Since I am a proponent of attachment parenting I felt I should give a few thoughts on the recent Time magazine cover. First, it does not come as a surprise that the magazine would chose such a controversial image. It is meant to create a reaction, and they have succeeded in that. They took a controversial example, and then made it sexy. One reason I believe breastfeeding is so controversial in our society is because we cannot separate it from something sexual. So of course they would chose an image meant to have some sexuality in it. This becomes more true as the child gets older and society thinks there has to be something wrong with nursing a toddler. I saw one response to the cover picture accusing the mother of sexually abusing her child. The person claimed that the little boy can't detach from her because of the mixture of nurture and sex appeal. This seems ridiculous to me, because the boy is 3, not 10. Sex appeal has nothing to do with it for a 3 year old. Now it may not have been a wise choice for this mom to have her child photographed in such a way, but it does not mean she is abusing her child, or that they have some strange sexual relationship. That is not something I could decide by simply looking at a magazine cover. The World Health Organization and the AAP recommend extended breast-feeding to at least 2 years of age or beyond. But when society actually sees a mom who does that and more, we think something must be wrong, and that is sad to me. I read another comment about the strangeness of this mom breastfeeding a child who had teeth, could stand up, and could talk. Well I have a 9 month old that I am breastfeeding. She has 8 teeth, can stand up, and can say a few words too! These 3 things really have nothing to do with the choice to continue breastfeeding, in my opinion.
In all the reactions I have seen and read, no one has any response to the article itself. It is all about the picture. It doesn't seem like anyone has actually read the article. I read one summary that said the article was about Dr. Sears, the attachment parenting "guru", and that he advocates extreme parenting methods. I actually laughed out loud when I read that. It only seems extreme to the modern Western mindset, where we prize freedom, atonamy, and independence over almost anything else. There are plenty of cultures around the world today where things like extended breastfeeding and co-sleeping are the norm. In fact even in our country 50 to 100 years ago it was not so "extreme". Yes the mother and child on the cover may be an extreme example of attachment parenting, but I would say don't judge a book by it's cover. There are plenty of good things about attachment parenting despite the controversial picture.
Now onto the tile of ,"Are you mom enough?". I have seen all kinds of responses from moms saying yes we are enough! The question of the magazine article as caused a lot of moms to stand up for motherhood with all it's imperfections and still say, yes we are enough no matter what we have chosen as parents. I think it is great for moms to speak out and stand up for each other. But there is a lesson I have learned in my journey as a mother, and until I learned this lesson I struggled with doubt, and confidence. I always wondered am I enough. The lesson I learned was that, no I am not enough. In and of our selves, none of us are enough! It is only through the grace of God that we become enough. We make bad choices, lose our temper, forget things, etc., etc. It is only God who can make us enough. It is by His grace that our kids turn out ok, and that we can be good parents. God doesn't love us because we are enough. He doesn't save us because we have shown we are enough. He loves us and saves us when we don't measure up. Once I really understood that, I discovered that I could stop striving to be enough. He has done it for me. His grace is what empowers me, and it is also what makes it ok to not always measure up. I found so
much freedom in grasping this truth, that it is my prayer for all moms. We will never be enough on our own. But with God's spirit and grace we are.
Here are the links to the AAP website, and the World Health Organization:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2011/breastfeeding_20110115/en/index.html
http://www.healthychildren.org/English/news/Pages/AAP-Reaffirms-Breastfeeding-Guidelines.aspx
