Well, they’re getting a lot of attention for this, but John Edwards is also getting a lot of press these days so I guess why people are talking about you really does matter. Supposedly for a story about “Extreme Parenting,” this will be in the magazine stands at your checkout counter in the grocery story. Will some mistake this for incest? Is this not child pornography because the cover says it’s a woman and her child? I suppose the silver lining is all the pervs and child molesters in your neighborhood will all be huddled around the same spot in your supermarket this week.
I think it’s safe to say you all know I lead what some would call an ‘alternative lifestyle.’ Which is something you can do and still lead your life with dignity. So, let’s just say we’re not a bunch of prudes here but we do have standards. I find this outrageous.
ACTION: I would suggest you speak with your store manager and ask them simply to put the magazine in a place where it is not visible. Then, if people want it, they can simply ask for it. Also, at the link to the story above, leave your comments at Time Magazine regarding what you think of this.
Wow, that’s some sick s**t! Was my first reaction. On the cover of Time? Geez what have we come to? Yeah, not exactly suited for the grocery store check out line. Unbelievable!
This. is. disgusting. Someone needs to call Child Protective Services….
it’s prolly just another cry for attention for a dying defunct irrelevant magazine to attract more readers..it’s gonna backfire just like all the other times they’ve done this crap.
I’m shocked that the TIME cover wasn’t MORE explicit. It’s all a deliberate, calculated media/social conditioning/brainwashing technique to breakdown society’s social mores. The next cover? ‘Why not an Abortion or Execution?’ the editors ask during their conference calls.
posted 5/10 110pm Texas[It’s Evolution!]Time
Wow! I am seriously shocked by that cover. Time Magazine has reached a new low or lower than it already was. Good grief!
I got “next” on the chair. 😉 *(I know it’s tasteless, but I couldn’t resist… please forgive me TAMs).
Make sure you ‘Keep Your Hands to Yourself’
I thought I was the only slob in here thinking that. I’m glad you were first.
I am a believer in nursing babies. I am also aware there are mothers that continue to nurse their children well past the children being toddlers. There was a situation I was aware of where a mother began nursing her 5 year old daughter in front of people. Personally, I feel this is beyond an appropriate age where nursing should be going on. I say “personally”, because I THINK that I am right. I Do Not KNOW that I am right. I do like giving “Hooter Hiders” as baby shower gifts. Again, TAMs, I find myself troubled. So happy you TAMs are there to help me sort things out.
I’m glad you opened up this question to other TAMs. Here’s what the “experts” say:
The American Academy of Pediatrics currently (2005) recommends: “Pediatricians and parents should be aware that exclusive breastfeeding is sufficient to support optimal growth and development for approximately the first 6 months of life and provides continuing protection against diarrhea and respiratory tract infection. Breastfeeding should be continued for at least the first year of life and beyond for as long as mutually desired by mother and child.”
I have to wonder, though, why a mother or child would need or want this after the child is able to move on to more complex foods. Surely it moves into a comfort/bonding reason for the child after that and I would think psychological/emotional development might be affected if it goes on past one year. If we were a society where this would be normal privately and publicly, I think it would be less risky. But if a kid finds out or knows it is an unusual thing to be doing with your mother, I think the effects/issues are similar to incest.
Takes a lot to divert attention from the results of the first term.
Just awful. The kid’s eyes look like he is inquiring to the director, am I doing this right, like it’s a porn shoot. And the camo pants, ugh. What’s that message, men should never grow up?, soldiers should be momma boys? Awful.
That kid is doomed. Ten years, twenty years, thirty years from now…that photo will be following him, haunting him. I bet when he’s dead, people will be taping it to his tombstone.
‘Are you the guy, when you were a kid, posed on the cover of Time magazine with your mouth clamped onto the left teat of some Renée Zellweger look-alike model so your parents could make enough money to pay the mortgage so that the house wouldn’t get foreclosed on since they both lost their jobs in the Obama Depression just to make some vulgar, degenerate, social-psycho political statement dreamed up by the Elite Pissant Media Masterminds?…That’s YOU, right?’
Insert answer here:__________
posted 5/10 355pm Texas[Sigmund Freud] Time
Ten years from now he’ll probably still have her breast in his mouth. IMO women that do this with toddlers are doing it for their own benefit.
If the kid needs her milk at that age, there is a thing called a breast pump.
YEARS ago Tori Amos put a picture inside the jacket of one of her CDs of her holding a baby pig in a position that appeared as if she was breastfeeding it. People were all in an uproar over that. It’s a world of difference where you put a controversial image. Time knew this would be displayed in a place where people really have no choice to see it or not. That’s a visual assault.
