• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

When To Stop Breast Feeding

liveinabin

liveinabin

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Oct 19, 2001
Messages
1,921
Is it me or is this just plain wrong

Is it me or is this woman just a bit twisted

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_654875.html?menu=news.weirdworld.badtaste

US prosecutor challenges mother's breast-feeding of 8-year-old son


US prosecutors are trying to force a woman to stop breast-feeding her eight-year-old son.

Judge Ann Einhorn has warned Lynn Stuckey, against continuing the practice and has set future court dates to consider the prosecutor's petition claiming neglect.

She lets her son nurse once every 10 days, a practice she calls natural, child-led weaning, though she's unsure whether she still produces milk.

The state took custody of the boy in July 2000 after a babysitter called a child-abuse hot line, and he remained in foster care for several months. Judge Einhorn had approved his homecoming, saying Ms Stuckey was no longer nursing.

The single mother appeared on a morning talk show last month to discuss her situation, the first time she was identified publicly. The programme included a tape of the boy while suckling.

"I think people need to see me and my child and realise that this is a perfectly normal practice," Stuckey said.

"We are your standard middle-class American family, and we're not doing anything wrong."

About a week later, prosecutor John Piland filed the petition, which alleges that Stuckey has neglected her son by placing him at risk of emotional harm; failed to correct the conditions that triggered the foster care two years ago; and exposed him to ridicule by showing the tape.

The petition does not bring criminal charges, instead asking the judge to intervene under the state's juvenile laws. The judge could terminate parental rights, but Mr Piland would not say whether he'll seek that
 
I guess it could be discribed as Natural bahaviour, just not Normal bahaviour.

The woman is just a tad barmy IMO and probably hasnt been lactating for many years.
 
Let me guess. This woman is one of these new age hippys that believe that there is nothing wrong with anything "natural" Well incest is natural, does that make it right? Therefor child abuse could be considered natural (just look at the benobo chimps)
The problem with these people is the double standards that surround their lifestyle.
This paticular case is sick, She doesnt even believe that she is producing milk so why is it a regular occurance? For pleasure? Thats the only logical explanation, now for whos pleasure is it for? Thats the question Id like answered. That poor child is going to grow up with some serious problems.
 
It's not natural, because even in the most unsophisticated human society, a child of 8 would have been weaned years previously and just would not need breast feeding.


Carole
 
carole said:
It's not natural, because even in the most unsophisticated human society, a child of 8 would have been weaned years previously and just would not need breast feeding.


Carole
Click to expand...


The sad thing is Carole that people like this always seem to be able to justify their actions as being normal. Having dealt with a lot of these new age hippy types my guess is her response to your above post would be "Im the childs mother, and Its my right as a mother to give my child nourishment" Something to that measure.
Its pretty disturbing when you compare this to the Benobo chimp.
The Benobo is the most peacfull (known) primate on the face of the earth and it is common for familys to engage in sexual acts together. These primates only breast feed till the child is around 4 years old.
I just want to know where this womans cut off point is. Soon that kid is going to be a teenager and he will have a lot different reactions to sucking on his mothers breast.
 
The awful ridicule he faces from his peers will be bad enough.

He's on the way to serial killerdom, no doubt about it.
 
I don't know if it's this way anywhere else, but in American culture, a woman's breasts are almost always seen as sexual in some way, even when she is breast-feeding. Our national obsession with sex and our peurile addiction to pornographic images of the female body make it nearly impossible for women to breastfeed anywhere but in their homes. Attempting to breastfeed becomes extremely inconvenient at best. While many workplaces have lactation rooms, very few other public places have private space available for breast feeding. And women who do attempt to breast-feed in a public place, under the cover of a baby blanket or shawl, run the risk in many places of being arrested for indecent exposure.

Hearing of a woman forcing her 8 year old son to suck her tits and call it breastfeeding is bound to cause even more confusion and revulsion in a populace already too ambivalent about the benefits of breast feeding. Another unfortunate effect of this woman defending her actions as "normal" is that people who don't understand breast feeding will further look at it as perversion, rather than the most healthy way to nourish an infant.
 
Tattoo Ted said:
Hearing of a woman forcing her 8 year old son to suck her tits and call it breastfeeding is bound to cause even more confusion and revulsion in a populace already too ambivalent about the benefits of breast feeding.
Click to expand...

HAHA You have a way with words :)
 
Firstly, IIRC there are various peoples (tribes) who continue breastfeeding, dry or not, well into the child's 4th year. This woman may well have started on that line, especially as it can aid in contraception. I'll see if I can find a source.

Edit in.
This was the first non-western study I found on google
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/grhf/SAsia/suchana/0702/puri.html

Secondly, it strikes me that it was more abusive to remove the child from the mother and put it into care.

The assumption seems to have been that the mother was doing it as a cheap thrill, on what evidence? Was the feeding taking place at the child's convenience or was it at the mother's insistance? There appears to have been no other form of sensual contact and reports of this nature would almost certainly try to titilate (no pun intended) their readership if there was.

