May 28, 2019

"I started keeping a log of funny things said, including, 'I saved some for Little Goo' (her sister), and 'can I have some mau to warm me?'"

"It turned out something I was initially ashamed of doing ultimately felt normal. Her current vocabulary for it is 'Mom can I have a teeny?,' as in 'a teeny sip.' When she asks for 'more teeny' it sounds exactly like 'martini' — to her, it’s always five o’clock somewhere.... What if more of us came out of our boxes and shared our stories? We’d evolve past harmful judgment — and have a few more laughs."

Writes Liza Monroy in "Breast-feeding a 3.5-year-old isn’t creepy, it’s hilarious" (WaPo).

55 comments:

Lincolntf said...

My brother had a 2 year old girl when his son was born. The son was named the same as his father, grandfather and great grandfather, so he was the 4th. Our family was bemused that we'd have yet another "Jim" in the family. But, when he was born, his older sister pronounced "Boy" as "Booey" and that's what she called him. He has been called "Boo" or "Booey" ever since, including a stint in the Marines. One of his baseball coaches once asked me where the hell he got the nickname and got a kick out of it.

Howard said...

This is how mothers milk becomes a gateway drug to heroin

Pianoman said...

Lifestyles Of The Rich And Brain Dead

Lucid-Ideas said...

Little known but equally as important as his more well-known work was Darwin's late-in-life psychological treatise on the evolution of adult pathologies, On The Origin Of The Snowflakes. Failure to ween is in Chapter 3 page 5 under, 'You should probably stop right about now'.

J. Farmer said...

Rose of Sharon would approve.

JEP said...

I remember my surprise when the breast of a woman I had just started dating yielded a mouthful of milk, and realized her son was 5 and in school. Last date.

stevew said...

Is this part of the make up of a Great Mom?

I try not to be but it seems being judgmental of others is a human trait.

tim maguire said...

Hilarious or not, the rule is clear. If the child can ask for it, the child is too old.

Dave Begley said...

No, it's creepy. Maybe worse than that.

Milwaukie guy said...

I remember when Bernadine Dohrn resurfaced. Interviews always made a point of her breastfeeding her child, which I thought was weird. I was at a coming out party for her and Bill at Bill's brother's house. Bernadine was holding court in the kitchen when a four year-old came in, climbed into her lap, pulled up her blouse and started feeding. No wonder it was always mentioned.

Rick.T. said...

Try donuts. A friend's 2 yo grandchild got his first donut holes a while back. Now when you ask if he wants some banana/apple/strawberries/whatever, it's always: "No thank you. Donuts!" Full marks for politeness, though.

Fernandinande said...

She should write some of the funny things which were said.

MadisonMan said...

Can't it be creepy and hilarious?

The hilarity is in the justification, IMO.

My name goes here. said...

Unknown said:
"I remember my surprise when the breast of a woman I had just started dating yielded a mouthful of milk, and realized her son was 5 and in school. Last date."

Can I have her number? I mean she is available, right?

I am not laslo.

ALP said...

Yes, breastfeeding toddlers IS funny, providing you are not the one doing so. My sister breast fed her daughter until 3 or so. The three of us were in a store one day, when my niece decides she wants "boobie". My sister says "No you have to wait until mommy is done here..." My niece throws her body to the ground, writhing, screaming: "I WANT BOOBIE I WANT BOOBIE I WANT BOOBIE" at the top of her lungs. Makes a huge scene.

I quietly sidled away, laughing "I don't know these people".

Bay Area Guy said...

A few years back in our office, we were casually chatting about raising kids among a group of professionals, nothing fancy, nothing important, when a nice, 40ish woman started going on and on about how much she LOVED breastfeeding, and how much she missed it, and she just wouldn't shut up about it. She was practically in an enraptured state.

We started chuckling a bit, she saw it, got embarrassed and finally shut up.

I always thought the primary purpose of breastfeeding was to, you know, FEED the child. I guess sometimes mothers have "secondary" considerations (wink, wink).

tim maguire said...

