How weird is this? A Spanish toy company has developed a doll that mimics the act of breastfeeding. Little girls can put on a halter top with daisies that mark where there nipples are, triggering a suckling noise from the doll.
If you are anything like me, you have a strong gut reaction of “Ick.”
But why? I have no problem whatsoever with breastfeeding. I think it’s great and I think we should not shame mothers who do so. (Although, I do recall being shocked on one occasion to see a 4-year-old child suckling his mother’s huge and not hidden nipple. Power to her though, really, for the confidence and refusal to be shamed.)
Anyway, I think what’s distressing to me is the idea that children are playing with these dolls. I’m not sure we should give little girls dolls at all — feeding into the gender identity she will come to know as expected of her — but particularly dolls that are breastfeeding.
When I think of little girls playing with dolls, it is much in the same way that I would picture them playing with puppies, or younger siblings. Just something cute to play with. Yes, many or most girls probably do pretend to be the mommy to that baby; but at least they have other options. We’re giving them a powerful enough message in handing them these babies when they’re still young children.
But if we attach the doll to a simulated nipple attached to the girl, well, this pretty much leaves one option only: you are the baby mama. You should have a baby attached to your nipple. Girls have babies. That is what little girls should aspire to.
This is not what I want our children thinking.
Happily this doll has not reached international markets, according to the Daily Mail. I have serious doubts that it would succeed in the United States. I can picture, ironically, our conservatives outraged by this doll. This would be ironic because it truly furthers their ideology better than most dolls on the market.
In fact, Fox News had an article with a pretty hysterical “slippery slope” argument against the doll:
“What’s next?” wrote Eric Ruhalter, a parenting columnist for New Jersey’s Star Ledger. “Bebe Sot — the doll who has a problem with a different kind of bottle, and loses his family, job and feelings of self-worth? Bebe Limp — the male doll who experiences erectile dysfunction? Bebe Cell Mate — a weak, unimposing doll that experiences all the indignation and humiliation of life in prison?
“Toy themes should be age appropriate. I think so anyway.”
I agree, wholeheartedly, that toy themes should be age appropriate. To me, that begs the question: why do we give little girls dolls anyway? What purpose does it serve beyond gender identification (a questionable motive for putting toys in your child’s hands, I think)?
When I was little, I was lucky enough to have parents who gave me math games to play. I had creative grandparents who helped me build elaborate sand villages on flatbed trailers. (Okay, yes, I grew up in the country.) I had dolls, but they weren’t my favorite toys — they were so limited in scope. Do you really have to be born a country girl to grow up with some gender neutral play time?
When I first saw this doll I thought it was created to fill a demand for a doll that doesn’t come with a bottle. A doll that children of breastfeeding parents see as a reflection of their lives. My son, who is breastfed, puts his baby dolls up to his chest to feed them. He had no idea what to do with the bottle that came with his baby doll.
I can’t see how giving a kid a doll that breastfeeds is any less appropriate than giving a kid a baby with a bottle.
Usually the kid is a girl, because girls ask for baby dolls. My son likes to play with dolls too, though. He usually ends up throwing them or riding a truck over their faces, but for the time that he’s holding and rocking his baby it’s very sweet.
I think baby dolls teach kindness to small things and are valuable for that reason. I don’t think dolls are just for girls, though. My son has the same mix of toys that my daughter had at that age.
Maybe that’s why I can’t get my nickers in a bunch about the notion of girls being forced into a “mother” role by society via baby dolls. I think in those cases “society” is really the parents who either do or don’t buy “gender specific” toys.
When my son was born my daughter too nursed her dolls. We were walking to the park and she lifted her dress to nurse her baby. I giggled like a school girl. After that I kept her in shorts and t-shirts. No need for her to flash her panties to the world. I never stopped her from her nursing her “babies”. I wouldn’t show this doll to her because she WOULD want one for sure.
(Although, I do recall being shocked on one occasion to see a 4-year-old child suckling his mother’s huge and not hidden nipple. Power to her though, really, for the confidence and refusal to be shamed.)
