I am reading Emma Donoghue’s Room at the moment. It is one of those novels that everyone is suddenly talking about. Narrated by a five year old, it is about he and his mother’s very isolated life. The book has an extraordinary premise, which I won’t give away here, but there is another element to the story that everyone can’t help but seem to notice and unpick and that is that the five-year old is still being breastfed.
Which brings up the one part I struggled with a bit. Very early on, we see that Ma breast-feeds her son. The book opens on his birthday, and she tries, halfheartedly, to wean him, but he loves this intimate connection to his mother’s body as much as he loves all the walls and objects and routines of Room. There’s a flicker of unease in the reader here — and it’s a good and interesting flicker. Room is a sanctuary for Jack, but where are the lines, the boundaries between mother and son? When does security go too far?
Ah, breastfeeding. So rich with subtext.
I am breastfeeding a toddler, myself, for the second time in my life. I weaned Lauca when she was almost two. But Cormac, whom I am currently breastfeeding is a year and a half old, and to be honest, I don’t see us stopping any time soon. For the most part I enjoy breastfeeding. Apparently once you breastfeed past twelve months you are practicing ‘extended breastfeeding’ and if you persist past another point, precisely where I am not exactly certain, you start practicing ‘extreme breastfeeding’. I am pretty sure breastfeeding five-year olds, as happens in Room is considered extreme breastfeeding. (Incidentally, The Slap is the only other novel where I can recall references to extreme breastfeeding, can you think of others?). I am not an earth mother. If anything you would probably stereotype me as a career woman, though I am not that either. I wear pencil skirts, high heels and stockings to work. I can’t sew. I don’t usually make things myself, I buy them. I fantasize about modernist furniture and architecture. I don’t do world music festivals (or women singers harmonising together, either). But I am very content breastfeeding a toddler.
I try to remember what it was like when I was squeamish about this. I was never the sort of person to tell a woman off for breastfeeding in public. I never felt offended by it. But I may have felt uncomfortable sitting with someone while she breastfed in a restaurant. I may even have later, behind her back, agreed with other friends that breastfeeding her toddler was kinda ‘weird’. I can remember being that person, I know the thoughts that ran through my head but I can’t recall now how it felt to think that way. Somehow I have crossed a divide since motherhood.
And now?
If you’re perturbed by my extended breastfeeding you might just as well be telling me that you think the toddler is too old for me to be wiping his bottom, that you find it vaguely sexual or somehow too intimate for a child his age. I would nod slowly, showing you that I listened and thought about what you said, and then I would walk away thinking you poor fool with your ridiculous hang-ups.
blue milk 
Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon. The main character is called Milkman because his mother breastfeeds him when he is school-aged. There’s definitely something sexual and pathological about the relationship, although it’s been more than 30 years since I’ve read the book and I don’t remember the details.
I remember asking my mother for milk. I breastfed until I was three, and I have a vaguely disturbing (if I step back and think about it) memory of walking up to the bed, asking mom for milk, and crawling in. My dad then proceeded to show me that he could drink her milk too. *That’s* the part I find disturbing!
So for me, breastfeeding my daughter to 18 months was falling short of the mark and totally within “normal” — not “extended”. Some crazy inlaws told me I was being selfish for going past 4 months.
I can’t say I’ve read any novels where breastfeeding occurred — or I just never paid much attention. I think more important than the literary examples is what we grow up with as normal. Mom always told me that I was healthy because she breastfed me so long. When I got pregnant, there was no question about it, I was going to breastfeed as long as baby wanted.
Another 18+ monther here.
George R R Martin, the Song of Ice and Fire series – one child (Robert Arryn) is still breastfed when he is about seven (if I recall correctly), although it is clear that all the other characters think this behaviour is wrong, and his mother (Lysa Arryn) is cast as a barely sympathetic villain (with GRRM characters, there’s very little black or white – every character is a shade of grey – but Lysa Arryn is one that is very, very dark grey).
Lil weaned herself at 3 (just after I’d become pregnant). I was ready for it by then too, but wouldn’t gave been much earlier. I’m probably more of a stereotypical ‘earthmother’ though…
Sally (the female protagonist) in The River (Grenville) breastfeeds sone of her kids past infancy. Can’t think of any others though…
My daughter was weaned (of her own accord) when she was about three. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, and am hoping to do the same with baby number two, should we be lucky enough to have a second one.
I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a healthy extended nursing relationship portrayed in a book, though. Song of Solomon is the only one I’ve seen any extended nursing relationship in, actually, and that was clearly dysfunctional and meant to be read as such. (For reasons other than just breastfeeding.) Kind of sad, really, that such a natural and healthy thing is such a taboo.
