I think it's weird and unfair on the child.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 2,597
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Definitely not. After 6 years, the poor woman's udders will be round her knees.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,522
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Its a western mentality to frown upon breast feeding later in age, look at all other cultures and you will see it is normal to breast feed on average to 5\6. Sexualising breast feeding is akin to muslims sexualising women with their arms showing. Its a warped mentality and has nothing to do with the reality of the situation, the reality is breast feeding is the most natural and nutritional thing for babies and children and it should not be rejected due to "social" issues.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 12,881
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    ronnie24 wrote: »
    Its a western mentality to frown upon breast feeding later in age, look at all other cultures and you will see it is normal to breast feed on average to 5\6. Sexualising breast feeding is akin to muslims sexualising women with their arms showing. Its a warped mentality and has nothing to do with the reality of the situation, the reality is breast feeding is the most natural and nutritional thing for babies and children and it should not be rejected due to "social" issues.

    Could you give us some examples?
  • Dai13371Dai13371 Posts: 8,071
    Forum Member
    UKMikey wrote: »
    Irony alert.

    All right, all right, you got me. :p
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 9,845
    Forum Member
    ronnie24 wrote: »
    Its a western mentality to frown upon breast feeding later in age, look at all other cultures and you will see it is normal to breast feed on average to 5\6. Sexualising breast feeding is akin to muslims sexualising women with their arms showing. Its a warped mentality and has nothing to do with the reality of the situation, the reality is breast feeding is the most natural and nutritional thing for babies and children and it should not be rejected due to "social" issues.

    Conversely however, great amounts women throughout history have not wanted to breastfeed for various reasons (as is their right) and sought alternatives.

    Women should not be shamed out of breastfeeding, but nor should they be shamed into it. It's a personal choice, and has no bearing on how good or bad a woman is as a mother.

    Ultimately, women should just be left the hell alone.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,522
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Fred Green wrote: »
    I don't think that anything's particularly wrong with the boy feeding after his sibling was born. Seems like an added bonding type of thing that I expect he'll tire of quickly enough.

    What always does strike me as odd is that there is a supposed age when drinking our own mother's milk is 'wrong' in some people's eyes and yet guzzling an other animal's milk is seen as perfectly normal whatever age we are. Bizarre.


    This is the most sensible comment I've seen on the forums for a long time!! People should take heed of this message.
  • Dai13371Dai13371 Posts: 8,071
    Forum Member
    Skolastyka wrote: »
    Snipped

    Women should not be shamed out of breastfeeding, but nor should they be shamed into it. It's a personal choice, and has no bearing on how good or bad a woman is as a mother.

    Ultimately, women should just be left the hell alone.

    Especially when it is a case of males passing judgement.

    In the case of abortion - I am pro choice for that reason. I have no right to dictate what a woman does to her own body, but I would like to think I am permitted to be able to discuss it before a choice is made, which I would naturally go with.
  • Hobbit FeetHobbit Feet Posts: 18,798
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    In our society of course it isn't socially acceptable. I'm not sure why this is, each to their own and all that.

    As I didn't even breastfeed my own child, my opinion is't really valid anyway (to be perfectly honest the story makes me a bit bleughhhhh). It would be wrong of me to pass judgement just because it makes me a bit squeamish.

    However she is a clown for publicising it, knowing what the general reaction will be.
  • BanditaBandita Posts: 3,735
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Thing is it is nobody elses business but this woman choses to put a pic of her 6 year old suckling in a tabloid newspaper. She can suckle who she likes I don't care but she makes it other peoples business the moment the first person opens that paper or sees it on-line. I don't pass judgement on her for what she does but by 'going public' she invites opinion.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,522
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Could you give us some examples?