Dude… kids should be eating solid food by 4. Kids start getting teeth around 6 months. I feel like even to a year is kinda pushing it. My mom said “When the kid can say ‘hey mom, whip it out’ you gotta problem”. How can you breast feed for 4 years, I couldn’t imagine lactating for that long.
As for the doll… i understand the point. They want to promote natural child rearing, but really, some women choose to pump and then feed breastmilk from a bottle. Is that what’s next? Breast pumping 6 year olds?
The WHO recommends breastfeeding children at least until they’re two.
Breast milk doesn’t just provide nutrition. It prevents illness by proving immune boosters and antibodies to germs that the mother is exposed to. In fact, the baby can actually transmit an infection to the mother via breast that the mother can then provide antibodies for and give back to the baby.
You can’t get that anywhere else.
Breastfeeding is good, but all good things come to an end
And this one should end before age 4
Says you. Most of the world says otherwise.
Breast milk provides antibodies that humans don’t start creating on their own till they’re about 5.
Maybe that will help you to understand why some women practice extended breastfeeding for the sake of their children’s health even if it offends your sensibilities.
“Most of the world” is breastfeeding 5-year-olds? Yeah, OK. Give a little proof, maybe?
I said most of the world says otherwise about weaning before 4. LLLI has numerous articles that quote the worldwide average age of weaning as 4. I said breast milk provides health benefits that can’t be sustained without it until 5.
Where’s your proof that breastfeeding should end before 4?
I was breastfed until 3 by my hippy mama and was, and still am, an extraordinarily healthy person. And I ate other food to complement the breast milk. Apparantly I decided at 3 that I had had enough and weaned myself.
As I am now in my third trimester of my first pregnancy I am obviously thinking about breast feeding a lot. I can’t believe how many Canadian women will not do it! They just refuse to even try, not even for the first few weeks of colostrum. At my baby classes, of the 20 or so couples there, only about half are willing to breastfeed.
I will try to do it for 2 years, then have another baby. Why deal with bottles and formula if you don’t have to? I’d rather kick back with the baby and watch an episode of What Not To Wear or somthing!
Uh yea but you can at least pump and bottle feed. Same stuff. No need to have a 4 year old dangling off the nipple. My mom breast fed me and my sister for 6 months and we are both in excellent health. It’s just awkward if a child who can talk, learn, and go to preschool is still breast feeding. I know a lot of people with children who are about 2 right now and none of them are still breast feeding, they are eating regular food, and developing their taste. I’m sorry but developmentally I’m pretty sure the growth of teeth indicates a readiness to eat solid foods. I don’t think children should be given formula (especially if it’s soy based) if the mother can produce milk, but for god’s sake pumping can’t be that hard that women don’t even consider it. Like maybe someone can clarify why these women insist on having a 4 year old still on the nipple? Maybe they like the controversy. But there is a way to still give the kid that same stuff without it by simply bottle feeding it to them, or even giving it to them in a cup since by that time they can handle one.
And just to clarify, I’m referring to the women who choose to LONG term breast feed when I refer to pumping. For new mothers pumping can be painful and difficult right off the bat and doesn’t yield as much milk, it’s understandable for a woman to choose not to because of that. But by the time the toddler has done it’s damage on the nipple and it doesn’t need as much milk on a daily basis, why not?
I’m breast feeding my two year old. He eats solid food and nurses about once a day. He likes it and it’s kept him very healthy. He’s never required an antibiotic. He’s never gotten more sick than a little congested.
I don’t do it for the controversy, I do it in spite of that.
You’ve clearly gotten your ideas about breastfeeding from your mother. That’s fine.
I’ve gotten mine from my son’s doctor and every other source that says it’s healthy.
I’ve pumped. It’s uncomfortable. Even now, when we’re past the sensitive early days. Besides that, pumping doesn’t allow for the transfer of infection from baby to breast that becomes antibodies in the milk. It also doesn’t provide the closeness that my son craves. Am I supposed to stop doing it just because it makes some people uncomfortable?
Hell no.
