Extraordinary breastfeeding

[Mr D Black]

Absolutely disgusting. Being breastfed to the age of 8. Its no wonder that kid was home-schooled and didnt have a tv in the house. Also, force-feeding your adopted tearful child. More or less child abuse in my opinion.What is wrong with these people?

[Eastender]

We know its a natural thing to do, but so is going to the toilet and you would'nt just pull your knickers down and squat there on the spot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[libertie]

Well maybe you should ask Paula whatshername that! :o)

[andy-hughes]

I videoed this for the present Mrs Hughes, so I will have a look at it - which I wasn't going to, but my curiosity is roused now.

Leaving aside the actual programme content - I have a problem with the individuals who feel the need to 'share' their unusual liffestyles with the public at large.

It's the same when couples feel they have to be filmed telling the world they are married, but celibate, and this is a 'lifestyle choice'. Of course it is - so is making sculptures out of your own excrement, but some things are just not entertaining or partciularly informative television.

From the comments here, this programme seems to have been an exercise in self-aggrandisement for the general public to pint and laugh at.

Why?

[Susan123]

I also wonder what is the point of making these type of prgrammes?

[KittyGlitter]

andy-hughes, it's all very channel 4 really. They seem to air a lot of programmes about 'serious' topics but like to ...excuse the pun...titillate at the same time to draw in the viewers. I mean, I'm not quite sure what the point was of the large c*ck programme showed later on! They hire a narrator with a posh, intelligent voice to give it a documentary feel but really it's just showing us some large c*cks and a couple of men then tell us what it's like having one. At least with the other TV channels IMO, the programmes are what they are.

[maggie01]

I didn't watch it but they were talking about it at work today and filled me in on the programme. From what they said it sounded a bit perverted to me. Breast feeding an 8yr old, I think could be called abuse because it certainly is not normal.

[dotjhawkes]

Never mind that. what about the programme that was on later about huge penises? I just left the TV on and my son came down and said, Mum, what the F*** are you watching, and I said CSI! But it obviously wasn't! I really had not noticed, honestly!

[soapbox]

That's it, C4 has ruined my life. I don't recall being breast fed so I was robbed as a child and the later program has left me feeling inadequate because I'm not hung like a mule. Life is so cruel... as if

What is wrong with these people?

[curiosity]

I personally think the Bath couple were a perfectly normal family dealing with a milestone in a normal way, maybe not the easiest, but certainly with the couples, childs & families interests at heart, and commend them for a job well done. The others were very odd and dysfunctional. However as for breastfeeding in public. When my now 5yr old was only 6 weeks old, we went to Torquay for the family holiday, so the older two still got their needs fulfilled. I was left to sit in dirty public toilets or walk to the carpark miles away to sit in the car and breast feed, because there was nowhere else. With a hungry crying 6 week old baby this is not a pleasant experience. All those people opposing breastfeeding in public, should help a campaign for better facilities!!

[aurelia]

I agree with most of the comments posted. I also found the 8 year old breastfeeding totally weird and disturbing. To think an 8 year old and a 10 - 11 year old would spend their spare time drawing and naming their mother's breasts - aaagh! The spanish woman adopting the chinese baby was weird too - the baby had been bottle-fed for 18 months - so she had missed out on the main health benefits of breast milk as it is the first main feed after birth that provides the cholestrum - that gives antibodies to babies. My own mother only had milk in one breast so had to give up on breast-feeding and I don't believe I have been unnaturally deprived. The couple in bath were the most normal of all except for the mother doing a supply on demand. Her other children were suffering as the older girl said her mother had no time ar night for her or her brother. What would Jo Frost Supernanny have thought of the mother not only lying with the children until they fell asleep but lying with her breast permanently on demand. I had no idea however that the World Health Organisation recommends the earliest time for breat-feeding being stopped at being just ver 2 years of age. I know no-one in this country or of my realtives and friends in France who have ever practiced this.

[Boo2]

Just out of interest what is your opinion on the Inuit communities, numerous African countries and areas of India (not to mention many other places throughout the world) where extended breastfeeding up to and beyond the age of 6 is commonplace?

What do you thnk of Anthropologist Kathy Dettwylers conclusion in her book 'Breastfeeding: Bioculture Perspectives' that the natural age of weaning for humans would be somewhere between 2 and half and 7 years?

Just because it might make us feel uncomfortable to watch an older child nursing at the breast doesn't make it wrong.

[gessoo]

I found it extremely disturbing, especially the eight year old girl! The thought of the woman's husband also partaking made me cringe. I also think that the group 'Little Angels' are out for publicity rather than actually being informative to breast feeding mothers. The girl leading the group was very young and imho had not enough experience of life to be so sure of herself and her views. The groups 'protest' mass breast feeding was just a publicity stunt.

The fact is also that the woman in Norfolk who was breastfeeding in the park was not taken to task by the policeman. Someone had made a complaint about the woman and he had to investigate. He wisely told her that in the circumstances that a complaint had been made on this occasion, it might be better to feed the babe elsewhere. How the press love to change everything!

