I have read some reports that Kroger is pulling the TIME magazine from
their registers.  Really?  I just have no words for this.  I have been
reading all of this controversy over this magazine cover, and I am honestly
just shocked.  I have long been aghast at the display of magazine covers in
the grocery store aisles when my kids were little, covers with outrageous
stories and devastating tales of kidnappings and murders and who's cheating
on who.  I remember shielding my early reader's eyes from these news and
"non-news" stories.  I am thankful and joyous to see a picture of a happy
toddler breastfeeding in the grocery aisle!

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-788748

I remember when the War in Afghanistan first began and was at its peak in
the media.  Literally every single day for months, the top front page of
our local newspaper had a devastating picture of destruction, and I
remember hiding the paper from my very small child.  Some of those pictures
were horribly graphic, and it was day after day after day.  Then one
morning, out of the blue, instead of another horrific battle image, there
was a picture of two men kissing.  I don't even remember the exact picture
in my mind.  There was something in the news about the controversy over
same sex marriage.  People were so angry, and wrote letters to the paper
about how this was completely inappropriate for the front page of the
paper, about how they didn't want their kids to see this.  Anger over how
this paper was in the schools that day, for history or civics class.  I
honestly just have to laugh or else I would cry.  We would rather have our
children see daily images of the destruction and devastation of war and
battle wounds than an image of love?

If someone feels embarrassed or distressed by this TIME cover, I think that
judgment just divides us.  They feel what they feel.  Their perception is
their reality.  What I think we have to do, as a society, is to have the
courage to ask ourselves, "Why do I feel this way about this picture?  Why
does this make me uncomfortable?"  The amount of breast and skin shown on
this cover is way less than the front of MANY other magazine covers,
including health magazines with pictures of fit, lean women in workout gear
or bathing suits on the front.  It is much less than many women themselves
standing in line in the grocery store at the beach, wearing a bikini top
and a pair of shorts, and we think nothing of that.

I have heard many women say in the past few days that they support
breastfeeding, and they think that women should be able to breastfeed as
long as they want to, but that it's disrespectful or somehow wrong to "do
it in public" because it might make "other" people feel uncomfortable.
That women should just cover up or go some place quiet and out of the way.
That's what removing these magazines is saying.  But why do they feel this
way?  Why have they been made to feel this way?  And how can we advocate
for education and acceptance so that, one day, no woman feels uncomfortable
breastfeeding her child in public or anywhere else she happens to be?  I
believe that is where we have to focus our energy.

Kindly,
Sonya Shaver, BS, CHES, IBCLC

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