Wow.

Touch a nerve with a controversial topic, and suddenly you get comments out the wazoo.

Well, okay, not really. But I hardly ever get commentary from anonymous readers, and I am strangely amused when strangers on the internet throw in their two cents. (I'm not talking about you, adaon45, obviously.)

Let me add a little (okay, a long) disclaimer to the previous post.

I have no moral qualms about extended breastfeeding. I know I mentioned that family members were starting to mutter, but let me state for the record that several of my parenting decisions (co-sleeping, no cry-it-out, etc) meet with disapproval from said members, and I could not care less what they or anyone else think about it. It is my and my husband's business and we make what decisions we feel are best for our family.

To the anonymous commenter: I get what you are saying. I know there are many people uncomfortable with the idea that anyone, particularly a man, will remember nursing. In my experience, however, those who are most vocal about how long a child should breastfeed are the ones who have never actually breastfed a child, and make their decision completely arbitrarily. My sister-in-law, for example, has stated unequivocally that a child who can verbally ask to be nursed is "too old" to nurse.

Why?

No reason. Just because. That's what she's comfortable with.

And if she ever has babies, and that remains her comfort level, that's fine. But for now it's a decision based on a random, culturally-driven opinion, and frankly, I'm going to trust my judgment, based on mothering instinct and experience, over that. (Let's not even get into the fact that children all learn to speak at drastically different rates, so you couldn't even apply a rule like hers universally if you wanted to.)

I would disagree with the idea that men are naturally obsessed with breasts. There are still a few primitive cultures on earth in which it is normal for women to go topless, and I don't hear anything about the men in those cultures being constantly overcome with raving lust at the sight. The obsession with breast-as-sex-toy is an entirely societal one, one of many unhealthy misconceptions fostered by a consumer-engine that knows sex sells, sells, sells so better get people wired from an early age to crave, crave, crave it. Make no mistake - marketing decides what is sexy. If Madison Avenue decided feet were taboo and women everywhere must cover them up or risk indecent exposure, men in this country would start fantasizing about feet and manufacturers would start making leather-strapped gem-studded torture devices to wrap them in and cover them up and make them even more alluring. *

I don't want to play that game. It's inevitable that my children will be exposed to it, of course, because this is the world we live in. But I firmly believe that my son will be better off for knowing exactly what breasts are biologically designed for. A definition that does not include "men's playthings." At the very least, they will not be some mysterious objects whose forbidden nature makes them all the more titillating. ("Titillating" - ha ha, is that where we get the word...never mind.) Nothing attracts a child - my child, anyway - like something that is off-limits, and in this case there is no real reason, except arbitrary societal standard, to make my breasts off-limits to him. In a practical sense, I can't do it anyway - even were Peanut weaned, he would still see them all the time as I nurse his infant brother.

Does he have a nutritional need for it? No, of course not, although it's certainly not bad for him and has come in handy several times when he's been sick and not wanted to eat or drink anything else. Obviously, his need at this point is purely psychological, and it might be accurate to call it a habit rather than a need. Is this enough reason to wean him? I don't need ice cream nutritionally, but take it away and watch what I do.

So much for my stance on breastfeeding a three-year-old. My ambivalence to it comes from the fact that I am tired. When I read up on tandem nursing during my pregnancy, I saw a lot of this from experienced moms - that they began to feel "touched out" by the demands of two children, and even began to resent the older child for taking attention away from the infant. I've gotten to the point with Peanut where I actually feel a little used - he cannot sit in my lap or lie next to me without expecting to nurse, and it reminds me of women who complain that their husbands are only affectionate when they want some action. I want to be able to cuddle and comfort my son without attaching him to my breast. But the two things are so intricately intertwined in his mind since infancy that to refuse him the one is to refuse the other.

So there it is. Sigh.

Not that there aren't humorous moments in compensation. Two days ago Peanut, after a fall that bruised his knee, nursed just long enough to get a good let-down going and when he popped off, milk sprayed in five or six high-velocity jets across the room. My reaction - panicked, but laughing - probably didn't help to curb how disturbed he was at this phenomenon, and for the next day or so whenever he nursed he would pull off to check, anxiously observing every time, "It's not spraying?" He really still has not made the connection that "mommy milk" is the milk that comes out of mommy - I think it's more his phrase for the activity than the substance.

Now...it's quarter to midnight, and I have once again violated my intention to get to bed at a decent hour knowing my kids will wake me up before seven. Woe.


*Oh, wait. Those are called shoes.