What Does Breastfeeding Have to Do with Gay Pride?
Time Magazine / New York Pride Parade
I’m going to step up on a soap box for a few hundred words here and offer some editorial on the big headlines of the week.
I am fully behind Babble‘s Love Bomb in response to Time Magazine‘s cover shot with Jamie-Lynne Grumet breastfeeding her 4-year-old and the “Are You Mom Enough?” headline. Still, it’s necessary to look at the tactics being used in the process and how they’re setting things back further than moving them forward.
In a Q&A associated with the attention-grabbing cover shoot, Jamie-Lynne Grumet admitted breastfeeding 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds is “not socially normal. The more people see it, the more it’ll become normal in our culture. That’s what I’m hoping. I want people to see it.”
But placing something so shocking on the front page of Time Magazine is not going to underline the acceptance of breastfeeding; it’s merely shining a big, bright spotlight on the belief that this practice is bizarre.
It’s like the flashy gay pride parades — by being shocking and in-your-face, you do more harm than good.
Those who are against the gay lifestyle fear it as predatory, call it immoral, and are disgusted by the blatant sexuality of it. And wouldn’t you know it, Gay Pride Parades are an all-out assault on the senses of ball gags, bare-assed chaps, and pelvic thrusts. Everything the people fear about gay people confirmed in one sunny afternoon parade down Main St. that’s billed as a “family event.”
One of my best friends is gay. My friend and his husband are mostly just like you and me. While they don’t have kids, they have a dog. They both have jobs, they enjoy quiet nights on their patio with a bottle of wine, they go to movies, dinner, and concerts. They have relationship ups and downs, and a mortgage to worry about.
Sure, there are outliers who sleaze around the clubs (no more so than 20-something co-eds on spring break), but most gay people are just like you and me. They love, they laugh, they go to work. They’re not pedophiles. They’re not sex-crazed shoe-tappers in bathroom stalls. They’re normal, regular, middle-of-the-road people who just happen to love someone of the same gender.
A few years back we went to the Gay Pride Parade together to offer support to the community. We haven’t been back since.
Shocking people with your behavior to get them to talk about you doesn’t make people think you’re normal, or think you’re just like them – it confirms their belief that you’re different.
If gay people are to be accepted as a regular part of society, confirming the fears of the opposition is not the way to do it.
“I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Barack Obama plainly and clearly stated this week. He did it in a sit-down interview, not on stage dressed in drag. He made it seem normal, acceptable, and perfectly reasonable.
What Time Magazine and Jamie Lynn Grumet have done is parade their beliefs on every newsstand in the most extreme way possible. It got people to notice, but they’re not noticing the right thing. Instead of supporting breastfeeding as a perfectly natural, safe, and healthy thing to do, Ms. Grumet chose a shocking presentation of her beliefs.
To be honest, I’m shocked at how breastfeeders feel unaccepted and how they feel the need to have nurse-in flash mobs and protests. To me breastfeeding is a natural way to feed your kids and not some political football that needs to be juggled. I don’t know if a militant and aggressive attitude is what’s going to change people’s minds. Being discreet, doing it when you need to do it, and just being natural about it is the approach to take.
Shocking people with your behavior to get them to talk about you doesn’t make people think you’re normal, or think you’re just like them — it confirms their belief that you’re different. And to some, different is scary.
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Oh, awesome. You manage to shame and discount every group you claim to support in this post. With friends like this, who needs enemies?
There are ways to get popular support for a causes some may may not agree with – shoving it down their throats is not the way to do it.
You said it, and said it so well.
I breast feed my daughter still, she turned 2 in January, and she will continue until she no longer wants that bond with me. It is perfectly natural. I however would never go about posting a picture of it, or flaunting it to the world. I do it at home, in the privacy of our world. It isn’t show time for the world – it is a natural wonderful private thing.
Much like sex, within a loving relationship, normal people do not go posting videos and pictures of their sex life – their sex lives are private.
You don’t need to go about displaying your graphic sex life to the world to somehow make you acceptable. That never made any sense to me. People who display themselves in a sexual manner, work in the sex trade as strippers, or hookers or porn stars, or some other sexual avenue like a dominatrix or something – or they have a mental issue and crave negative attention. Normally people don’t go dancing in the streets naked in leather chaps, even if they choose to do that in their own homes in the privacy of their own bedrooms.
I find it completely crazy that the gay pride parade is labelled a “family event” as I would never want my child to witness it. I would never take my child to Wreck Beach either. There are appropriate times for nakedness, and I am not in any way going to teach her to be ashamed of her body, but I am going to teach her how to RESPECT HERSELF.
Ok, but who doesn’t love a hard-earned f*** you? That’s how I regard the more “in your face” tactics of any highly criticized or opressed group. Come on, they are all trying to blend in the whole rest of their damn lives! There are times when I am sick to death of the diplomacy of modern-motherhood. I like the cover.
*oppressed, oops!
Yes, I agree. I am breastfeeding a child who is almost 4 1/2 years old. It does not look like that. She nurses a few seconds, a couple times a day — at the most. Sometimes she skips days. When she does nurse she snuggles in my lap.
I don’t feel the need to hide it (obviously I’m talking about it here), but I don’t feel the need to shove it in someone’s face, either. If Time had wanted to interview mothers and just have a little honest conversation about breastfeeding and why it works for some mothers, that’s great. But obviously that’s not what they were after. I would say the shock, as you said, does more harm than good, because now everyone is pointing to the picture as sexual (and it appears that way even though breastfeeding is not). It’s sparking conversation, but only divisively so, which is unhelpful. And unfortunate.