Pumping doesn’t yield as much milk either. I had an excellent pump but it was still a stretch to pump enough milk for weekends when I was working weekends. Until you’ve actually pumped you really can’t judge how hard it is. It takes a lot of time and it’s pretty hard to do much else; much easier to just feed the kid for 15 minutes than it is to pump for half an hour then sit and feed them for 15 minutes from a bottle or cup anyway. Even with tough nipples it’s pretty uncomfortable. Have you ever seen a breast pump in action? They stretch your nipples out to freakish lengths and if you don’t have the thing perfectly centered it can stretch your nipples at funny angles and rub them against the tube. Last but not least, there’s always a risk of contamination that way from milk backing in to tubes or poor storage or inadequately cleaned bottles. The storage and reheating reduces the benefits too so instead of an instantly available and fresh source of milk you’re talking about a potentially contaminated and less beneficial beverage that’s a total hassle to deal with.
It’s not like the 4 year olds are exclusively breast feeding. Presumably you’d be giving a child some sort of milk. Why on earth would you stop giving them the milk of their own species just to give them the milk of another species when their own milk is uniquely designed for them?
This is all true, plus, extended breastfeeding has produced some of the coolest, most confident and independent kids I know.
A year is a minimum, really going to at least 2 years is best, but of course anything is better than nothing. I firmly believe that all women should at least attempt to breast feed for the first few weeks of life because to not do so is just selfish. Fine if you can’t, I’ve got two friends that really did try but just couldn’t produce milk, but when I see women feeding their newborns formula and complaining that their milk supply hasn’t dried up yet I just want to slap them.
Kids transition from milk to solid foods. My son started on solid food just before 6 months and was eating 3 meals a day by 12 months but he still had milk until 18 months. I would have gone to 4 if he’d wanted to but he chose to wean then. Little earlier than was ideal but he was down to one evening feed and really wasn’t suckling then anyway so I just didn’t do it one night and that was that.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding and some breastfeeding for at least a year.
Pediatricians get a lot of funding and perks from formula companies but they know that breast milk is best which is why the academy has such a wishy-washy recommendation. I prefer to use my own common sense when it comes to parenting.
Kids really shouldn’t be breastfeeding at 4
Also, lol we shouldn’t give girls dolls? What if they want dolls? Like you said, YOU HAD DOLLS. Sometimes boys really do want to smash cars into each other, and sometimes girls really do want to comb their dolls’ hair. Pretending boys and girls are exactly the same is misguided folly at best.
While I can see your point that dolls can be seen as pushing gender stereotypes, it’s all about how a parent raises their child; not about what toys the child plays with. As a girl, I had tons of dolls, Barbies, My Little Pony etc… but I also had monster trucks, Matchbox cars and action figures. There is nothing wrong with a child learning how to love and nurture using a doll. While the straight forward point is taking care of a child, what they learn is how to take care of people. My 20 month old son has cars and a toy lawn mower, but he also has a toy kitchen where he cooks and if he wants a baby doll, by god he’s going to have one.
I had a toy kitchen too!!
I had one too. I just put my kitten in the oven and tried to bake it into a pie.
I did the same with the baby dolls at pre-school. I’ve been told that I would swindle the girls out of all their dolls, stash them in the corner, then shove them into the biggest pot to bake into a pie.
Good times.
Haha, nice.
When I was in pre-school I just lassoed other kids with the feather boa from the dress-up box. Oh, and I threw a toy dump truck at this girl’s head because she wouldn’t be my friend. But we’re really good friends now, so it must have worked.
Looking back on it now, pre-school, was quite the war zone.
Good luck finding a doll that isn’t totally pushed to little girls! My son asked for one at about 16 months because he liked playing with them at play group. Every one I found was dressed totally in pink or had labels on it saying things like ‘little mommy’ and other girl-centric things. I finally found one dressed in purple after a couple of months by which time he’d decided he didn’t want one anymore.
I wouldn’t have had a problem with him playing with a doll dressed in pink. I just didn’t want to give my money to the companies making them that way.
I found a set of blue and lavender twins. Actually, he found them, pulled them off the shelf and dragged it over to the cart.
I had kitchens and train sets when I was little, I liked them both equally.
