ARE YOU MOM ENOUGH?

I'm sure you've seen the highly controversial Time cover featuring a mother who has her 3-year-old son standing on a stool while she nurse. I ran across it this past weekend and funny how Time picked a more than appropriate weekend to showcase their provocative and disturbing cover. Happy Mother's Day Time! How thoughtful of you! As I slowly take in the entire image, I can't help but say that there is way too much going on in this picture. For starters, the bold headline, "Are you Mom enough?" struck me cold. I'm still trying to figure out what that actually means. There's also a muscle-bearing mother, Jamie Lynne Gurmet who's wearing skinny jeans, her hand on her hips, a very big baby on her breast and oh yeah, there's a stool.

Let's take a minute to dissect this baby one piece at a time (no pun intended).

The headline: "Are you Mom enough?" is quite offensive. Is Time trying to make motherhood out to be a competition?  Because I didn't sign up for a mommy competition when I walked out of the hospital with my baby. They're definitely adding fuel to the fire with this statement by making moms feel as if they aren't doing enough. Now that I'm feeling guilty, I can't help but compare myself to the stay-at-home mom who is able to be with her babies 24/7 or the working mom who is juggling everything from here to Timbuctu and she's good at it! But what I learned as a mother is that you can never do enough. You always want to provide for your babies and give them endless opportunities. It's impossible to reach that "enough" point regardless of how hard you work. Time magazine, thanks for striking my Achilles' heel!

The cover photo: I'm not going to lie but at first glance, I initially thought it was a photograph of an athlete covering the Olympics or doing charity work. My eyes were drawn to her beauty. She's blonde, slim, and looks like a model/athlete. After a split second, I realized that there's a big boy attached to her at her breast and my reaction was, "Oh, she's breastfeeding on the cover of Time magazine and the baby is on the stool...that's not even how you breastfeed!" I'm not upset that she's breastfeeding her 3-year-old son but the fact that bothered me was that they're not even giving an accurate view on breastfeeding. It looked a bit disturbing even to a nursing mother like myself. Yes, I get that Time chose this photo for shock value but that shouldn't justify it.

I'm a huge advocate for breastfeeding and believe that all mothers should at the very least try to breastfeed but I understand that things happen that prevent mothers from doing so. The issue that I believe Time was targeting was the topic of  breastfeeding past the "first" year. Any modern and enlighten person knows that it's beneficial for the baby to have mother's milk in the early stages of life. Mother's milk contains colostrum which triggers the baby's immune system. You just don't get it from formula. For Jamie's case, she decided to breastfeed her baby a lot longer than the "American norm" and I'm actually okay with that. Though I personally can't imagine myself breastfeed Eden past a year,  I have no problems with mothers doing it. Heck, the baby must have an immune system of steel! I can see how a lot of people may have issues seeing a toddler run to his mommy for breastmilk but the mothers from Rwanda or India breastfeed their babies until they're 6-7 years old sometimes. Yes, I'm comparing apples to oranges but hey, just putting it out there.

Lastly, the article talked about attachment parenting (the basis of the entire article) which was termed by a pediatrician,  Dr. Sears. He wrote a book, "The Baby Book" which sold millions of copies. The three basic tenants of attachment parenting that Dr. Sear theorized was that mothers breastfeed, baby wear (placing your baby in a sling), and co-sleep (keeping your baby in bed with you).

I can literally write an essay on this topic but I'll save you all. Here's the cliff notes version of what I think about it. I actually read "The Baby Book" while I was pregnant. I read it at Barnes and Noble though I didn't think it was worthy enough for me to purchase it. Here's why. I knew the three tenant of attachment parenting already. It's COMMON SENSE that breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact, which is essentially the basis of  what baby-wearing and co-sleeping are would raise confident and  loving babies. I should have raced Dr. Sears to the press with that one and made millions...jk.

But when mothers breastfeed, you create bond with your baby and skin-to-skin contact allow babies to feel as if they're still in the mother's womb. It's comforting that they hear the mother's heartbeat and feel her warmth. I just think mothers and manufacture companies take it to the extreme to create all these expensive junk (do you really need to have the latest sling with rhinestone straps and an attachable cup holder or aco-sleeping mattress thingy to your bed). Just hold your damn baby, play with them and love them unconditionally! In the end, that's all babies ever want!

Photo taken by Time Magazine