A friend of the Family breast fed until the daughter was about 5, and wrote an article about it for the local paper. Unfortunately, it is locked down behind a pay wall at this point, but some letters in reaction can be found here: http://www.sptimes.com/2004/07/29/news_pf/Floridian/Letters_feed_debate_o.shtml
Both the mother and daughter seemed to be fine with it, and the weaning process seemed not to traumatize anyone. And the daughter is a deeply independent soul who does her own thing.
While extended breastfeeding may be portrayed as a horrible thing, the reality seems to be very different, at least from what i found.
I very much enjoyed your post!
Unfortunately Breastfeeding your child beyond the small baby stage is now considered strange in our Western society. I too would have recoiled from a mother feeding her child before my children. I attribute this attitude to my upbringing as my mother did not breastfeed nor did her mother either.
Oh how I have changed! Three children along, I am happily breastfeeding my 11 month old son. My other daughters were breastfed too and weaned as toddlers themselves. It is beautiful and so exclusively female! Why not celebrate this indeed. There is very little art these days that does this. The breast has unfortunatley been sexulaised.
I see it as a gentle extension to pregnancy, a slow and gentle weaning from two bodies that nourish and sustain.
The reality is so different, it is practical, loving, nurturing, not freakish, selfish, spoiling as so many texts and images prevail to tell us otherwise.
It is so sad that a mother has to justify millions of years of evolution for just 100 years of social change. Not for the better I think.
I only recently weaned my 4 year old, and I still nurse my 2 + old. The tandem nursing of both of them just got to be too much and the 4 year old couldn’t nurse without hurting the past month or so, so I finally had to say no. But since the other one is over 12 months, I guess I am still doing extended nursing if not extreme nursing. My 4 year old asked about why she couldn’t nurse for about a week after we stopped. It tore my heart, but I couldn’t deal with the pain anymore.
Thank you for the wonderful post!
What a smart post. I’m appalled to hear that ROOM is one of the only novels in which ‘extreme breastfeeding’ (great phrase, a new one for me) is presented in positive terms. I only went to 16 months myself because – though it sounds bad to admit it – I wanted to go off on a two-week book tour! But I cheer on any woman who breastfeeds as long as she and her child damn well choose.
I am breastfeeding my 12 month old and hope to make it to 2 at least. There’s heaps of evidence for the benefits for both mum and bub and that what is now considered extended breastfeeding is really the norm in other cultures. I don’t consider breastfeeding a child *extreme* until the child is an age when they could go through puberty (say 8).
Jen D: Many people thought the relationship between Robert Arryn and his mohter was very dysfunctional but I have mixed feelings about it. He was a very sickly boy and looking at it from that aspect, I think Lysa was doing exactly what her mothering instincts told her to do. I know it’s mentioned in one of the later books that ‘breastmilk has many healing qualities’ and that Robert’s illness was better when he was getting milk from his mother.
Also, about Lysa, she was very disturbed and looking at her history I can totally see why she would hesitate to let her only child become independent. I always thought that the dysfunction in their relationship was more because of her doting on him and babying him excessively – which I guess some people could argue that breastfeeding him was just adding to that.
To stay on the post topic: I nursed my older daughter until 2.5 and my younger one is still going strong at 16 months. I guess I would be considered an ‘extreme’ breastfeeder too!
Such an interesting post. I breastfed my first until she was 15 mo, and am currently doing so with my 10 mo old. A friend recently asked me when I was planning to, “wrap it up.” Hmmm. We seem to have difficulty with a non-sexualized idea of the breast. I also think that, in our highly individualized, Western culture, we shudder at the idea of dependency, and somehow we feel it’s inappropriate for children to need too much. We want them to become little adults very quickly. Kind of sad, really.
I wasn’t going to comment, but Dr H was reading the post and George RR M has come up. I think my response to Lysa Arryn was influenced by my step mom who breast fed her kids until they were 6. i remember feeling a bit funny about it when the first was three or four, i was 17 so everything to do with . . . well you can prob write the rest, then she copped some grief on the bus from, we used to use the word ‘straights’ or ‘L7’ meaning square, while he was asking, he never had any manners, and after that i got all clannish and proud and defensive of her and thought that it might not be normal, but who the bl**dy he** wants to be normal.
so all that negative stuff about Lysa still breast feeding just looked like those L7s on the bus poking their nose where they oughtent.
L7 – What a band.
i suppose i ought to add that my step mum is a bit of an earth mother, makes her money that way.
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I’m so glad when you link backwards because then I read backwards.
Maggie Now! (by Betty Smith of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn fame) has extended breastfeeding in it — the kid is a bully and the breastfeeding is certainly NOT set in a positive light. I remember getting all hepped up about it when I reread it and was still lactating. (I was an extreme breastfeeding mom — Noah weaned himself at 4.5 and then we let Madison take a bottle when we rocked her down at night for about the same amount of time. We figured what was good for the goose and all that.)
Yes, I am with dawn on loving the backward links.
I breastfed my third till he was 2 1/2. Definitely never in public or in my mother’s house.