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Time Mag’s Unholy Portrait of Mother and Child
The Christian Diarist ^ | May 13, 2012 | JP

Posted on 05/13/2012 5:26:43 PM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST

I caught Jamie Lynne Grumet’s interview on CNN. She’s the 26-year-old Los Angeles mother who thought there nothing shameful about being pictured on the cover of Time magazine with her 3-year-old boy sucking her breast.

“Our family is a little different than the average family,” she laughed.

But it was no laughing matter.

Time’s ungodly cover is kiddie porn dressed up as journalism. It will probably be a best-seller among demonically-influenced sickos out there who get off on the sexualization of children.

Yet Time magazine defends its cover, which it timed to coincide with Mother’s Day – the one Sunday each year when churches are filled not just by the faithful, heeding the Biblical commandment to “honor they mother, but also by those who do not otherwise attend church.

“Part of our job,” said Rick Stengel, Time’s unapologetic editor-in-chief, “is to provoke discussion and provoke thought.” But surely the magazine could have done so without exploiting all-too-willing Grumet and her little boy.

The L.A. mom offered a similar defense on CNN. “We weren’t doing it for publicity,” she insisted. “We were doing it to educate people.”

But of course.

She and her husband thought they would introduce the uninformed to so-called “attachment parenting.” It is the highly-questionable way of bringing up baby advocated by Dr. Bill Sears and wife Mary in their 1992 manual, “The Baby Book.”

It encourages moms like Grumet to breast-feed their offspring for not just the first six months of their lives, as the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends, but well into toddlerhood.

It also encourages “co-sleeping,” in which a mom like Grumet shares a bed for any number of years with her child (and her husband, if he’s foolish enough to go along).

Ironically, Grumet herself is living proof that attachment parenting is damaging to children like her nearly four-year-old breast-feeding boy.

She told CNN that her own mom breast-fed her until she was fully six years old. That explains how Time’s cover mom turned out so twisted.


TOPICS: Current Events; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: blogpimp; parenting; pornography; time
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Time could have chosen a much less offensive photo to accompany its cover story but chose not to. Shame on them.
1 posted on 05/13/2012 5:26:54 PM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

It was all about shock value.

Nothing wrong with breast feeding unless you turn it into kiddie porn


2 posted on 05/13/2012 5:29:06 PM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

The woman is an idiot.

Unfortunately her son is going to have to live with her stupidity for the rest of his life since the photo will be on every social media site forever!


3 posted on 05/13/2012 5:29:56 PM PDT by JimVT (Oh, the days of the Kerry dancing, Oh, the ring of the piper's tune)
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Comment #4 Removed by Moderator

To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

This woman is a pedophiles dream, and it seems her so-called husband is getting his wish. They are trying to make kiddie porn acceptable, and there is a special place below for subhumans like this.

This truly makes me ill.


5 posted on 05/13/2012 5:33:53 PM PDT by mardi59 (THE REBELLION IS ON!!!)
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

How can she produce enough milk for her 4 year old child and her husband? She has to be getting a thrill up her leg like Chris Matthews.


6 posted on 05/13/2012 5:38:04 PM PDT by YukonGreen
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

How can she produce enough milk for her 4 year old child and her husband? She has to be getting a thrill up her leg like Chris Matthews.


7 posted on 05/13/2012 5:38:27 PM PDT by YukonGreen
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To: JimVT
The woman is an idiot.

Unfortunately her son is going to have to live with her stupidity for the rest of his life since the photo will be on every social media site forever!

The poor kid will be playing with Barbie dolls and wearing a dress before you know it. Liberals should probably not be allowed to raise children.

8 posted on 05/13/2012 5:38:52 PM PDT by Bullish
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST
“Our family is a little different than the average family,” she laughed.
9 posted on 05/13/2012 5:39:49 PM PDT by tumblindice (Our new, happy lives.)
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To: tumblindice

Lurch had the right response to things like this: URRRRRRRRGH.


10 posted on 05/13/2012 5:43:44 PM PDT by jocon307
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To: Bullish

Reminds me of a quote from the great Reggie Dunlop in the movie “Slapshot.”


11 posted on 05/13/2012 5:45:11 PM PDT by gusty
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST
Without getting into the right or wrong of it all, the author completely misrepresents the American Academy of Pediatrics. I wouldn't be surprised if it does not force her to print a retraction or clarification on it's stance.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies be exclusively breastfed for about the first 6 months of life. This means your baby needs no additional foods (except Vitamin D) or fluids unless medically indicated. Babies should continue to breastfeed for a year and for as long as is mutually desired by the mother and baby.

