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34 comments to "Grandma Tried to Breastfeed Baby"
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Lea
May 30th, 2008 at
5:04 pm
whaaaat?
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CheeseDuck
May 30th, 2008 at
5:13 pm
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
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J of The Sandhills
May 30th, 2008 at
5:38 pm
worst. pacifier. ever.
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Nicholas Dollak
May 30th, 2008 at
5:59 pm
Honestly, people, there’s nothing wrong with what Nona did. The kid’s not going to be scarred for life. He’ll just be a little disappointed that the “bottles were empty,” so to speak. Infants will suck on fingers, noses, anything they can get into their mouths. And grandmas still have strong maternal instincts and love to relive their “new Mommy” days with a new grandchild. Just some harmless fun, good for building a nurturing bond. Too bad some people are so ignorant about breastfeeding and see it as weird or taboo.
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SenorMysterioso
May 30th, 2008 at
6:18 pm
Yes the baby will be fine, I on the other hand will not be able to shake that mental image for days
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jodie
May 30th, 2008 at
6:20 pm
i agree with you, nicholas, that the kid won’t be scarred for life. still, it is an unusual thing to do with a child that isn’t your own. i would think that that bond belongs to the mother and the child and no one else. breastfeeding is a wonderful, beautiful, healthy thing - but i don’t think it is any of those things when done by someone else and without permission from the mother. why would the grandmother do that? i’m definitely not one to see bad motives everywhere - and i don’t see one here. i just think that it’s very odd.
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lilsugar
May 30th, 2008 at
6:37 pm
Just to clarify, it happened to a friend of babysugar.
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Capella
May 30th, 2008 at
6:37 pm
Weird.
I don’t see how this is a Neatorama material.
what’s the point of the story? -
psshhhh
May 30th, 2008 at
6:39 pm
I don’t get what the big deal was with telling the grandfather?
What, was there supposed to be some kind of sexual jealousy? Pervs…
If anyone should have a problem with it, then it should be the mother!
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Alex
May 30th, 2008 at
6:47 pm
@lilsugar - yes, you’re right. Fixed! Thank you!
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Dianne
May 30th, 2008 at
7:35 pm
Grandma has a screw loose. This is just plain creepy.
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Lo
May 30th, 2008 at
7:37 pm
Wow. How very creepy. It’s like the grandmother’s trying to take over the mother’s role.
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Idil
May 30th, 2008 at
9:04 pm
I completely agree with Jodie. That sort of bond should belong to the baby and its mother alone.
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Mmmmm!
May 30th, 2008 at
10:31 pm
The only thing coming outta them granny boobies are curds and whey.
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SiteSeer
May 30th, 2008 at
10:40 pm
The bonding issue is not the part that’s weird, there’ve been wet nurses for centuries who breast feed for a living. It’s the “hey, maybe it’s a good idea if I should stick both my wrinkly dried out boobs in my grandchild’s mouth without permission” that’s so very very odd. No wonder she doesn’t want to talk about it no more.
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Christophe
May 30th, 2008 at
10:43 pm
Biology lessons are in order
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Emily M
May 30th, 2008 at
10:51 pm
….that’s so wrong
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Leah
May 30th, 2008 at
11:45 pm
Hey, I breastfed both my boys for a long time. And my mother breastfed my siblings and I. But I would have flipped my lid if she or my mother in law did this to one of my babies.
Why? Because it’s not about the breastfeeding — it’s about the mother in law trying to insert herself into the relationship between her grandchild and the mom.
I’d bet my last dollar that the mother in law tied to insert herself into or constantly control some aspect of the young couple’s lives.
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tioedong
May 31st, 2008 at
12:02 am
This story is absurd.
But when I worked in Africa, we had a grandmom who breast fed her grandkid after the mom died in childbirth…if you stimulate the breast enough, you will get milk…and in Africa, with no clean water or refrigerators, formula costs too much and can kill the kid from dirty bottles.And there is a small bag with a tiny tube that you place along your nipple if you want to start breast feeding your adopted kid. Usually the sucking brings on mom’s milk, and the tiny tube keeps the kid nourished until the milk begins to come.
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Miss Cellania
May 31st, 2008 at
1:24 am
OK, all else aside, what makes you guys assume that grandma has wrinkly old breasts? She’s probably, what, 40? I’ll bet the picture accompanying the article is not the actual family involved.
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Miss Cellania
May 31st, 2008 at
1:26 am
My grandma was 38 and just weaning her youngest kid when I was born. Not that she ever breastfed me; we lived far away.
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Evilbeagle
May 31st, 2008 at
2:44 am
I’m one of those women that would be described as tokophobic, so keeping in mind that I would never give birth, and if I did, I would never breastfeed, the idea of my mom or mother in law trying to breastfeed my kid is plain creepy.