How did the babysitter find out? If it was the child asking for suck with the mother absent then the child was almost certaintly the initiator of the behavior. If it was because the mother was giving suck when the babysitter arrived then it indicates little sensual or sexual intent. Only if the mother was surprised in the behavior and attempting to hide it could a sexual motive safely be infered.

In any case the child is going to be made to feel *dirty* at the reaction of society to what he may have regarded as *normal* behavior.

I do not condone what this woman did but do not jump to conclusions about something that may only be weird, not perverted.
 
intaglio I agree with what you said but just because the mother may not force the kid to suck her breast doesnt mean there isnt anything wrong with it.
Many kids that are abused go along with it because they dont know thats its wrong or that they are being used. This could constitutes that, child abuse.
I dont however think the kid should be taken away. I do think the mother should be closely monitored and perhaps sent to a school for some lessons on whats appropriate mother child behaviour. Were not living in the Kenyan desert unfortunately for her.
 
I agree totally about "apparent consent" but in this case with the following caveat;

Two questions must be answered
1) was the mother obtaining sexual gratification from this?
2) was the mother deriving a position of dominance from this?

If the answers to both questions is no then can we say abuse took place even if consent was only apparent?

Mind you even if consent was reasoned then answering yes to either of those two questions still makes it abuse.

If it was not abuse you also run into the problem that being different does not make a behavior wrong. If we start saying that then how long before people who post on this board are watched, regulated, brought in for interview and perhaps put on a register of those who are not normal. How far are we allowed to depart from normal behavior, without causing harm, before we are punished.
 
If the answers to those two questions are no then the only logical explanation for her doing this is because the child likes it. I would then think that the mother still is at fault here cos she should tell her kid that since hes past a certain age that this isnt appropriate behaviour anymore and just because he wants to suck on his mothers breasts doesnt mean he can do it. When I was 8 there were a few things id of liked to have done to girls breasts but I knew right from wrong.
I mean for god sake get that kid a dummy tit (pacifier to the yanks) or hes going to be one messed up kid.
 
Plain wrong

they need help. the mother seperately. the child seperately.especially evaluation for mother befor anymore contact then continued conselling-monoriting.
 
If the answers to those two questions are no then the only logical explanation for her doing this is because the child likes it. I would then think that the mother still is at fault here cos she should tell her kid that since hes past a certain age that this isnt appropriate behaviour anymore
Click to expand...
Let's face it, surely the kid would be better off with a Game Boy Advance, or even a Nintendo Game Cube, or a Sony PlayStation II. Mind you, the mother probably thinks that would have a negative effect on him.
 
I have a false? mammary of a case of such ultra-late weaning in
the UK. Later than eight years - I think the lad was eleven and
concern was being raised over the habit continuing into his
secondary school days.

The mammary may have been implanted by a newspaper report
yet something tells me it was on the telly and depicted in the
flesh! :eek:
 
I'm unable to get to a right/wrong position myself on this and suspect there are factors as yet unrevealed. But, the knee-jerk 'it's nature after all' is hogwash. What is natural is for a parent to have a period of lactation (if that's a real word), and for the infant to suckle during that period. And the question is what is that period? Given that most breastfeeders do seem to 'dry-up' 'naturally', it would seem that nature intends sucklng to cease at that point. It varies of course but 8 years seems unlikely.
I'm not saying it's wrong, but claiming 'it's natural' is merely a way of avoiding the tougher, more relevant questions.
 
"Two questions which must be answered:
1) was the mother obtaining sexual gratification from this?
2) was the mother deriving a position of dominance from this"


I disagree that either of these questions needs to be answered as neither is germane to the issue of harm to the child. Why is the mother's motivation of such importance that you feel it MUST be determined?

If the mother was beating the child because she felt it was the best way to raise a well-adjusted adult, was authorized by the Bible and did not rise to the level of child abuse would it make any difference that she had innocent and even worthwhile (best way to achieve well-adjusted) motives when she laid on the strap?
 
I would say its a fair assumption to class tit sucking as a sexual act if the breast is no longer producing milk. So whats the difference between him sucking his mums breast or something like his fathers penis? Seriously though, think about it. If doing this to his father makes him feel good and the father gets no sexual satisfaction from it does that mean its OK? Not in my book. We as parents owe it to our children to teach them the ways of the world so our kids can grow up and be accepted succesfull adults. Letting your kid suck on parts of your body that are deemed inapropriate in most countries around the world is hardly a good start for the kid, next she will teaching her kid that masturbation is ok and its even ok to do this in public. Im sure this woman doesnt know the potential damage she is doing to her kids future and If I know kids he will probably grow up hating her for it.
 
Absolutely. These are the difficult questions to face up to. The 'Its' natural' pose is a cowardly cop-out. Well done evolved.
 
I agree with Evolved too.
I used to work in a department store in a small department. I was talking to a woman and her child (about three) when she asked if I minded if she fed her child . I said that was fine assuming that she meant she was going to get a yoghurt or something out of her bag. No, she turned to the child and said "do you want some cow milk or Mummy milk"? "Mummey milk" replied the kid. So she sat down got her tit out and started to breast feed this kid. Now I have no problem with women breastfeeding their babies, because you can't tell a baby to wait, and it's only sexual if you make it so. But to breast feed a walking talking three year old is just odd.

