Time Magazine's Breastfeeding Cover Sparks Controversy
Time Magazine
Time magazine has sparked controversy with its latest cover depicting a mom breastfeeding her 3-year-old son.
Los Angeles-based stay-at-home mother Jamie Lynne Grumet, 26, was photographed with her son for the issue that tackles attachment parenting. The divisive practice, which was started by The Baby Book author Dr. Bill Sears, is focused on breastfeeding past infancy, co-sleeping and baby-wearing, which is attaching an infant to their parent via a sling.
Grumet told Time that her mother breastfed her until she was 6 and that she posed for the cover because she wants to make extended breastfeeding publicly acceptable. She said that strangers have threatened to "call social services on me or [said] that it's child molestation" when they see her nursing in public.
"People have to realize this is biologically normal," she said. "The more people see it, the more it'll become normal in our culture. That's what I'm hoping. I want people to see it."
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Added photographer Martin Schoeller, who shot the cover: "When you think of breastfeeding, you think of mothers holding their children, which was impossible with some of these older kids. I liked the idea of having the kids standing up to underline the point that this was an uncommon situation."
Atypical parenting practices have been a fixture in the headlines recently, especially when it comes to celebrities. Last month a video of Alicia Silverstone regurgitating food into her son's mouth went viral. Hilary Duff also recently admitted to keeping her son's umbilical cord stump in a drawer, while Mad Men's January Jones said in March that she takes pills made from her placenta.
What do you think of the cover?