Back in early January, I saw this image of Motorcross racer LeClan McMillan breastfeeding on the blog blue milk, and posted it to my Tumblr blog.
Image credit: LeClan McMillan with her baby (via Annie Urban). (via bluemilk.wordpress.com)
Image Description: The color photograph depicts a motorcross cyclist sitting astride a bike in full gear (including helmet) nursing a child, also in biking gear. Both appear to be Euro-American, with pale skin tones. The parent has long dark red-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and the child has slightly curly white-blond hair in a bowl cut. The photograph is a close-up of the parent, child, and bike, but you can see the motorcross course in the background.
A few days after this image went live on Tumblr, I noticed a lot of people were liking and reblogging it (to-date the image has had over 300 “notes” since I posted it). Aside from the popularity of the image, what caught my attention was the additional commentary folks felt compelled to add when they re-blogged the photograph. I thought it was really telling what Tumblr folks felt necessary to criticize about the photograph (and about other peoples’ commentary). I share some of the comments below in a Q&A format, with my thoughts on each response.
To back-track each quotation to its original Tumblr blog, see the thread of notes below the original post.
Tumblr: “Except for that kid is like 3 and shouldn’t be breast feeding anymore.”
Anna: There were actually many people who had this concern, which I thought was really interesting as a response. I’m the eldest of three and my mother breastfed all of us until we were roughly 2 1/2-3 years old. Not exclusively, obviously, but alongside other forms of nourishment. LeLeche League International recommends that children be introduced to other forms of food in their first year, but affirms that “A mother and her baby should breastfeed for as long as they wish to breastfeed.”
Given that breastfeeding at “like 3″ is not medically contraindicated, that means that the perception that the child in the photograph “shouldn’t” be breastfeeding is a socially-conditioned determination – and one I think is kinda fascinating to observe and think about. Why have we decided that toddlers are “too old” to breastfeed?
T: “How about not gendering people nonconsensually. not everyone who breastfeeds is a ‘mama’”
A: While I take this person’s point, the original post a blue milk identifies LeClan McMillan as a “her” (see original caption reproduced above), so I assume that the cyclist identifies as a woman/uses female pronouns. I did do a bit of searching online to find outside confirmation of this, but nothing came up. If you follow motorcross and know McMillan feel free to chime in in comments on hir self-identity.
T: “Hello badass mom, hello badass babyboy. Thumbs up all around.”
A: I’ve already responded to the gendering of the cyclist above, but I thought it was interesting that this person (and, actually, a number of others) assumed the child was a boy, despite the fact nothing in the original post indicated the child’s gender. Is it the colors the child is wearing? The haircut?
T: “not being a concern troll – breastfeeding on a motorcycle makes absolutely no sense. that’s like….paying bills on a motorcycle, or playing monopoly, or eating. the logistics baffle me”
A: Mostly I just love this one. Because I bet the person who wrote this comment has, on occasion, eaten a snack while driving, or stopped while on a bicycle ride to down a power bar. Sometimes when you’re out doing shit you get hungry (even when you’re a kid!), and you just gotta eat. When I look at this picture, that’s what I see. And I’m not sure why that’s baffling.
What about you, Harpies? What does this photograph say to you — and what do you think of the Tumblr responses?
I love this photo for two reasons: I love positive images of breastfeeding, and I love images of breastfeeding that challenge our social preconceptions about things like when it’s appropriate (always) and when a child is too old to nurse (your results may vary).
Like Anna, my mother breastfed me until I was at least 2 years old. Weaning age varies widely by culture—Americans seem to get squicked by nursing children over the age of 1, but in many cultures it’s common for children to nurse until they’re 3-4. The difficulty of working outside the home while nursing and the hyper-sexualization of women’s breasts are the reasons Americans get all freaked out about toddlers nursing and both those things need to change, IMO.
As for the “breastfeeding on a motorcycle makes no sense” line—that’s just stupid. She’s sitting on a motorcycle nursing her kid—it’s no different logistically than sitting on a chair and nursing your kid. And yes, we all pause to eat while walking, driving, riding bikes…it’s the same for nursing babies.
