And possibly mom has something to gain emotionally from letting her keep her babyish habits?
I think that there are other ways you can harm your children than sexual behavior. But, I also think that its far too easy to judge this as harmful, when there is no proof its anything more than “icky.”
If I had to lay bets on an eight year old who was breastfed having some issues with boundaries, with separation, with independence, with social adaptation - I’m going to guess that one or more of those is likely. But who knows, the kid could turn out perfectly well adjusted.
(Personally, my ick alarm starts going off somewhere North of two - and becomes that screetching pitch of ‘vacate the building immediately’ at five. But my ick alarm also goes off at a certain level of tattoos or piercings, with certain unhealthy behaviors like smoking - and all sorts of other things that I’d be too polite to mention when seeing it and I don’t think should send Child Protection Services in over.)
There was a Toni Morrison novel (Song of Solomon?) with a boy who nursed until age 14. I wonder if this mother read the book.
IIRC, he didn’t turn out well, but few people do in her work. 
In SoS, the lead character only nursed until age 5 or 6. Even so, he ended up with the nickname Milkman.
Speaking of literature, what about giving the child the…bippy? I’m trying to think of the character in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (was he four? five?) who breast fed until he was too old, and who even made his mother bottle feed his infant sister while he had exclusive breast rights. (He sated himself on black coffee during her pregnancy when she wasn’t nursing.)
I’d say the same. It wasn’t until I had my own child as well as friends who breastfed two- and three-year-olds that the idea of breastfeeding past infancy sounded normal to me.
My Mom tells me I breastfed until about age four; after age 2 or so it was brief and not so much about food as comfort (eg, I’d head for the boob when I was scared or upset and nurse for a minute or two), but she still had to force me to stop. I’m at least as screwed up as the next person, but I don’t think this is why.
Eight is maybe a bit on the late side, though.
JRB
Yeah. Breastfeeding was short lived with my son (thrush) and shorter with my daughter (although I pumped for 14 months, she couldn’t get it at the source), but I’m not really intrinsically against extended breastfeeding to 3 or even 4. But 8 really does seem to be over the line, although I can’t really articulate why.
I guess maybe because, in our culture, most 8 year olds are old enough to, like NinjaChick, have internalized the boobs=sexy connection. Even if Mommy’s Boobies are the exception to this kid, that’s why it feels oogy to me. Her mommy’s boobies are as sexy as any boobies to me. And I think that there’s something insular about breastfeeding, something nesting and safe and dyadish (as in, the mother/child dyad). At 8, the kid is supposed to have moved out of the nest emotionally and be invested in school and peers more than in parents. So that feels icky, too, in a Norman Bates/Mother kind of way.
But I also agree that if this is the worst parenting example ever, we should be so lucky!
8? The child needs to individuate or something. And as posted, if they’re growing teeth, they should be eating solid food. That’s what they’ll get at school, after all.
Didn’t Dr. Phil have someone on who was still breastfeeding the kid at 12 or something?
My guess that the “natural” age at which breastfeeding stops is four or earlier. My reasoning is per Helen Fisher, in this book:
IIRC she said that the “seven-year itch” is really a four-year itch, if you look at divorce spikes across cultures. By that age the child is ambulatory, and it isn’t as critical for the father to stick around to defend the offspring. Once he’s gone, the mother would need to gather, the child would need to play to develop motor skills, and of course there’s the emergence of teeth…
Teeth emerge at age 4? No. Teeth emerge usually before the end of the first year, most often at 6 months, when WHO and the AAP agree babies should still be nursing, at least part time. Teeth are not even close to relevant to the nursing discussion. Babies/children can nurse just fine with teeth.
Deciduous teeth descend before the first year is up, and they don’t start falling out until 6 years. There’s nothing much going on with teeth at age 4.
Sorry the teeth are not a good indicator. My older son got his first teeth at three and a half months old. His gut was not ready for solid food. As for the rest of it, meh, not my cup of tea (or milk?) but who really cares.
Oh, sure, teeth emerge before age 4. Kid’s got a full grill by then I would think.
Was wondering about that, too. I know the two mentioned in the video were girls, but for a boy child, wouldn’t it feel odd? Isn’t eight old enough to maybe get a funny feeling down there when you catch a glimpse of a Playboy? not that it would necessarily screw the kid up, but it could be…strange, no?
I just always assumed…well, here’s a link:
http://parents.berkeley.edu/advice/nursing/biting.html
Topics:
*New teeth scrape, scrape, scrape, with every suck
6-month-old is biting me - considering weaning
How do I stop 9-month-old from biting me?
Nursing 8-mo old with teeth - Ouch!
13-month-old biting - is she ready to be weaned?
15-mo-old is drawing blood
15-month-old biting after being bitten by another tot
16-month-old biting me very hard
Weaning a 19-mo-old nursing fiend who’s biting me *
My wife breastfed our kids, and WIC said you should probably stop breastfeeding sometime in their third year. One kid stopped on their own at 2, the other quit while he was still 1. The latest is going to be 3 in a few months and is still breastfeeding, but she only does it a couple of times a day now.
My kids never bit me, and they both nursed well past the emergence of their teeth. And I’ve known plenty of people who nursed their kids well into toddlerhood and no one used breastmilk as a substitute for solid food past the age of 1 year. Babies are usually introduced to food by 6 months, and the food is given concurrently with the breastmilk until weaning is complete, whenever the mother chooses to stop. It’s not like an 8 year old is getting all their nutrition from nursing.
Whether or not the child can eat solid food has nothing to do with the discussion. Toddlers continue to suppliment their solid food with milk for quite some time. She isn’t breastfeeding as a substitute.
That being said, I think anything over 2 is past my gweeb threshold.
I didn’t think she was breastfeeding as a substitute. I’m saying that if a mother is trying to scratch out a living for herself and child on an African savannah, the sooner the child is independent of her breast, the sooner the mother can turn her full attention to other tasks.
Speaking of which, wouldn’t you think the mother would be good and tired of it by now?
A bit of TMI here: I breastfed my son until he was 8 months old. When he started eating solids, he was less interested in nursing, and only wanted to nurse on one side, so he was weaned.
Unfortunately, my husband was a boob guy, and just wouldn’t stop TOUCHING them. I leaked milk when I took my shower for the next 10 years. If he hadn’t died suddenly at that point, I guess today I might be one of those lactating grandmas.