12 posted on 05/13/2012 5:47:58 PM PDT by Melas (u)
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To: Melas

Are you suggesting that the American Academy of Pediatrics approves of a mother breastfeeding her nearly four-year-old boy?


13 posted on 05/13/2012 6:02:19 PM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

It does indeed provided that it is still mutually desirable. However, please don’t take my word for it, contact them yourself, but out of courtesy, please post the response you receive here for all to see.


14 posted on 05/13/2012 6:07:58 PM PDT by Melas (u)
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST
While our daughters were not breast fed they did have the occasional bottle till they were a little over three years of age.

As I understand it breast feeding past two years, and sometimes well into the third year, used to be fairly common.

As a side effect, while the mother is still breast feeding she is much less likely to become pregnant again.

15 posted on 05/13/2012 6:19:43 PM PDT by Just another Joe (Warning: FReeping can be addictive and helpful to your mental health)
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

The human breast is primarily an instrument of nutrition for the young and only secondarily sexual. In a healthy society, that is.

Those who see kiddie porn in this photo are importing something from their own mind that isn’t actually in it.

The editors, of course, also saw sexuality in the image, which is why they chose to use it.

Hannah in the Bible, the mother of the prophet Samuel, sent him off to serve in the temple as soon as he was weaned, which certainly doesn’t imply he was a six-month or year-old infant.

In the book of Maccabees a woman reminds her son she nursed him for three years, which was probably the approximate standard for Middle Eastern cultures of the time.


16 posted on 05/13/2012 6:24:32 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Just another Joe
“As I understand it breast feeding past two years, and sometimes well into the third year, used to be fairly common.”

A Natural Age of Weaning

by Katherine Dettwyler, PhD

Texas A&M University

My research has looked at the various “life-history” variables (such as length of gestation, birth weight, growth rate, age at sexual maturity, age at eruption of teeth, life span, etc.) in non-human primates and then looked at how these variables correlate with age at weaning in these animals. These are our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, especially gorillas and chimpanzees, who share more than 98% of their genes with humans. I came up with a number of predictions for when humans would “naturally” wean their children if they didn't have a lot of cultural rules about it. This interest stemmed from a reading of the cross-cultural literature on age at weaning, which shows that cultures have very different beliefs about when children should be weaned, from very early in the U.S. to very late in some places. One often hears that the worldwide average age of weaning is 4.2 years, but this figure is neither accurate nor meaningful. A survey of 64 “traditional” studies done prior to the 1940s showed a median duration of breastfeeding of about 2.8 years, but with some societies breastfeeding for much shorter, and some for much longer. It is meaningless, statistically, to speak of an average age of weaning worldwide, as so many children never nurse at all, or their mothers give up in the first few days, or at six weeks when they go back to work. It is true that there are still many societies in the world where children are routinely breastfed until the age of four or five years or older, and even in the United States, some children are nursed for this long and longer. In societies where children are allowed to nurse “as long as they want” they usually self-wean, with no arguments or emotional trauma, between 3 and 4 years of age. This interest also stemmed from the realization that other animals have “natural” ages of weaning, around 8 weeks for dogs, 8-12 months for horses, etc. Presumably these animals don't have cultural beliefs about when it would be appropriate.

Some of the results are as follows:

1. In a group of 21 species of non-human primates (monkeys and apes) studied by Holly Smith, she found that the offspring were weaned at the same time they were getting their first permanent molars. In humans, that would be: 5.5-6.0 years.

2. It has been common for pediatricians to claim that length of gestation is approximately equal to length of nursing in many species, suggesting a weaning age of 9 months for humans. However, this relationship turns out to be affected by how large the adult animals are — the larger the adults, the longer the length of breastfeeding relative to gestation. For chimpanzees and gorillas, the two primates closest in size to humans and also the most closely genetically related, the relationship is 6 to 1. That is to say, they nurse their offspring for SIX times the length of gestation (actually 6.1 for chimps and 6.4 for gorillas, with humans mid-way in size between these two). In humans, that would be: 4.5 years of nursing (six times the 9 months of gestation).

3. It has been common for pediatricians to claim that most mammals wean their offspring when they have tripled their birth weight, suggesting a weaning age of 1 year in humans. Again though, this is affected by body weight, with larger mammals nursing their offspring until they have quadrupled their birth weight. In humans, quadrupling of birth weight occurs between 2.5 and 3.5 years, usually.

4. One study of primates showed that the offspring were weaned when they had reached about 1/3 their adult weight. This happens in humans at about 5-7 years.