The “logistics” comment startled me a bit, not because the logistics are obvious to me, but because this is clearly a posed photograph. When someone takes a photo of two people conversing with each other and asks them to both stand slightly facing the camera, nobody asks about the logistics of holding a conversation while not completely facing each other.
I love this picture so much. I want to see images of people breastfeeding children all the time because I think if we start to see them people (I hope) will stop being so hyper about it.
I hadn’t consciously understood that I assigned a boy gender to the nursling until you brought up the comment. I did so because the child looks so much like my son. Same wild blond hair, and still nursing at 29 months.
I’m also greatly in love with these images of Derby mamas nursing their babes. (I can’t do pretty links, so here’s the ugly, long one) http://www.katehansenart.com/2/post/2011/12/breastfeeding-and-roller-derby.html
I nursed my son until he was 26 months old and the comment I heard most often was that ‘if he’s old enough to ask, he’s too old to nurse.’ Which doesn’t make much sense – a newborn is capable of “asking” by nuzzling, and a three-month old will tug at your shirt. My 20 month old daughter “asks” my coming straight at my boob with her mouth open comically wide no matter where we are or what we’re doing. Of course, she does exactly the same thing when she wants her father’s beer, so I try to focus on the cute and comic aspects, not on the fact that there’s a little girl attached to my sweater by the mouth. I weaned my son because I wanted to go away for the weekend with my girlfriends. I’m planning on weaning my daughter so I can go away for a weekend with my son. I know people who would judge me for weaning at all, but there are lots more people who judge me for not bothering to wean until I need to for my own convenience. And, for the record, the first time my son had to get shots after I weaned, I really regretted not having that comfort-tool in my arsenal.
The logistics comment is weird. I’ve never nursed my children while driving a car. But I would need more than two hands to list the number of times I’ve nursed my children in the car, taking a break from driving. Does the commenter think she’s breastfeeding while flying around the track?
@Av0gadro: MamaSharper spent almost a month in Vietnam some years back and in cities there everyone gets around by motorbike, including parents and children all piled onto one bike, hanging on. She reported that she saw mothers nursing their babies while sitting on the back of moving motorbikes. Can you imagine the uproar if women here did that?
I love images of women breastfeeding. I nursed my older son until he was 2 1/2, everywhere. At the time it was the cutting edge of the resurgence of breastfeeding / attachment parenting and there were a lot of mommy-wars and blowback. So awesome to see a new generation of women saying “what’s the big deal? I’m nursing my kid” out in the open, living life.
Obviously I know nothing about this particular woman, but part of what I like about it is that the woman depicted in it is not (at least not in this image) sterotypically feminine. I have no problem with breastfeeding advocacy, but I did grow weary of how (at least to me) it was always depicted in the books and literature as the ultra-feminine “womanly art” of breastfeeding. Granted, I know it is something only female-bodied people do, but the level of, how do I describe it. twee-ness of the breastfeeding materials I got was pretty high. In full disclosure, I have never breastfed my son (due to jacking up on lithium immediately after the birth). I did get the experience of being masculine while pregnant – and boy, was that odd (I have very short hair, I have a fairly muscular build, I dress in a style that favors masculine looks). People still called me “sir” with the 9-month belly on me.
But I do like seeing images depicting women and mothers in “unfeminine” positions or pursuits. Yay!
I assumed the child is a boy as well, mostly because he looks a lot like my little brothers did. Other than that, I have no reason to call a gender either way.
I’ve never had a child, but my mom nursed her many children until 2-3, although of course it wasn’t their only source of nutrition at that point. I’ve known women who comfort nursed kids right up til kindergarten. So what? It’s their business, not mine.
Too me, the reaction is so dramatic because most people freak at the sight of breasts in general. Most folks in the US are still quite prude compared to the rest of the world. Do you hear of the same reaction to a 2 year old seen drinking from a bottle or sippie cup? Nope. What’s the difference? A breast. As Wondering said, not our business what you do. It’s your breast, if you want a kid attached to it for years, good luck with that. It’s not my boob, I don’t care.