I run a preschool and I can tell you, some of the most creative things to come out of a toy kitchen are made by boys. But really, what’s the surprise? Many of the world’s most fabulous and inventive chefs are men.
I don’t have any problem with women breastfeeding, but this toy freaks me out… a bit too creepy for me.
Did anyone see that documentary about the 8 year old children who were still breastfeeding? That was pretty fucking weird. It’s on youtube I think, let me see… I’ve found the link for it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxv6R9fUO74
You know, I’m a proponent of extended nursing, but that breastfeeding 8 year old freaked me right the hell out. There aren’t even any additional health benefits to it at that point. Eep!
lmao i was gonna post that too! isn’t it the most horrible thing you’ve ever seen???? fucking freaky!!!!!
I know, that women seems a bit… :/ I would like to see where the children are now actually.
I suppose the ONLY possibly good thing about this could be that maybe the girls will grow up with a more optimistic perspective on breastfeeding- but that is really stretching it for me.
I breast fed my daughter for 15 months. She weaned herself. My sister, on the other hand, breast fed her daughter for almost three years. Even her pediatrician told her it was time to cut it off. My brother’s wife, my sister in law, breast fed her son for over two years. He would ask for nummy 1 and nummy 2– I have to admit it was unsettling! To be honest, I didn’t like going in public with her. He was a big (tall and sturdy) boy and it didn’t seem natural to whip out her breast and let him suck on it to calm him down. But, to each their own.
As far as the doll, cool. I actually see nothing wrong with simulating feeding time with young children.
I have absolutely no problems with breastfeeding. My mom breastfed me when I was a baby, and I plan on breastfeeding my own children in the future. That said, however…..this doll is not something I’d buy my little girl!
When I was really little, I used to pretend to breastfeed my dolls because I observed my mom breastfeeding my little brother. It was just monkey see, monkey do. If my future daughter wants to pretend, fine. But I’m not going to have her in some plastic contraption with flower-shaped nipples to do it.
Both my daughter and my son play with dolls. They push them around in buggies, carry them in improvized baby slings, pretend to change diapers, rock and sing to them. They also pretend to nurse the dolls. Kids play act. They base their play on what they see.
This spanish thing, it’s just a toy. It looks a little dumb, ok, but I can’t understand what all the fuss is about.
That doll reminds me of the baby I had sophmore year in my Careers With Children class. We had to have it for a week. It cried, and you had to figure out if it was hungry, and it had a bottle or a pin thingy that you could put on your shirt to breast feed it. Or you had to change its diaper(it had a sensor thing in the diaper, breast feeding thing, and the diaper), or burp it, or it was just fussy, which meant you had to hold it and rock it. Also, if you dropped it’s head, it would scream. That thing was a fucking nightmare and for at least a month afterward, I would hear a tiny little sound, even in the middle of the night, and I would freak out because I thought it was my baby.
Here’s a picture of me and my baby: http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee65/silverangel_900/DSC00098.jpg
I named her Jayden. =]
Your baby has no eyebrows.
Well, she’s a doll.
Too bad more schools don’t have classes like that. Did you have to be around your “baby” 24 hours per day for the entire week? I would think that this would make more young women think twice about early motherhood. Did this experiment make any impact on you or your friends?
I think if you’re going to make the girls do it you should have the boys do it as well. It’s not like girls can get themselves pregnant.
I totally agree with you! I think it would be a very good lesson in “parenting” for boys and girls.
Yeah, we had to take it home, sleep with it, and carry a baby car seat thing and a diaper bag with us. I had to take it to youth group, all of my classes and everything.
And yes, it definetly impacted us. We were like, omg, I’m never having a kid, ever. Now I do want a kid, maybe. I’m thinking more about adopting an older child when i’m older and married. (I’m only 17 right now.)
LOL…I said the same thing after giving birth to my first son. Never again! Four years later, I gave birth to my second son. (that was due to a difficult childbirth)
You have plenty of time to choose what’s best for you. I applaud you for you mature attitude regarding your reproductive choices. I just wish more young women could share your experiences to make better choices for their future.