5. A comparison of weaning age and sexual maturity in non-human primates suggests a weaning age of 6-7 for humans (about half-way to reproductive maturity).

6. Studies have shown that a child's immune system doesn't completely mature until about 6 years of age, and it is well established that breast milk helps develop the immune system and augment it with maternal antibodies as long as breast milk is produced (up to two years, no studies have been done on breast milk composition after two years post partum).

And on and on. The minimum predicted age for a natural age of weaning in humans is 2.5 years, with a maximum of 7.0 years.

In terms of the benefits of extended breastfeeding, there have been a number of studies comparing breastfed and bottlefed babies in terms of the frequency of various diseases, and also IQ achievement. In every case, the breastfed babies had lower risk of disease and higher IQs than the bottle-fed babies. In those studies that divided breastfed babies into categories based on length of breastfeeding, the babies breastfed the longest did better in terms of both lower disease and higher IQ. In other words, if the categories were 0-6 months of breastfeeding, 6-12 months, 12-18 months and 18-24+ months, then the 18-24+ month babies did the best, and the 12-18 month babies did the next best, and the 6-12 months babies did the next best, and the 0-6 months babies did the worst of the breastfed groups, but still much better than the bottlefeeding group. This has been shown for gastrointestinal illness, upper respiratory illness, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, heart disease, and on and on and on. Likewise, the babies nursed the longest scored the highest on the IQ tests. One important point to notice is that none of these studies looked at children who had nursed longer than 2 years. Anyone 18-24 month or longer was lumped into big category. Presumably, the benefits continue to accrue, as your body doesn't *know* that the baby has bad a birth day and suddenly start producing nutritionally and immunologically worthless milk.

However, no one has yet proved, either way, that the benefits of breastfeeding either continue or stop at two years of age, because the appropriate studies have not been done. The trend during the first two years is clearly for continuing benefits the longer you nurse. Clearly the phenomenon of dimishing returns is at work here — the first six months of breastfeeding are clearly much more important in terms of the baby's nutrition and immunological development than the six months from 3.5 to 4.0 years. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't continue to provide breast milk if your baby wants and you don't mind. It would be like saying, “Well Mabel, we don't get very much income from that oil well anymore. Used to get $56 a month in royalties, now we're lucky if we get $25 a year. Guess we should tell that oil company just to keep their durn money.” And Mabel says, in return “Good grief, Clyde, don't be ridiculous. That check still buys $25 worth of food. Where has your mind gone to now?”

Clearly, babies born in the U.S. don't have to contend with all the diseases and parasites and contaminated water that babies in Third World countries do. We have more supplementary foods that we can generally trust to be safe and clean. We can get our children immunized, and get them antibiotics for infections when necessary. The fact that we *can* does not mean that breastfeeding is unimportant. Breastfed babies still have the “edge” over bottlefed babies, even in a squeaky clean environment with wonderful medical care. They get sick less often, they are smarter, they are happier. Another important consideration for the older child is that they are able to maintain their emotional attachment to a person, rather than being forced to switch to an inanimate object such as a teddy bear or blanket. I think this sets the stage for a life of people-orientation, rather than materialism, and I think that is a good thing. I also can't imagine living through the toddler years without that close loving connection to a child going through enormous changes, some of which are very frustrating to the child. I could go on forever, but will stop here.

I hope this has been of help. These ideas are developed much more eloquently and in much greater detail in my chapter “A Time to Wean” in Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives, being published by Aldine de Gruyter.

Prepared August 3, 1995. Edited February 10, 1997.

17 posted on 05/13/2012 6:25:24 PM PDT by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

This poor kid is going to suffer the tortures of the damned throughout his school years and will make some psychiatrist very wealthy some day. This has to be some kind of record-setter for self-absorbed, clueless parenting.


18 posted on 05/13/2012 6:28:22 PM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

Here’s the American Academy of Family Physicians position on how long a child should be breast-fed. Seems perfectly logical to me.

“As recommended by the WHO, breastfeeding should ideally continue beyond infancy, but this is not the cultural norm in the United States and requires ongoing support and encouragement.69 It has been estimated that a natural weaning age for humans is between two and seven years.70 Family physicians should be knowledgeable regarding the ongoing benefits to the child of extended breastfeeding, including continued immune protection,71 better social adjustment,72 and having a sustainable food source in times of emergency. The longer women breastfeed, the greater the decrease in their risk of breast cancer.73”

http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/policy/policies/b/breastfeedingpositionpaper.html


19 posted on 05/13/2012 6:31:43 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: AnotherUnixGeek

I couldn’t agree with you more.


20 posted on 05/13/2012 6:33:35 PM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
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