While it often appears our culture has finally turned from the artificialness of infant formula (the lacto-equivalent of Tang) and numerous magazines and agencies promote breastfeeding babies until 12 months of age, many people continue to feel uncomfortable about nursing because of societal hang-ups about female breasts. Simultaneously attractive and troublesome, breasts hold great power in our culture, and consequently are loved and feared with equal fervor.

Say the word out loud. Breasts. Breasts. Breasts. Then think of all of the different words we have for breasts: tits, boobs, hooters, jugs, etc. When said aloud, the terms evoke excitement and nervous laughter - much the same as when my little girl says the word "fart." The taboo surrounding female breasts heightens their inherent sexuality, and people increase their value as a commodity by withholding them, much like diamonds and oil. Female breasts are valuable, so valuable that women pay thousands of dollars to have theirs chests implanted with silicon, so valuable that Dolly Parton went from rags to riches, so valuable that Playboy and Penthouse are multi-million dollar businesses, and so valuable that women feel the need to lock them up in braziers and bikini tops - unable to run around bare-chested like our male counterparts.

Our complex emotions about breasts directly affect our feelings about breastfeeding. When my daughter was a year old, my brother and I were Christmas shopping in a crowded mall. When she got tired, I sat down with her on a bench in the mall and proceeded to nurse. My brother was immensely embarrassed, fiercely whispering that I shouldn't do that in public. What, I demanded, needed hiding?

Yet the apparent shamefulness of nursing only increases as babies continue to breastfeed past 12 months. Though the American Academy of Pediatrics concluded in 1997 that mothers should nurse for one year and then "for as long thereafter as mother and child wish," the stigma attached to extended breastfeeding intimidates so many women that they begin to hide breastfeeding from the public eye.
When mothers nurse their children to two and three years of age and upward, not only do heads begin to turn, but fingers also begin to point.

Many assert that the mothers are nursing to fulfill their own sexual needs. Others claim that extended nursing psychologically damages the child, especially when the child is a boy. Subconsciously and consciously, society remains unable to distinguish parental nurturing and the overt sexuality of female breasts. We have given them so much power that we have now grown to fear them.

Women across the nation have been charged with abuse and have had their children taken from them in cases of extended nursing. Earlier this year, a 6-year-old boy was taken from his mother because she continued to nurse him and practiced child-led weaning. Although this case and others involving 4- and 5-year-olds have had the support of non-profit advocacy groups like La Leche League, the scars of the trauma remain with the mothers and children long after the children are returned and allegations of sexual abuse are dropped.

A friend of mine in the area continues to nurse her 4-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Though the mother has repeatedly encouraged the child to wean, she continues to enjoy her "milkie," and the mom feels that her daughter will wean when she is ready. However, the mother is constantly worried that someone will find out she is still breastfeeding and will try to take her daughter away from her. She quickly explains that her daughter "knows not to do it in public." With mother and daughter in fear of being "caught in the act," it seems that the psychological damage for mother and child in these cases of extended nursing come not from the act of breastfeeding itself, but rather from the social stigma attached to it.

The La Leche League reports that 4.2 years is the average age of weaning around the world. Considering that many children in America are not breastfed until 12 months, the upper end of the scale would be proportionately high.

The psychological and physical benefits of nursing past one year are enormous. UNICEF and the World Health Organization state that children should be breastfed for "two years of age or beyond."
Evidence suggests that breastfed children are less troubled with allergies, have fewer ear infections, and adapt more quickly both intellectually and socially. Furthermore, mothers who breastfeed to two years have a significantly reduced risk of breast cancer. What advantages are we going to give up because of our fear of breasts?

The key to weaning boils down to the phrase "as long as mother and child wish;" it must be a mutual decision for breastfeeding to be a nurturing, healthy act. Some children wean themselves at 15 months, and some at seven years. Some mothers may find that they don't have the time and energy to continue, especially as younger siblings are born. But breastfeeding is a beautiful act of sharing between mother and child. We need to address our own issues with female breasts - lose the embarrassment and nervous laughter - and celebrate nursing as natural part of the developmental process.

(Esther Godfrey is a college English teacher. She can be reached at egodfrey@wcu.edu)

 

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