Some days, folks, I am so taken aback by what I read...that I just sit in silence for a moment. I can't even wonder what people are thinking anymore. I don't think I even want to know what they are thinking...
The world has become such a strange and weird place.
Take this morning, for instance. I logged on with my coffee and caught the headlines. People breaking in...people breaking out... people killing each other for reasons no one can understand...and then there was this... "Breastfeeding Doll Stirs Controversy"...
"What?", I mouthed silently as I clicked to the article. And there it was...right there...with a photo of a little girl about four years old putting on a plastic bra that holds "milk". So she can then place the smacking, sucking baby up against her non-existent breast...(she's only four, remember) and proceed to feed the baby doll.
Folks...Have we, as a people, totally lost our minds?
I thought I had seen everything when I saw mother's putting make-up and sexy clothes and spray tans on their pre-school age daughter's in "Toddlers and Tiaras"...but this beat even that.
And then I read the comments. Half the people thought there was nothing wrong with it. Many quotes about the innocence of breastfeeding... but what about the innocence of the child?
I agree that breastfeeding is appropriate. I breastfed my children. It is a healthy, bonding, wonderful experience...for a WOMAN!
But it is way too mature for a little girl to be pretending about. It puts her focus on things that she is not old enough to understand, let alone engage in.
OK...I can hear some of you now..."But, Kate, how is it different than bottle feeding...which all little girls pretend to do"
I'm glad you asked. A bottle of milk is not part of the little girl's body. If her baby brother was being bottle fed...mommy might even let her hold the bottle. You can do that when you are three or four.
But a fake breast that you wear to pretend you are actually nursing stirs an innocent child's thinking to reach into the future when she will have breasts...and begin to think about the physiology of it all...which she cannot possible do at three, four or five years old.
"But milk does come from breasts", I can hear you refuting. Yes... it does...when you actually "have" them and actually "have" a baby... after...need I remind you...having first had, sex...nine months earlier.
And then...as all breastfeeding mom's know, your uterus begins to contract as you nurse. This is God's way of putting things back in shape in your body. You also will be unable to conceive while you are nursing. Again...God's way of giving you enough time with your new baby before you can become pregnant again.
It's all tied together, folks. Breasts ARE sexual, whether you want to admit it or not. They are intricately tied together with your sexual organs, connected by the female hormone, estrogen. The one that determines your monthly fertility cycle...remember?
Pretending to bottle feed a baby...is one thing... but when you start engaging a child in the whole sexual experience...it becomes inappropriate. Not because there is anything impure about it... just because it is way too mature for an innocent little girl to be thinking about.
When your daughter is eleven or twelve, around the time of her first menses....is a good time to discuss the connection between menstrual cycles, fertility, sexual relations, and the milk that will come from her breasts if she chooses to nurse after having given birth. Not four..or five.
It's simply a matter of innocence. Children deserve to keep it as long as they can in this mixed up world. They really do. They are innocent about bottle feeding, because they see that the milk comes from the jug in the frig...just like they drink it.
But when you teach them that it can come from a woman's breasts...you are...whether you mean to or not...introducing the subject of sex to a little child. And that's just not ok, folks. Let them live in their innocent, sweet, safe, pure little world for as long as they can. The rest of their life will be spent in the "real" world... Kate
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