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Kaz
May 31st, 2008 at
4:32 am
Instantly reminded me of that Family Guy episode where Peter is trying to breastfeed Stewie… Disturbing…
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Adam Stanhope
May 31st, 2008 at
5:42 am
We were living in Berkeley in the early 90s - my Thai wife, our newborn and I. My Dad flew out to visit us, and some Thai friends who lived in an all-Thai apartment building offered to watch the baby for a few hours while my Dad took my wife and me out to dinner.
When we returned from dinner, everybody in the apartment building was gathered around one apartment from which we could hear the screaming of our newborn. She had been screaming the entire time we were gone, and the ladies in the apartment building (mostly college students) didn’t know what to do. One woman, however, the “grandma” had an idea that she would try to breastfeed the baby. So there they were - 20 Thai college women and this older woman with her shirt open, trying to get our baby to suckle, while one of the younger ladies dripped warm milk over her breast. Given how much the baby was screaming, it wasn’t terribly successful.
Reading this post, it never occurred to me that anybody could have been bothered by this sort of thing. If anything, at the time, I was embarrassed because my kid wouldn’t shut up, creating such a commotion. I was grateful that this woman was willing to try to help out and calm the baby.
I’m perplexed about the negative response here. For the Thai folks, it seemed perfectly natural. We’ve raised our daughter back and forth between Thailand and the US ever since (mostly in the US). In the context of Thai rural village life this solution to the problem of a screaming baby wouldn’t raise a single eyebrow. The idea that American mores might consider such an addict creepy or taboo is unfortunate. A peculiar hangup.
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ted
May 31st, 2008 at
6:58 am
The reactions about the magical “bond” between mother and baby are almost as wacky as the story.
I think Grandma did it for her own pleasure rather than for the kid, which is the creepy part of it. Not sexual creepy, but creepy nonetheless.
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shecky
May 31st, 2008 at
9:55 am
“Nipple confusion”?
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Varun
May 31st, 2008 at
1:04 pm
Only an American woman would do that.
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Stephanie
May 31st, 2008 at
1:46 pm
ted said, “I think Grandma did it for her own pleasure rather than for the kid, which is the creepy part of it. Not sexual creepy, but creepy nonetheless.”
Exactly!
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Neatoramawontsendmeapassword
May 31st, 2008 at
1:58 pm
In some cultures, babies suck on the father’s nipples, too (I guess it’s like a pacifier). So this isn’t all that weird; our disgust is probably just a cultural thing.
However, I am concerned that the woman didn’t seem to understand basic biology. You’re not going to get instant milk from a breast that hasn’t produced any in many years!
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Jennifer
May 31st, 2008 at
4:45 pm
Well, this kid certainly wasn’t an orphan in Africa with a lack of clean water for mixing formula. Nor was it stated that he was screaming his head off when the MIL tried this. Yes, other people around the world may have different culture standards by which this action was acceptable. Here in the States, we do not share that. Neither is our culture standard about breast feeding being reserved for the mother and infant wrong or right, it just is. Same with every culture standard across the world.
The simple fact is, the MIL violated the western culture standard that implies breast feeding is reserved for mother and infant and neither did she seek permission to attempt this “bonding”. This woman seems like she might have issues with her daughter-in-law, perhaps jealousy that the new mother is receiving attention and also forming a bond with her child, and maybe a bit of a problem with this new birth signaling her youth is gone.
Frankly, if my MIL crossed the line like this I would be very angry. Even if my own mother tried it, I would be angry. And further more, this mother has the right to be angry. Just because someone else somewhere else in the world has a cultural acceptance of just anyone breast feeding a child, doesn’t mean this mother has to accept what her MIL tried to do.
…..also, anyone else here think of the ‘Little Britain’ sketch with the grown guy whose mother and grandmother still breast feed him anytime he demands bitty?
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DOJ
May 31st, 2008 at
5:55 pm
SenorMysterioso said it best. The baby will be find, but what about me! 8P
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RN
June 1st, 2008 at
9:59 pm
Silly uptight people.
A tempest in a (probably) D cup.
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Nicholas Dollak
June 2nd, 2008 at
12:20 pm
Re: RN’s “tempest in a D-cup” quip — I LOVE it! Wish I’d thought of that one.
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Uzra
June 13th, 2008 at
12:11 am
There are wide cultural differences in matters of breastfeeding. Practices also vary from family to family too. I have had personal inter-generational experience of having been breastfed though only for a few days when my mother was hospitalised in connection with the birth of my brother for an extended period. I was breastfe by my grandaunt and the wife of a cousin brother. As I was over three years then, and needed breastfeeding more for comfort as I missed my mother, I have vivid memories of that occasion. It was not a big deal in the family as cross-nursing and extended nursing were quite common.
Uzra
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