Breast Feeding An 8-Year-Old
Last evening while browsing about the internet to get topic ideas for some new articles I came across the story of Jamie Grumet, the mother of a 3-year-old that was recently featured on the cover of Time Magazine as part of a story about breast feeding children. While these types of circumstances come as a bit of an oddity to many people including myself, the fact of the matter is that parenting in general is a largely personal matter that enables great leeway as to diversity in thought and style. It is most commonly accepted that so long as no physical or psychological harm comes to a child the art of parenting is a concept that has no steadfast rules, for the most part parents are free to raise their children as they see fit.
From a purely psychological perspective it is believed in some quarters that breast feeding children until they are a bit older allows children to assume a greater feeling of security, helping to form a closer bond with their mother through physical contact. While there is much room for discussion as to the validity of this among academics, quite a few embrace the posture that a child breast fed until an older age will flourish intellectually and possess a higher IQ as an adult. While this is all (no pun intended) food for thought, there are those in society that seem to take ideological theories that can be teetering on the line of common sense and push them from great heights to a idiotic existence in the wasteland far below.
This brings us to the case of Veronica Robinson, a mother of two daughters living in Cambria along with her husband of 9 years. Ms. Robinson breast fed her eldest daughter Bethany until the age of 5, and is currently breast feeding her nearly 8-year-old daughter Elisa. The children enjoy drawing pictures of their mother's breasts and have gone so far as to create nicknames for them. According to Ms. Robinson the children "feel as though they own them" and are basically free to breast feed at will. This mother implies that the breast feeding cannot and will not go on indefinitely, and implies that once the children leave home all of this will cease. The interview was part of a documentary posted in several parts on YouTube - it can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxv6R9fUO74
As stated earlier there is a wide berth granted to parents in terms of what is deemed acceptable within society and permitted by law, but surely there has to be a majority of the populace that is in disagreement with Ms. Robinson's views on parenting - at least in this portion of the task. One can only wonder what message is being sent to a young and impressionable mind that allows and encourages any individual unimpeded access to the physical being of another human at will. I personally can't wait to hear the views of others on this, at least to me, troubling display.