    Here's one...

    he Inupiats, like many other Native and Eskimo groups, have experienced lifestyle alterations directed away from their traditional cultural values. Within many Eskimo cultures, among the first things affected by acculturation was a change in the sources of food (Sayed, Hildes, & Schaefer, 1976). Blackwood (1981) reports that, during the 1950s, efforts were made by public health workers to replace and/or supplement breastfeeding with formula feeding, leading to a large shift toward formula feeding, especially in the first few months of life. Over 25 years ago, Schaefer (1973) reported that, among Canadian Eskimos, the traditional 3 to 4 years of prolonged breastfeeding had been shortened or abandoned with the increasing use of bottle feeding.

    full article here.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1595048/
  • cnbcwatchercnbcwatcher Posts: 56,681
    Forum Member
    Just wrong, what would happen if his school mates found out?
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,289
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    It's wrong and encouraging a child to be completely dependent on the mother. After breast feeding babies beging to learn a little independence, while still staying close to their mum.

    Only a clingy neurotic mum would want to do this
  • DinkyDooDinkyDoo Posts: 3,588
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    I wouldnt have my kids having a bottle or dummy at 6 years of age, so I wouldnt want to have them breastfeeding at that age either.
  • *Clem**Clem* Posts: 4,101
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Totally wrong IMO. A six year old does not need to be feeding from his mother's breasts.
  • d0lphind0lphin Posts: 25,352
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Absolutely no need for it when the child is 6. I didn't breastfeed my sons, but if I had I would only have fed them for about 6 months although I think up to the age of 18 months would be acceptable.

    I had to laugh when my older son was about 13 he asked me if I had breastfed him. When I said no he said "Thank God for that!":D

    The child in the story will be totally humilated by his peers when he is older, and understandably so although it's not the child's fault.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 12,881
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    ronnie24 wrote: »
    Its a western mentality to frown upon breast feeding later in age, look at all other cultures and you will see it is normal to breast feed on average to 5\6. Sexualising breast feeding is akin to muslims sexualising women with their arms showing. Its a warped mentality and has nothing to do with the reality of the situation, the reality is breast feeding is the most natural and nutritional thing for babies and children and it should not be rejected due to "social" issues.
    ronnie24 wrote: »
    Here's one...

    he Inupiats, like many other Native and Eskimo groups, have experienced lifestyle alterations directed away from their traditional cultural values. Within many Eskimo cultures, among the first things affected by acculturation was a change in the sources of food (Sayed, Hildes, & Schaefer, 1976). Blackwood (1981) reports that, during the 1950s, efforts were made by public health workers to replace and/or supplement breastfeeding with formula feeding, leading to a large shift toward formula feeding, especially in the first few months of life. Over 25 years ago, Schaefer (1973) reported that, among Canadian Eskimos, the traditional 3 to 4 years of prolonged breastfeeding had been shortened or abandoned with the increasing use of bottle feeding.

    full article here.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1595048/

    Very interesting, but a case study from 40/50 years ago reported in 1981 hardly supports your statement that all other cultures breast feed to 5/6 in 2010.
  • cnbcwatchercnbcwatcher Posts: 56,681
    Forum Member
    DinkyDoo wrote: »
    I wouldnt have my kids having a bottle or dummy at 6 years of age, so I wouldnt want to have them breastfeeding at that age either.

    I stopped having a bottle when I was about a year old. According to mum I just left it behind when we went on holiday and that was the end of it!
  • epicurianepicurian Posts: 19,291
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    d0lphin wrote: »
    Absolutely no need for it when the child is 6. I didn't breastfeed my sons, but if I had I would only have fed them for about 6 months although I think up to the age of 18 months would be acceptable.

    I had to laugh when my older son was about 13 he asked me if I had breastfed him. When I said no he said "Thank God for that!":D

    The child in the story will be totally humilated by his peers when he is older, and understandably so although it's not the child's fault.


    Why? WHO says two and beyond.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 822
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    All this PC loving feeling crud has to stop somewhere.
    That woman is a whack job and God help the kid he must be well on the way to loon town.

    Is it me or has the whole world gone crazy?:D
Sign In or Register to comment.