《時代》封面登三歲男童吃母乳照惹爭議大綱
Shocking or no big deal? A woman breastfeeding her 3-year-old son is the cover photo of this week's Time magazine for a story on "attachment parenting," and reactions ranged from applause to cringing to shrugs.
The photo showed Jamie Lynne Grumet, 26, a stay-at-home mom in Los Angeles who says her mother breastfed her until she was 6 years old. She told the magazine in an interview that she's given up reasoning with strangers who see her son nursing and threaten "to call social services on me or that it's child molestation."
"People have to realize this is biologically normal," she said, adding, "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."
Some questioned why the magazine used the photo of Grumet, a slim blonde pretty enough to be a model, to illustrate a story about a style of childrearing that's been around for a generation. The issue includes a profile of the attachment parenting guru, Dr. Bill Sears, who wrote one of the movement's bibles, "The Baby Book," 20 years ago.
Mika Brzezisnki, co-host of MSNBC's weekday morning program "Morning Joe," suggested on the air that the cover was needlessly sensational: "I'll tell you why it bothers me — because it's a profile of Bill Sears!"
On Twitter, the cover inspired X-rated jokes along with concerns that the child might be teased when he's older. But on many message boards, there was debate about whether it's OK to breastfeed beyond babyhood.
Bobbi Miller, a mother of six who lives in Arkansas, expressed disapproval in a tweet and said in a phone interview, "Even a cow knows when to wean their child." Of the cover, she said: "Why would this even be out there? It's ludicrous. It's almost on the verge of voyeurism."
But Bettina Forbes, co-founder of an organization called Best for Babes that promotes breastfeeding and supports women who want to nurse their children beyond babyhood, said she hopes the cover "will make mainstream America less squeamish" about women breastfeeding children of any age. "It's high time we talk about these things," she said.
Reaction to the cover underscored a cultural rift between traditional childrearing and what some have deemed "extreme parenting." The attachment philosophy encourages mothers to respond to their babies' every cry and form close bonds with near-constant physical contact through "co-sleeping" (letting them sleep in the bed with parents rather than in cribs) and "baby-wearing" (carrying them on slings instead of pushing them in strollers).感到震驚還是覺得沒什麼大不了？本週《時代》雜誌的封面照片是一位正在給3歲的兒子餵母乳的女性，講述了有關“親密育兒法”的故事。封面引發強烈反響，有人擊掌叫好，也有人極爲反感。
封面照上的人物是26歲的傑米-林恩-格魯梅特，她住在洛杉磯，是一位全職媽媽。她說自己吃母乳吃到六歲。她告訴該雜誌，有些陌生人看到她母乳餵養，還威脅“向社會福利機構舉報”，說這是“兒童性騷擾”，但她已經懶得做出解釋。
她說：“人們應該認識到，這是生理上的正常現象。這種現象越常見，在我們的文化中就越正常。這正是我所希望的，我希望人們看到它。”
有些人質疑爲什麼雜誌使用格魯梅特的照片來詮釋這種已經持續了一個世代的育兒方式，因爲她是個苗條的金髮美女，足以成爲模特。這期雜誌還介紹了“親密育兒法”的大師比爾-西爾斯博士。他在20年前出版了論述這種育兒方式的權威著作《親密育兒百科》。
美國全國廣播公司工作日早間節目《早安，喬伊》的搭檔主持米卡•布熱津斯基在廣播中宣稱這種封面是沒有意義的煽情。她說：“我會告訴你們爲什麼我討厭它，因爲這是在說比爾-西爾斯！”
有人在推特上也拿這期封面開起了限制級玩笑，也有人擔心封面上的兒童長大後會因此被嘲笑。嬰兒期過後是否還可以哺乳的問題在衆多留言板上激起熱議。
阿肯色州一位六歲孩子的母親鮑比-米勒在推特上表達了反對意見，她在電話採訪中說：“哪怕是母牛都知道什麼時候該斷奶了。”談到封面時，她說：“爲什麼還會刊登這種照片？這太荒唐了，和性騷擾差不多。”
但貝蒂娜-福布斯說，她希望這期封面會讓主流的美國大衆對母親給多大的孩子母乳餵養不要太“神經質”。她說：“是時候我們該討論討論這些事情了。”她是促進母乳餵養的組織“爲了孩子好”的創辦人之一，該組織支持那些在嬰兒期後仍給孩子母乳餵養的女性。
對封面的反應讓人們看到了傳統育兒方式和有些人眼中的“極端育兒法”之間的文化裂痕。親密育兒法鼓勵母親們對寶寶的每次哭喊都做出迴應，通過頻繁的親密身體接觸建立親子關係，比如讓孩子和父母“同睡”在一張牀上，而不是睡在嬰兒牀裏，或者用嬰兒揹帶抱孩子，而不是用嬰兒車推着他們。
