An Analysis of an Image: Time magazine's breast feeding cover

The cover of Time magazine's May, 2012 issue portrays a photo of a three year old boy standing on a chair and being breast fed by his mother, Jamie Lynne Grumet. They are both dressed in relatively normal casual attire. She is dressed like a normal mother with blue jeans and a shirt and her son looks like what a three year old would be wearing (sneakers, shorts, and a T-shirt). But the big part of this photo that stands out is the area where the little boy is breast feeding on his mother's exposed left breast. Furthermore, in bold, capitalized text it states "ARE YOU MOM ENOUGH?”. The cover is ultimately questioning the reader into thinking about if they have the courage to breast feed in public and or have what it takes to be attached to their children. Furthermore, it is trying to reveal to the general public what some parents do that are extreme (breast feeding in public) to have close attachments to their children.

Source: Time magazine

Time has chosen such a head turning cover in order to reveal or point out that in American society in this day and age, there has been an emergence of many taboos about breast feeding in public or to what age a mother should keep nurturing children. This cover photo ultimately shows both taboos about nurturing. The child looks to be too old to feed and the mother is feeding him in arguably the most public way possible. The reason that questioning this taboo is so important because on one hand breastfeeding is said to be very healthy and necessary for promoting infant health and vitality and on the other hand some feel it is not proper to breastfeed for longer than 6 months and to never do it publicly. In other countries breastfeeding in public is a natural common practice but somehow America and some other western countries feel that this once common practice is now inappropriate, regardless of health benefits. One of the reasons for this happening could be the fact that companies sell formula for babies have such aggressive add campaigns that have worked so well as to cause the entire society to view breastfeeding in public as unnecessary. Moreover, it is because our society still has not realized that breasts are not solely a sexual aspect of women but instead a more important tool to feed and nurse the young. Furthermore, if one were to dive deeper into how society thinks about caring for babies, many hypercritical ideas emerge. There is always talk about how a mother should be protecting and not risking any danger for a child before birth, by taking every precaution to stay safe. Yet after a the child is born, people say that mothers should not be breast feeding in public, thus not feeding them essential nutrients and putting the child at danger of being weak and unhealthy. Should it not be the same in or outside of the womb? There is much debate and this issue of Time magazine did a very good job of adding some more fuel to that fiery debate.