There is a family story about my great-grand-father who lived in Eastern Tennessee. One day strangers visited the house (a very unusual circumstance). He was 4 or 5 years old at the time. He grabbed his mother's skirts and pulled her behind a door and said, "Hey Ma, give me a swig or two." This was for reassurance.
He was not stifled or weird and became a school-master. He finished raising four children alone after his wife died in the horrible flu pandemic of 1918.
See my post #19. :^)
Ah, the terrible flu epidemic! My very favorite novel - “Look Homeward Angel” concludes with that horrible event. While I don’t remember any discussion of breastfeeding in that book, I do remember the mother had about 10 kids and was exhausted most of the time!