Milwaukie guy said...
I remember when Bernadine Dohrn resurfaced. Interviews always made a point of her breastfeeding her child, which I thought was weird. I was at a coming out party for her and Bill at Bill's brother's house. Bernadine was holding court in the kitchen when a four year-old came in, climbed into her lap, pulled up her blouse and started feeding. No wonder it was always mentioned.


Was this a 4-year-old Barack Obama?

Rick said...

[So in our culture, why isn’t any choice a consensually breast-feeding duo make a nonissue?]

“It has to do with controlling women’s bodies,” Wilson said at a craft beer house in Santa Cruz, Calif.

So the answer which might lead to understanding is never pursued because adherents are incapable of challenging even obviously false answers.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

Trans-social, today. Progress, tomorrow. The next generation may see fit to attach a stylized breast to their bumper.

SweatBee said...

"Hilarious or not, the rule is clear. If the child can ask for it, the child is too old."

That's an incredibly dumb "rule." Even newborns can use their body language to ask for it.

rehajm said...

Can I have some mau to warm me?

Worst pick up line ever.

robother said...

A tale more titillating than scintillating.

MayBee said...

People doing the creepy thing are never good judges of what's creepy.

Tomcc said...

Larry David: call your office!

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

as you age,
there's something to be said for a short-term mammary

n.n said...

Ludicrous. Is the issue social, biological, or psychological? There comes a time to wean your baby, then child, ...

Humperdink said...

Amish women never run dry.

M said...

No it’s creepy. But these are the same people who support trans reading to kids in public libraries so they wouldn’t understand why it’s creepy.

Jeff said...

Bitty

dbp said...

""Breast-feeding a 3.5-year-old isn’t creepy, it’s hilarious""

Could be both or neither. Creepiness and hilarity are in the mind of the creeped-out or amused aren't they? If I am rolling on the floor laughing, you aren't going to talk me out of thinking it is funny. Similarly with creepy.

Playing the odds, a little research showed that only 30% of moms keep up breastfeeding out to a year, so 3.5 years has got to be much more rare. And it probably seems even rarer than that because a fair number of the 3.5ers have enough social intelligence to be too embarrassed to talk about it. Rareness alone doesn't make things creepy, but it is an important element.

chuck said...

My grandfather was breastfed until he was four. That would have been back in the 1880's.

Birches said...

My 3 and a half year old follows me around the house because she misses me. It drives me nuts sometimes. I wouldn't want to give her a legitimate reason to need me when I'm trying to get things done.

iowantwo said...

I saved some for little Goo

I don't approve of condoning baby talk, and nick names. That's fairly new phenomenon, in our culture. Given names serve a purpose. My wifes sister and husband used nick names for their children and I thought it kept them at infants far too long. We never used baby talk past a few months. Our kids entered Kindergarten with 5th grade vocabulary. The grandkids have been raised the same, and they to, speak, much older than their age.

In mammals the term 'weening' refers to weening the mother, not the offspring. That answers the creepy question. Kids are not self feeding on breast milk. Mothers are force feeding breast milk.

Breezy said...

Aren't people able to remember things as far back as when they were 2 yrs old or so? Would that be a good memory to have?

Scott M said...

Back during one of the iterations of AA's comment verifications, I remember we had to type the word in the box to be considered an actual human. I kept a file of those because while they were all different, they were generated by the same algorithm and, thus, had a certain similarity to them.

I have used them as names for alien characters in a novel :)

wwww said...

This is none of my business. An acquaintance, who has five children, let her children wean themselves. She is Mormon, and has researched the history of breastfeeding and Mormon women -- very into the subject. Some of her kids breastfed until 3 years. When they got older they infrequently breastfed, mostly in the evening at home. Some kids regress when the baby is born and pretend to be a baby. Lots of stuff can harm kids, but occasionally breastfeeding at 2 or 3 year old, at home, does not strike me as a harmful.

It's not my business nor my place to judge. A little breastmilk at bedtime is not going to hurt a 3 year old, as long as the kid eats solids and gets enough iron. Her kids are now all past that stage, all doing well in school, and seem happy, so whatever.

FullMoon said...

I read the article.

I think the author is promoting someone else's book, did a phone interview, and then made up the rest of the story.

mockturtle said...