If the child can ask for it, it's time to stop.
 
You guys are all cracking me up, the lot of you! Liveinabin's last bit was great! Not that I disagree; on the contrary, I'm 100% with you all. It's just that it's a sad state when we have to even express why it's screwed up. I think it's manifest the Mom's clueless.

Breastfeeding in public is asking for trouble, though: did you ever see Me, Myself, and Irene?
 
Let me just make this clear, I compleatly support breastfeeding in public. Where I work now I sit with customers in a booth and I have dealt with a number of people while they have breastfed their baby. Hell I'd much rather they did that than the kid sceamed it's head off.
 
liveinabin said:
Hell I'd much rather they did that than the kid sceamed it's head off.
Click to expand...
Amen to that!

Only slightly off-topic: I was at the supermarket checkout today when the c/o girl seemed to become distracted (I thought she'd just seen a friend or something). But then she asked "Did you see that? A little boy just wee'd on the outside of the window!"

Somebody once asked "What use is a baby?", and this is supposed to be profoundly philosophical. But I think we've all had that thought sometimes!
 
Somebody once asked "What use is a baby?", and this is supposed to be profoundly philosophical. But I think we've all had that thought sometimes!
Click to expand...
I think that was Jonathan Swift? He provided an answer of sorts, as well.
 
I do not exclude the posibility of abuse. In fact I rather think it was.
But I strongly object to the assumption that what is not "normal" is in some way criminal

Also I am not saying it is natural to do such things, but humans are forever doing things that are not natural.

It was not the questions that were important it was the consent in relation to the 2 questions that was germane.

If consent was Forced Consent (the child bases the consent on the premise "I get punished if I don't do that") then it is abusive no matter what the answer to the questions.

If consent were Apparent (the child bases on "I don't like doing it but I think my *parent* wants me to") then it may be abusive but that would be for the courts to decide the mothers motives. Even if the motives were pure it would still be abusive if the mother were aware of the faulty basis of the consent or if the process were doing harm

If consent is Reasoned (the child bases on "I like doing this,") then it is still abusive if the mother is getting sexual pleasure or dominance from the process or if the process is doing harm

Informed consent does not enter the picture. The child does not have enough experience of culture to make an informed choice.

Imagine the following situation. I in no way suggest that this is what happened.
----------------------------------------------------
The mother continues to give suck into the childs 2nd year - this is biologically, if not culturally, acceptable. The weaning period begins and the child is removed from the breast, but insists on returning from time to time - remember weaning is not a yesterday I fed you, today eat your hamburger process.

At what point is giving suck completely discontinued?

At what point does a (possibly) ill educated mother call a halt if there is no harm? There is the problem of habituation (people get used to doing something) for both mother and child.
---------------------------------------------------
 
"What use is a baby?"

The example I was thinking of was Faraday's retort when, after explaing his early discoveries in electromagnetism, somebody asked him "But what use is it?"

Well, Faraday's baby has really grown up now - in fact, you wouldn't be reading these words without electromagnetic technology!
 
"What use is a baby?"
Click to expand...
I was thinking of Swift's A Modest Proposal, where he advocated that the baby's of the Irish poor be raised to feed the rich. It was a savage piece of satire, back then, and not seriously meant!
 
'Breastfeeding in public is asking for trouble, though: did you ever see Me, Myself, and Irene?' -torgospizza.

Despite, my poo-pooing of the 'it's natural' cliche earlier, I would like to say to torgospizza 'you are well wrong, it's natural'. Far more natural than letting valueable living time slip away watching inane pseudo-comedy in fact. Do you ever venture into the countryside? Things are going on there which would disgust you. Cows going bra-less, sheep ignoring the booths provided for breast-feeding their lambs, and the portaloos stand empty!
Now, our society prefers some natural things to have a time and place and privacy. That's fine and fitting to superior intellect, sensibilities, respect for others, hygiene awareness etc etc. but not at any price surely.
We have advanced technology and communication, we design our environment, communities, etc etc etc.etc etc. We have systems to track and recover stolen cars. A media plea after the Rainbow puppets were stolen led to Mr Geoffrey getting them back.
Yet, we still fail to keep our children safe. On the score of good parenting we are shamed by many fellow creatures, don't you think? Crying babies annoy, suckling ones offend, a few years on and they might seek their own identity with no regard for parents public embarrassment.
There's no need for extremes, but perhaps if rearing the next generation was seen as something to be applauded not offended by, and made central to community not excluded we might have fewer tragedies.
And who knows? There might follow a bit more contentment, and stop us feeling life has so little purpose that we reach the real dregs of Blockbuster video.
 
PS Intaglio, I don't think you were accused as you say. It was the second poster that knee-jerked and played the 'nature' card, in order to dodge the very issues you raise.
Criminality however, and how natural / unnatural our behaviour is, aren't really linked. Given our 'animal' status it is hardly natural to be at war with our planet, even less to actually plot its destruction. Yet, are Bush or his owners in the oil business criminals? Well, that's a very tricky question in the sense of not.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top