We need to appreciate our bodies, love the look of them. It’s just a breast, not something to be appalled by when you get a glimpse while a woman breastfeeds.
Vis a vis all the folks who’ve commented on people freaking over the kid’s age … when I went back to check the Tumblr thread just before posting this, it was funny to me how many of the re-blogging comments revolved around how the kid was “too old” to be nursing. I never would have read the image that way — mostly due to my own upbringing, and the families I was around, where nursing into toddlerhood was normal (I knew at least a couple of people who comfort-nursed until they were around five years old …).
It made me wonder whether this is a wider cultural perception, or if it’s a function of Tumblr being largely a younger, non-parent demographic?
I feel like I hear a lot of “eww!” from the internetz every time there’s a mention of or a picture of a breastfeeding child that’s more than a year old. And not just from Tumblr (which I don’t frequent) but from comment sections of newspapers and other websites. I just think our society has tipped so far in the direction of sexualizing breasts that anything sucking on a boob that’s not a tiny infant is going to make a lot of people feel squicked.
The only time I feel squicked is when watching Robin Arryn, age 10 or whatever, breastfeeding on “Game of Thrones.” And that’s clearly meant to be shocking and creepy.
@BeckySharper, yeah — I’ve even had a few conversations with women friends who are creeped out by the idea of their breasts being used for nursing, since they experience them as primarily sexual. They don’t feel comfortable imagining that breasts could be both erotic and utilitarian — and that would be okay? It’s a little confusing to me, since I see both co-existing. At this point in my life, I’ll likely never breastfeed. But I also don’t imagine that, if I did so, that would somehow rob my breasts of their erotic meaning for me. Change it maybe, or make it harder to experience temporarily. But in more of a mechanical “wow my nipples are ouchy right now so sucking isn’t sexy!” way rather than a “I just nursed an infant, so it’s weird to have my wife kissing me there” way.
@Anna: I have any number of friends who nurse who say that they and their partners got into the erotic possibilities of lactation early on and the two co-existed pretty happily. I think it helps that the breastfeeding mothers were hopped up on oxytocin as a result of all that nursing.
And really, one would hope that a woman still feel erotic and sexy about her breasts, otherwise those two years of nursing might seem very long and lonely!
TMae, thank you for the Derby girls breastfeeding link! I love all these photos, motorcross, Derby, and all. In the Derby girl photos, yes, I love that juxtaposition of the bad-ass, protected, body-contact sport with the softness and gentleness of nursing. I also love how these women take it all in stride, so to speak, and can roll on the floor, roll with the baby’s schedule, and keep right on rolling. That’s beautiful.
@Drahill
I totally agree with what you said about the “ultra femininity” of a lot of nursing pics. I much prefer the pics of women doing stuff, and stopping to feed their child, than the images of women lounging in a fluffy white robe on a rocking chair with the sunlight streaming in.
The hard and soft of this pic is appealing.
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I remember my mum when she took her brood (aka a lot of us kids) with her to community health centres saying “you need to do what works for you”..
I take that to mean exactly that.
On a tangential element, I know I breastfeed until about 3-4. My mum was still in various stages of pregnancy and child rearing during that period and beyond.
In terms of post 12 months breastfeeding, I remember the latter period was largley breast milk as supplemental to solids, for comfort, and to remember what it was like to do that as an older kid watching mum breastfeed my younger siblings.
I get totally squicked by this. It has nothing to do with breasts. I think it’s a generational thing (I’m 60). But I look at this and think: future Failure to Launch kid. It’s just a gut reaction, nothing more; some sort of backwards extrapolation.
Dear Anna,
This picture is of me and my son, taken by my brother-in-law in September 2010 at my request. My name is Caroline Gauthier and I am indeed a woman.
My son Caleb is 27 months on this pictures.
Let me now if you have more question,
Caroline