A Time magazine cover showing a mother breast-feeding her nearly 4-year-old son has caused a social media storm across America.
The picture on the Time cover shows the boy standing on a chair to nurse on his mother's exposed breast.
The mother 26-year-old Jamie Lynne Grumet, explains in a Q&A article inside, how she herself nursed until she was six years old.
She said her mother was not a hippie but her dad was a nutritional scientist.
Lynne regularly blogs about her parenting experiences (and posts to a Facebook page) at "Iamnotthebabysitter.com" — apparently a reference to her youthful appearance, says AdAge
Her sudden fame has been a surprise: "Oh my gosh!" she posted on her Facebook page. "Aram and I are on the cover of @timemagazine." She is expected to appear on the "Today" show today.
Complaints soon appeared on Twitter.
Actress Alyssa Milano tweeted that she felt the cover "is exploitive and extreme. You missed the mark.You're supposed to be making it easier for breastfeeding moms."
Others worried that the child in the picture was too old to be breast-feeding.
Parenting expert Joani Geltman wasn't surprised that people were upset about the cover.
"People have an issue with nursing in public anyway, even with an infant. Here they add a 3-year-old child when most children are weaned between 6 months and a year.
"People are up in arms simply because it depicts such an intimate act between a mother and child."
The cover story, says Time is about "attachment parenting," which Time says, has been become more popular over the past 20 years.
Attachment parenting includes extended breast-feeding, co-sleeping and "baby wearing," in which infants are physically attached to their parents by slings.
Time's managing editor, Rick Stengel, told Forbes magazine, "To me, the whole point of a magazine cover is to get your attention."
Jamie's comments:
Jamie- "My mother breast-fed me until I was six years old until I self-weaned. Her encouragement to breast-feed is why we were so successful."
Jamie- "It's really warm. It's like embracing your mother, like a hug. You feel comforted, nurtured and really, really loved. I had so much self-confidence as a child, and I know it's from that. I never felt like she would ever leave me. I felt that security."
Jamie sounded like was prepared for some flak.
People have to realize this is biologically normal," she told the magazine. "It's not socially normal. The more people see it, the more it'll become normal in our culture. That's what I'm hoping. I want people to see it."
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