I wrote a post about this issue on my blog, Huppie Mama. I’d love some feedback if any of your readers would like another perspective on the issue: http://huppiemama.com/?p=1884
Love this article! Very well written.
I am one of the few that likes the cover and think this country needs a little shock to dig its head out of the commercialized vain hole it has been hiding in for far too long. Breastfeeding mothers shouldn’t feel ashamed, but fact is most are made too and told that they must be “discreet” in caring for their child in the most natural way. Why? Women shouldn’t feel the need to hide behind nursing covers, that they must excuse their self to another room or to hide the fact that they are nursing their children to the natural weaning age.
I understand mothers breastfeed because they believe its whats best for their child but i can see it having a negative effect on a 4+ year old as they get older however i dont support the feeding off of a breast for a 4+ year old i would find it more acceptable and appropriate if the mother was to pump and provide the child with breast milk rather than cows milk.
Yes, I agree with you. This magazine cover was obviously put out there more for shock value than for education which does nothing for these mothers’ “cause”. However, my problems with this cover (and article in general) do not stop there. I am opposed to it because it #1. Implies that non-breastfeeding mothers are not “MOM ENOUGH”. I am giving birth by the end of the month and I do plan on breastfeeding my daughter but only as long as it takes for my daughter to grow teeth, transition to other foods, and use up the TRUE NUTRITIONAL and BONDING VALUE of breastfeeding which takes only about 1-2 years tops. I am pretty sure that non of our parents were still breastfeeding us in preschool and we turned out just fine. My nieces were not breastfed and they are well-adjusted, gorgeous, gifted, and one is graduating high school next month with honors and is going to be Pre-Med. #2. It implies that breastfeeding requires the child to be attached to the breast, no matter what age. Seriously?! You MUST have your 4 year old ON YOUR BREAST? Why not pump into a bottle if you are so convinced that your child still needs your milk? I admit it is not sexual but it is not appropriate either. When a child has arrived at a social age where they are learning about males and females, PRIVATE PARTS, and where babies come from, it is no longer appropriate for the child to be suckling your breast. If you still feel the MISGUIDED need to feed your child breastmilk, use a bottle. If you are so disinclined to separate your child from your breast, it causes me (and most of society) to wonder for whose benefit are you really doing this? The child’s or yours?
I feel that this is a poorly written article and the two main topics have nothing to do with one another. I am happily married heterosexual with a one year old at home. Your statement that most gay people are just like us is false and your uneducated view of the homosexual community should be refined. All gay people are just like us and many people like you are the reason there are gay pride parades. They have to fight just to fit into daily society when they have done nothing wrong or unacceptable in the first place. Just found love wherever it happened for them. Wow
Thanks for your comment, Beth. I think I tied two points together very clearly at the end. Pride Parades and Controversial Covers both try to shock audiences into supporting a cause, that’ snot the way to do it.
I prefer to be inclusive when including my gay friends, if you want to draw a line and say they’re different, that’s your prerogative. I just prefer to accept people as people instead of trying to say black/white/straight/gay. People are people.
I love this website. Always gets people thinking and stirred up.
Yes, people are people. But the truth is it doesn’t always work that way in the real world. Some people get to be people and speak simply as a person; others of us are going to be seen a representatives of whatever categories people peg us into. It’s a privilege to be seen as an individual, too be able to not speak on behalf a community, to be able to make mistakes without worrying that others will be judged on those mistakes just because they share a single characteristic, etc. Most of us have that privilege in some ways- as a male, as a white person, as a straight person, as a heterosexual, as an able-bodied person, etc. When you criticize gay pride parades in this way you are denying the individuality of those participating and asking them to behave not as themselves, but as representatives of a community. I’m not asking you to give up your privilege; you can’t control the way other people view you. I’m just asking you to recognize that you have that privilege and use that knowledge to extend the same privilege to others.
Breast feeding a baby is the most natural and heathy thing you can do for yourself and your baby. Notice I stated BABY a three or foiur year old is not a BABY. I Cant understand why anyone would breast feed at child much past a yr old?: What is the benefit of this?:
I made the mistake of breastfeeding in the break room when my husband brought the baby for feeding at work one day. The were the 3 of us and 3 women sitting apart from one another.All texting on their phones.I had checked in with our HR that there were no regulations regarding this. Out of the 3 ladies present, who I guarantee you never got to see more than an appropriate but low cut blouse would have shown, and yet they all complained to the assistant store manager…wth??I am suppose to feed in a changing room that might be needed at any moment. My Daughter is suppose to eat in the same room as strangers pooping???REALLY? And what human needs privacy to eat?certainly not an infant.Our society seems to be moving backwards on so many levels.What happened to pay your taxes and be yourself??
I see a problem with your argument, which is that I don’t think gay pride parades are intended to convince the non-gay onlookers or passersby of anything at all. I think they are occasions for camaraderie and conviviality and being together in such huge numbers that gay people feel for once like the majority and not the minority, and therefore don’t need to give a crap what anybody thinks.
I agree with your take on the Time magazine cover. I don’t think it does advocates of extended breastfeeding any favors.
Well said. It’s so true that going all out and making a spectacle for a cause is not the right way to go. All that does is make the haters hate even more.