For me, this cover concerns me beyond grocery stores. I work in a library and of course Time is one of the magazines we maintain and the latest issue is always face out on a prominent display. Tomorrow, I plan to give the librarian who oversees periodicals a heads up about this cover and maybe the Director as well. Wow! Desperation never looked this nasty.
Per the Daily Mail article about this cover, the woman lives in L.A. and was breastfed by her own mother until the age of 6.
So, it’s a twisted family tradition apparently!
Stopped at my fave grocery store on way home & spoke w/ manager. He was well aware and will be keeping it off the racks & by request only.
I find the photo revolting & sick. Time Magazine is a disgrace for using this as a distraction from the very real dangers this country is experiencing at the hands of the malcontents in charge.
-sm
I think TIME crossed the line in 1939 when they put Adolf Hitler on the cover. Even that wasn’t enough to infuriate people into not buying their tripe.
AniMel, Tripe is something that you can eat. This stuff from the TIME rag is plain inedible rubbish, only fit for lining the bird cage floor.
Tripe is something you CAN eat…but having smelled it, you wouldn’t want to.
At least I wouldn’t.
How do we know that’s her boy?? I’m thinking she’s a model & no mother at all. What mother would do this? Show of hands…? see?–not one.
seriously, it’s not natural for a woman/mother to do this.
My take in any case is that this is child abuse… as a mother, this sickens me. Here is the point, and it ties into the current discussion on why marriage betw man & woman: CHILDREN CANNOT FEND FOR THEMSELVES. THEY MUST BE *PROTECTED.* This stupid woman is free to expose herself (no pun intended) as a BOOB (no pun intended)… but that child has NOT consented; he trusts his ‘mother’ and she throws him to the wolves like this? he’s gonna drag this humiliation around for the rest of his life. Nothing 40 yrs of therapy can’t fix, rite.
and also…anyone with a child knows this kid objected to doing this… imagine the shoot? how many takes? he cooperates happily over and over? i don’t think so. so he’s being forced to do this…and we don’t know that she is his mother… do we? if it comes out she is not the mother, this is criminal. And that kid is not 3. he’s about 5, my guess.
I don’t know what kiddie porn is exactly, but isn’t this that??
Refer to the Daily Mail article “Shocking Time cover shows mother, 26, breastfeeding son, almost four”. The mother has a website which, as you can imagine, has been over capacity for days. As Shellym mentioned above, the mother herself was breastfed until the age of six.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding for at least one year. The La Leche League position is that the mother and her baby should breastfeed for as long as they wish to breastfeed. LLL points out that attitudes about weening after one year are probably culturally induced. Our culture has a fixation on women’s breasts. There is a sense that breastfeeding is improper once the child can talk. Evidently there are no studies indicating extended breastfeeding is harmful to the child in and of itself. The nutritional benefits of breastfeeding after one year diminish.
I breastfed each of my two children for one year. By then they are getting sufficient nourishment from other foods. It seemed to me they were ready to stop.
Even if it is medically and emotionally appropriate to continue breastfeeding to early childhood, the TIME cover pic is still disturbing. It is the composition of the picture. The mother is provocatively posed. The child is decked out in macho clothing. TIME goes out of its way to flaunt cultural taboos of incest. Tammy is right that we should take action to let TIME know they crossed the line.
Divert, divert, divert!
One may want to consider the fact that functional breastfeeding with actual milk production results in larger breasts. This is the mother? Pacifier situation?… Curious…
Why camos instead of a diaper for this ‘3 yr old’? Neither is appropriate and this child is being misused. I dare any caring adult to disagree!
Thanks pat_s, will see article. my issue is not at all with breastfeeding… i’m all for breastfeeding, and ages are another discussion. my issue is dragging this kid onto the cover of a magazine in this manner…by his very own mother, no less!
I agree.
Conservative founder Henry Luce and wife Clare Boothe Luce are likely spinning in their graves.
Thank you Dr Keith Ablow! my sentiments!
It is because of stunts such as this that liberal legacy media is dying a slow death. The people in charge have no regard for taste or standards and must constantly push the boundaries of what is acceptable. But I think that most people are now aware of this process and have opted out of this kind of thing. Thus we see the falling circulation of publications such as Time. Liberal journalists would probably say that their problem is competition from the internet. But then why are more conservative publications like WSJ and IBD able to attract readers? Perhaps it is because they are not going out of their way to antagonize their customers.