The image of that little breastfeeding just brings to mind so many terrible stories of girls having babies before their ready. I know that’s it’s supposed to be a role-playing kind of situation, but it just gives me the chills.
It may not always have these results, but I can just imagine a little girl deciding that she wants a real baby and focusing on that for years until she finally gets her wish at the age of 13. I’ve heard way too many stories like that in my life time and that’s what I see this toy leading to.
I agree this toy is totally sick.
Baby dolls ( not the sleep ware but dolls that look like real babies) are bad enough.
They give girls these toys and say “uuuu look at your baby”, “take care of your baby”, ” how cute she is cuddling her baby” and so on. But it is not it is just sick, and raising girls not to be people but baby farms.
Yet they all whinge about the state of society and girls wanting to get pregnent at 11, 12, 13,14, not realizing that is all they have raised girls to want to do/ be.
Kinda like those kitchen , ironing, vacuum cleaner/ house work play sets. I mean eff me did a movement for female equality not happen in the 60′s, as by girls toys it did not as they are all about having kids and doing house work.
OMG! I just went online to see how much these things were (I actually really like it & want to get one for my daughter for Christmas) and they are selling on eBay for $112 buy-it-now! That is more than a frickin American Girl doll. Crazy…I like it, but enough to spend $112 on it! Nope, she’ll be getting American Girl #4 this Christmas.
Does’nt catholic countries kinda brain wash mothers to breast feed ’till the kid is about 20 ( hyperbole I know). As the church wants women to be baby farms that do not think and do not leave the house.
Breast feeding is the perfect excuse for that as the longer they do it the harder it is to have a life outside of the home. Also it is about the easiest way to guilt women into being nothing but stay at home, slaves to their men, baby farms.
I live in a catholic country and that is the vibe I get here. Some might say that church and state are different, so what the church states is not what the state supports, but Here anyway most of the government policies are influenced by the church, what the church wants- more or less instantly the government does also.
Here the church wanted women to breast feed ( as so many women were going back to work after having kids), about 2 weeks later the government and public health services started policies to support this, and campaigns to get women to breast feed. Any state that has strong religous beliefs I have been in, the church has always influenced state ( and medical policies– usually to the detriment to women)
So the church had a good idea and the government followed. I’m really not seeing the issue here. Any campaign that encourages women to feed their babies is a good one because the benefits for mother and child are numerous. I’m also behind any campaign or policy that enables women to stay at home and raise their kids. Decent maternity leave and parent friendly policies benefit everyone.
Amen.
Also, encouraging women to breastfeed is not turning them into baby factories.
Breastfeeding is a natural contraceptive, and the majority of women cannot get pregnant while breastfeeding.
No there is no real proof that breast milk is better, it is believed to be and it is being pushed now, just as in the 80′s they were pushing formula as being better for the baby.
No proof that breast fed babies grow up to be better people, that is just propaganda from the breast feeding pressure groups.
You can prove anything with surveys and studies by playing with figures and carefully screening the people you are going to test/ question.
I am not saying breast feeding is wrong or inferior I have no real idea,I have read suveys going both ways.
No matter what it is it is the mothers choice.
The church does not say that breast feeding is better for babies they say you are evil if you go back to work once you have had a kid, they then say you are evil if you do not breast feed your baby .
That god made you to have and raise babies and if you are not just doing that then you are evil.
They do not care if it was proven that breast feeding gave kids cancer they would still be pushing it as they see it as an easy way to their agenda . Which is that women are only good to be as I said never allowed of the house without their husband, housework, cooking and baby farm drones, who do everything their husband say.
If you consider yourself an equal person,and you want the rights and freedom of that. Just be glad you live in a country in which church does not predominantly set policy to state.
Look how messed up Americas policies were getting / are , from Bush being in power , letting the christian fundamentallism colour his views and policies.
I bet your mama gave you formula, hence your anger. Don’t feel bad, I was bottle fed too.