It's a practice in many cultures to breastfeed until four or five years old. Personally, I don't like to see it but it's really none of my business. There are a lot of cultural variations that turn my stomach.

Amadeus 48 said...

As the Instapundit likes to say, "The Return of the Primitive" was not intended to be a how-to manual.

RK said...

It's not creepy until the child hits puberty. Then I'd say it's kinda creepy.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Papa pap hmm a mau mau mau
papa hmm mau mau
dip dip dip
dip dip dip
Translate please....

reader said...

Everyone knows that breast feeding for a year is the right way to go because that is what I did and so must obviously be the right way to go.

Bonus, this did allow us to completely skip dealing with bottles in our house. Yay! I really am lazy.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Papa pap hmm a mau mau mau
papa hmm mau mau
dip dip dip
dip dip dip
Translate please....



Funniest sound I ever heard, but I can't understand a single word.
Well is he he serious or is he playin?
Oom mau mau is all he's sayin'!


(With apologies to The Rivingtons)

Saint Croix said...

The risk for breast cancer is reduced by 50 percent by breastfeeding your baby for 2 or more years.

A study in Bangladesh found that abortion increased your risk of breast cancer by 2000%.

Also virgins and nuns are more likely to get breast cancer than moms.

Nature wants women to have sex, reproduce, and breast feed.

Amadeus 48 said...

Ok. Ok. OK!

I’ll suck those things as long as you want.

alanc709 said...

Maybe we should introduce this mom breastfeeding her 3.5 year old child, to the Belgian couple that insisted on feeding their 2 year old a Vegan diet.

iowantwo said...

Several have opined here that it was not uncommon for older cultures to nurse children up to 4 or 5 years of age. Google draws a blank. My reasoning tells me that older cultures, women reproduced fairly quickly. Much sooner than every 4 years. That would prevent them from nursing an older child in favor of an infant. I would be interested of cites about older cultures practices.

FullMoon said...

Several have opined here that it was not uncommon for older cultures to nurse children up to 4 or 5 years of age. Google draws a blank. My reasoning tells me that older cultures, women reproduced fairly quickly. Much sooner than every 4 years. That would prevent them from nursing an older child in favor of an infant

Heck, the authoress nursed the baby and the toddler while she typed out the essay.

Must be true, or she wouldn't have wrote it, am I right?

Seeing Red said...

A study in Bangladesh found that abortion increased your risk of breast cancer by 2000%.

There was a study here, too, but I don’t think the increase was 2000%.

mockturtle said...

Several have opined here that it was not uncommon for older cultures to nurse children up to 4 or 5 years of age. Google draws a blank. My reasoning tells me that older cultures, women reproduced fairly quickly. Much sooner than every 4 years. That would prevent them from nursing an older child in favor of an infant. I would be interested of cites about older cultures practices.

Iowantwo: Of course a mother could nurse both a toddler and an infant. Lactation is a supply/demand function. Otherwise, twins would have starved. However, breastfeeding suppresses ovulation in most cases and is a natural form of birth control.

daskol said...

Breastfeeding toddlers is quirky. Creepy is suckling someone else's baby, without mom's permission, when you aren't even giving milk. In the coat room at a party.

tim maguire said...

SweatBee said...
"Hilarious or not, the rule is clear. If the child can ask for it, the child is too old."

That's an incredibly dumb "rule." Even newborns can use their body language to ask for it.


That’s an incredibly dumb take. Do I even have to explain why? (I get so tired of this sort of deliberately obtuse bullshit from people who just want to be jerks. What’s the matter with you?)

Chris N said...

Once we allow women and children to become liberated from the old, oppressive ways, this kind of thing will become acceptable.

Maybe even the norm.

Norms need to be enforced with authority, and every individual, seeking liberation, will have their own authority. Individuals in institutions with scientific and governmental authority will require special authority, however. Even if these individuals got that authority be co-opting authority and claiming there is no special, nor even valid, authority.

Don’t worry, this will work itself out on a long enough time horizon.

Hop on the train and grab a teat!

Nichevo said...

Wasn't this addressed in Game of Thrones? In the sky kingdom when Tyrion Lannister was defended by that rogue...wasn't the mad mom suckling the mad boy-lordling?