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When Does Breastfeeding Become Pedophilia?

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breast_1963596aA few weeks ago, I came across a story about a mother who still breastfeeds her 5-year-old daughter. I’m not really sure why it was newsworthy, but people were shocked to discover a woman feeding her small child the same way all mammals have fed their offspring for eons.

All kinds of bloggers picked up the story, and busybodies jumped in on the comments sections calling the dedicated mother of four every name in the book — “gross” … “disgusting” … “indecent” … “unnatural” … “sinister” … “perverse” … “what’s wrong with the world.”

But to me, the most disturbing accusations hurled at this woman are of “pedophilia” and “child abuse.”

IMG_2877At what age does the most natural, motherly act of nourishing and nurturing a child suddenly transform into pedophilia and child abuse? 4? 5? 6? 7? Seriously? Because if it’s 5, I fear I’ll be bordering on it. My daughter is going on 3 years old, and she’s not even close to being done with her “mama baba.”

There was a time I could not have imagined breastfeeding a 3-year-old. I didn’t know it was even possible. When Nora was about 4 months old, an older, very conservative coworker of mine told me she breastfed her youngest for three years. I was shocked. She was so proper, she didn’t seem like the type who would “put up with” such a thing. She revealed her secret only after I told her, half asking, “Nora will definitely be done by 12 months… right?”

IMG_3771I had no plans

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of weaning her. I just figured if she started tasting solids at 6 months, she’d gradually prefer them and switch to them entirely by 12. I’d never heard of anyone breastfeeding for longer than that. Actually, I hadn’t really known many breastfeeding mothers at all.

Today, I laugh at my naivete. I think it’s safe to say breast milk was still 90 percent of Nora’s diet at two and a half years old. It’s only in the last couple of months that she’s finally given in and started taking more than two bites of anything, if I can even get her to try a first bite.IMG_0118

I want to pull my hair out when I see people post comments about this woman “psychologically damaging” her child by “forcing her breasts down her throat.” The only thing I’ve ever tried to force down Nora’s throat is solid food – I even tried yogurt in a medicine dropper once – and trust me, it can’t be done. It just gets spit right back out at you.

Nora actually seemed to increase her breastfeeding around two and a half, as if it were her last, desperate attempt to ward off solid food. The more I pushed her away, the more she demanded “baba.” She would try to nurse all night to make up for insufficient calories from solids during the day.

IMG_1609Brad and I would wake up to screaming and crying every morning, after I’d finally roll away from her. I’d beg her to let me sleep, and she’d scream for me to “make more milk in the babas.” I’d tell her it was gone, and that I’d put her in the hallway if she didn’t stop waking Mommy and Daddy up. Then she’d resort to a pathetic whimper and say “please Mom, I really need baba.”

How could I say no to that? By this time each morning, even Brad was begging me to “just give it to her!”

And then one day, out of the blue, she ate one and a half bison hot dogs. I almost cried for joy.

And she hasn’t stopped eating since. It’s like it finally clicked in her head that Mom no longer had enough milk to sustain her growing body and she just gave in. She’s now three months away from 3 and finally down to a couple of feedings throughout the night, and a couple during the day.IMG_1136

It’s very, very gradually decreasing, but at this rate, I don’t see her fully letting go of her most prized possessions until at least 4.

Will that make me a pedophile? Because 4 is pretty close to 5. Or am I already a pedophile for nursing an almost-3-year-old?

The World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding for a full 2 years. Does that mean a child should stop on her second birthday? Or is 2.5 still acceptable? Can we give into our children’s demands at 2.75 years of age without being labeled pedophiles?

I wish someone – preferably someone who’s never breastfed at all, or someone who cut it off before the baby could protest too loudly – would just please tell me exactly which day we should let our toddlers cry it out and tell them – “deal with it, you’re never having Mama’s milk again.”

And then, I wish these experts would tell me what we should do with these small children after that day, when they continue to cry for milk, any kind of milk, for days, weeks, or maybe months on end. Because every young child I know wants milk, and most of their parents give into that desire/need in one form or another, whether it’s soy milk, almond milk, coconut milk or factory farmed, pasteurized, homogenized cow’s milk. (Of course there is the occasional, lucky bastard who gets raw, grass-fed cow’s milk, but that is rare.)

Finally, I wish these “experts” would do a little research before they start telling nursing mothers what is best for their babies. They can start by looking up the “natural age of weaning.” Better yet, I’ll do it for them.

Natural Age of Weaning

s-BREASTFEEDING-AGE-largeAccording to researcher, anthropology professor and author of “Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives” Katherine Dettwyler, the natural age of weaning is anywhere between 2.5 and 7. She determines this by looking at what other mammals do in nature, where concern about cultural norms is not an issue. Her findings include the following:

1. Most monkeys and apes wean when they get their first permanent molars, which happens in humans between age 5.5 and 6.

2. Chimpanzees and gorillas nurse their young at least six times the length of gestation. In humans that would be around 4.5 years of nursing.

3. “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 to 7 years.”

4. Most primates wean at about half the age of sexual maturity. In humans, this would be about age 6 or 7.

5. “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.”

Attachment-by-Nathaniel-Gold“The non-human primate data suggest that human children are designed to receive all of the benefits of breast milk and breastfeeding for an absolute minimum of two and a half years, and an apparent upper limit of around seven years,” Dettwyler says in her book.

“Natural selection has favored those infants with a strong, genetically coded blueprint that programs them to expect nursing to continue for a number of years after birth and results in the urge to suckle remaining strong for this entire period.”Time-Magazine

According to The Natural Child Project, “completely child-led weaning is unlikely to take place before the child turns four.”

“For the few who leave behind this part of their babyhood very early it will be in some other behavior that parents will likely see signs of their immaturity for some time yet. They will continue to need babying, but they will need it in other ways … Often they will wean from the breast and cling to other comfort objects.”

Ever wondered why your 3-year-old can’t let go of her pacifier, or why your 6-year-old can’t stop sucking his thumb, or why your 8-year-old freaks out when he can’t find his “blankie” or teddy?

meme1Furthermore, paleolithic, hunter-gather-type people, never weened their young before age 4, as they didn’t have high-heat, high-pressure-extruded, mushy, GMO cereal grains and synthetic Flinstone vitamins to stuff in their kids’ faces. Meat had to be pre-chewed and couldn’t be digested in large enough amounts to satisfy little people without adult teeth. Why do you think “baby” teeth used to be called “milk” teeth?

In pre-industrial peoples – such as Australian aborigines, Greenlanders, Hawaiians, the East Bhutanese, and the Inuit – where traditional diets are still observed, this is still the norm.

Interestingly, the practice serves as a natural birth control, easily allowing families to space children four years apart.
Who’s the freak of nature now?

IMG_2858 So, let’s get one thing straight – if you breastfed for less than 2.5 years, you’re the unnatural one. If you stuck a bottle, or a pacifier, or a thumb in your blankie-holding-baby’s mouth at 6 or 12 or 18 months – or encouraged your wife to – you are the freak of nature, not the lady nursing her 5-year-old. I’m not saying you’re a bad person, or that it was your fault. I’m just saying your behavior was contrary to nature.breastfeeding-177x236

The brave women who are still breastfeeding their 5, 6 and 7-year-olds in this screwed up, industrialized, high-tech world are the most natural women out there, producing the healthiest children, physically and emotionally. Good for them for listening to their children and their instincts instead of ignorant fools calling them pedophiles!

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