If you hate children so much that you don’t believe babies should be fed and parents shouldn’t show their children affection then don’t have kids and stay away from people who have them. Try using a little common sense. Moms make milk for their babies and that milk is perfectly designed for their baby. Formula companies make a poor substitute which is good enough if breast milk isn’t available but it’s like eating ramen noodles and frozen mixed veg instead of freshly made whole foods.
Besides nutrition, breastmilk is a means of transferring immunities from mother to child. Kids develop immunities to whatever the mom has been exposed to, regardless of if they have come in contact with that pathogen. Formula does not, and never will, do that.
@Rhonda
I agree with your analogy, except that in many cases, frozen veggies retain more of their nutritional content than “fresh” produce, since many vitamin complexes degrade with exposure to heat, light, and oxygen (especially vitamin C). Unless you have your own garden, you’re almost always better off with the frozen option. (nutritionally, anyway…. i prefer my veggies were not mushy!)
Usually true, I agree. When I think whole foods I generally think of local produce rather than stuff that has been transported thousands of miles. Might not be part of the technical definition but it’s part of my personal definition.
At least it applies to taste. I hear breast milk tastes much better than formula. I know the spit up smells better at least ;-)
The diapers smell better too. My mom had my son overnight and ran out of the expressed milk I sent with so she supplemented with formula. Once she could finally get him to drink that foul stuff, the resultant diapers were god awful.
One of the most heinous things that multinational corporations have done to the third world is introduce baby formula to poor women. There are generations of children who have been malnourished by their mothers giving them ‘thin’ formula, that is watering it down too much to provide the nutrients it should have. Babies who are breastfed by healthy mothers have the best nutrition available on the planet, and if anyone can find one iota of proof that this statement is incorrect I will be very surprised.
If the church is encouraging mothers to breastfeed (and I don’t mean forcing) then good on the church. About time they started implementing some social good. Anyone who thinks that breastfeeding is not the best option where available is simply misinformed.
If the long words don’t scare you have a read through this. It is and American study, so no doubt Bush co-wrote it, but it does seem to have some scientific merit. http://www.ahrq.gov/Clinic/tp/brfouttp.htm
That and they often don’t have access to clean water and water for formula needs to be very clean, you’re even supposed to boil US tap water before making the stuff. A lot of people were boycotting Nestle for that reason when I was in college. They didn’t even sell Nestle products in the student union.
Lady Goo Goo, I assure you, Bush couldn’t co-write anything. He just doesn’t haven’t the ability!
lol, I was referring to the “Look how messed up Americas policies were getting / are , from Bush being in power , letting the christian fundamentallism colour his views and policies.” comment about breastfeeding in general.
I may be alone in my desire to temper political fervor with sense, but I refuse to believe that Bush can be held accountable for everything from people breastfeeding or not to the PussyCat Dolls to the fact that my foot has been itchy for a day now and I think I have some sort of foot disease.
I am certainly not Anti Everything America, unlike some of my more wackily politicalled friends, including the one who is petitioning that Australia change its states to provinces so people don’t think they are in the US. (?)
“This is not what I want our children thinking.”
Breastfeeding is a normal and healthy part of having children. Children mimicking (healthy) adult behavior is also normal and healthy. If both of these things are normal and healthy then what is the problem? The girls aren’t simulating sex with a little boy doll in order to become pregnant.
And as to gender roles … well, women are *built to breastfeed* whether or not it is what they choose to do with their bodies. That’s why evolution gave us breasts. Accept and move on.
I too was a bit put off by the idea of a child pretending to breastfeed, and by the idea of 4 year old children breastfeeding.
But why is that? We can claim it’s unnatural, but nature really has nothing to say on the issue. It’s our social perception. So why is the general opinion against breastfeeding grown children, and allowing our children to mimic the concept?
I think it’s because we sexualize the act in a way. The same way that it is unacceptable for grown children to see adults naked, perhaps it is unacceptable for them to participate in breastfeeding. Once a baby can reconize that breasts are sexual objects, not to be seen in public, does it then become unacceptable? For a child to pretend to breastfeed, suggests they have breasts, and therefore are sexualized.