[gessoo]

Boo, I do agree with you in part that it's not wrong to breastfeed the older children, but it should be a private family thing. The children did seem a bit breast obsessed though. I think exposing that 8 year old to the nation will make the child the butt of cruel jokes by other children. However, she probably never sees any other children - such a strange, strange family. How on earth are those children going to cope with the real world at a later stage?

[whabbit]

What a load of sad biggots post to this group!
Yes very few people still breast feed 8 year olds although I'm sure pleanty of dads still see them in the bath!
My five year old has just about given up breast feeding in her own time and her own way. Her big sister gave up at 5 months. This is just the way it's happened.
And yes we have a TV and the children attend the local school.

[yummymummy82]

People complain about 2/3 years olds being breastfed, but you don't ever see anyone complain about children this old still having bottles of juice/milk/tea etc, which is a whole lot more unhealthy as well as being bad for teeth and speech.

[gessoo]

Totally agree with you yummymummy about the bottles. Children of two can handle a small cup very well. I know plenty of people will say that the bottle is comforting and send their toddlers to bed with a bottle of drink, but, even though I can't stand dummies personally, it would be better for the child to have a dummy than a bottle. And as for bottles containing tea, coke, etc, yuk!!!!

Anyway, I am not a sad biggot. I still think that it is sad that an eight year old is breast fed and the two sisters on the programme were quite obsessed by it, the older child being jealous by her sister still being able to breast feed. It seemed to me that the breast feeding in this family was for the mother's gratification. Children of eight should have a balanced proper diet and don't need breast milk!

[Schlomo78]

Just a point of view on Boo2's post, you mention for example that Inuit,African and Indian countries breastfeed for longer but surely also you must take into consideration that a lot of places in these countries are underprivelaged and have difficulty obtaining enough food to feed even themselves,let alone their children,whereas in more developed countries there is certainly no shortage or availability of food as there is in these other countries. Also you quote that the natural age of humans weaning would be between 2 and a half and seven years,yes perhaps,but are we talking hundreds/thousands of years ago where again food was hard to obtain? Humans evolve obviously so surely there is no need to breast feed up to this age when the very reason for it has been eliminated in most parts of the world. I have nothing against breastfeeding and indeed am intending to do so myself for the health benefits for my baby,but certainly not for 2-7 yrs!

[Chiefmole999]

Well, speaking as someone whose relationship failed mainly because of all this "millitant breastfeeding" rubbish, I thought the program was good in that it showed it up for what was - self-indulgence, and control on the part of the mothers, and total disregard for the real effect on the family of their barmy insistence on "their right to breasfeed as long as they chose". Partularly the effect on the father - who is certainly marginalised in the process - in a sense men are oppressed by some of these approaches, even if in a fairly subtle and difficult to define manner. Fine if they are on their own I suppose, although that still ignores what I would call potential abuse when it gets to the lengths it does on the program, but in a relatioship, there are more than just the mother child relationship, that needs taking into account. Just because the child aquiesces or goes along with it doesn't make it right in my opinion. Many children will go along with sexual abuse if they are told it is the right thing - so that argument doesn't wash. What is required is for the responsible adults to take a mature, balanced view of their child's needs, and to put aside to some extent their own desires and issues - that is sadly lacking in the devotees of extended breastfeeding and the La Leche leaugue breast feeding evangelists.
Excuse the rant.......

[tracymort]

How on earth can you say it's abuse? A child won't nurse if it doesn't want to. It's not a sexual thing, it's your upbringing that makes you think that. Those children have been brought up seeing the breast as nutrition and comfort. We force our children to be independant before they are ready with no concern to the consequences.
You should be more concerned about the people who choose to bottlefeed (with not good reason, I know some don't get the support, I mean women who just don't even try) and risk their child's health. Now that is being selfish. I could never take that risk. My job is to do my best for my children. Breastfeeding is the best way I can start this. How could I forgive myself if I'd bottlefed and they ended up with a condition caused by it?

[AnswerYouSeek]

You guys are seariously screwed up if you think breastfeeding at 8 is normal! At that age we start to develop our first crush ... How about looking into psychology and speaking to professional people like psychologists or psychiatrists, see what they say? Cultural thing or not, it is WARPED! In poorer societies, yeah I agree too, they must do what they can for survival - food is scarce. Do you also know that in certain cultures 8 yr old girls are married off to older guys? Does that mean I can take a child of the same age, call him my husband, have sex with him and claim it to be normal because 'other cultures say it is OK?' Get real! Those kids in the documentary seemed so slow ... What high IQ did they display? Drawing breasts? Naming them? They were definitely fixated with the topic. "I don't want to be big, I want breast milk". Does this sound normal to you? People who continue this breastfeeding practice until their children are past 4 are sick! And how then is breastfeeding not used as an erotic activity when the husband joins in?