In reality, there is actually nothing harmful at all in breastfeeding older children, and obviously nothing shameful about the act that should prevent children from preventing to do it. Breastfeeding is a pleasurable bonding experience for both mother and infant, and I can see a hesitation in ending the experience. Yes, a woman could pump and feed her child breastmilk instead, but why should she?
What makes breastfeeding something that can be seen a ‘gross’?
This shit is horrifying. I don’t like this doll, i don’t think little girls are ready to understand such a thing, and i find this very very sick.
And who says dolls are for girls only?
Oh boy my son is gonna grow up to be one sad adult when he gets he cant really feed the baby the ways he played. Come on now, its a toy nothing else. And yeah little kids do know that babies eat from the breasts at least I told my boy that when he asked why shouldnt I tell him?
Eep, even the video was creepy.
Yea, it makes me a little uncomfortable to look at this, but meh, nothing wrong with it, just kind of queer.
:p
This toy is almost as cringe worthy as when you see a parent kiss their kids on the lips. It is just sick.
You must not have children. Your mentality is sick. I give my daughter a kiss on the lips every morning and every night.
I think it was a mother JoRi didn’t have…
RHONDA.
So you see no problem with nuns holding down a woman who does not want to breast feed, and forcing the baby on her ( as that has happened here ( and I have read this about other catholic countries as well.
That the church states that women are evil who do not quit work when they get married, and that if they do not brest feed and go back to work after having babies they will goto hell. Have you ever seen a 9 yr old kid suckling from a woman in public I have but only in catholic countries.
I am not saying breast feeding is wrong or right, it is the mothers choice.
But doctors recommend only giving formula to kids upto 12-18 mnths. If it is meant to be better for babies why is breast milk so inefficient that a mother has to give the kid it until it is 5 + ???.
What I am saying is wrong is the church using breast feeding and guilt over not doing it to control women.
Also if you see no trouble with church influencing state to get its own way and to control women, go live in IRAN or AFGHANISTAN I am sure you will love it there.
You keep saying “I have read articles….” or “I have seen surveys….” or “There are studies…” but you never cite the articles, surveys, studies, etc. or even provide a link to somebody who does. It makes your position hard to defend, especially since nobody else seems to have seen these studies (or reports, articles, etc).
Not saying I want kids to be breast fed until they’re potty trained, I’m just saying that if you want to be argumentative you should qualify your statements.
The “Church” has nothing to do with breastfeeding anywhere except your country. Nobody is holding women down and forcing them to breastfeed. What country do you live in anyway, that women have so little freedom that a nun can hold a woman down and force her to breastfeed?
You’re a nutter if you think the breastfeeding debate has anything to do with religion.
Can you have a conversation about breastfeeding that doesn’t involve religion? Let’s take religion out of it completely, because for most women, religion is not the driving force behind their decision to feed their babies milk that’s been tailor made for them. Let’s just, for a moment, pretend that women WANT to breastfeed their babies. What’s your problem with that?
I think people should stop doing anything natural that humans do in public if it grosses people out, especially if it has something to do with a body part that we also consider sexual, because honestly folks isn’t that the real reason this discussion is going on?
It started about a doll, and quickly turned into the totally natural act of breastfeeding in general, where obviously it’s not the doll anymore. It seems like a large portion of our society especially here in America is just flat out uncomfortable with a baby nursing on it’s mom. It seems like people are saying “ewwww this is icky lets get it done as soon as possible”. WTF who cares. The breasts were made for the kid. Honestly if you really think about it, isn’t it weirder to have grown men (and women i guess) sucking on breasts and playing with them like they were babies again, and women getting boob jobs to have bigger breasts? Like what is the real reasoning in that? Shit I don’t know. I don’t have kids, it’s just my observations, but why do people vilify mothers?
YouTube removes Awlaki hate videos. Hundreds of videos inciting violence, including some linked to the suspected al-Qaida mastermind of the cargo plane bomb plot, were removed from YouTube today. The videos were highlighted after the conviction of Roshonara Choudhry for attempting to kill the former government minister Stephen Timms. She was radicalised watching internet sermons by Anwar al-Awlaki, an Islamist cleric now in Yemen who the US suspects masterminded several terrorist plots.