Tina wrote,  << Kathy D. mentioned a woman at convention who admitted to
breastfeeding a child of 11.  That makes me extremely uncomfortable.  I can
wrap my mind around 2-3-4-5, but there is a point where I would have to say,
"I want my body back".   >>

It makes me uncomfortable, too, if I imagine it for myself.  But I've come to
realize that this feeling is in the "cultural part of my body," rather than
the physiological part, if you will.

Here's the exercise that made me realize this:  When my babies were young, I
felt "enslaved" to the pump -- even though I was committed to providing EBM
for the times I was away from them at work -- and was happy to "wean" it long
before they stopped bf -- when they were around a year old and I felt OK
about adding cows milk to their diet to replace those daytime feedings.   The
feeling that I "wanted my body back" from the pump kicked in many months
before any feeling that I wanted it "back" from my babies.

On the other hand, I can certainly imagine pumping to provide my own milk for
a relative -- 11 or 99 years old -- who might be helped by it through, say,
their cancer treatments, god forbid. And in that case I don't think that the
pump would feel much like the kind of "entrapment" that makes you say, I want
my body back -- but if I had to actuallly put those adult relatives (even my
kids, I think, though mine are still much smaller) to the breast, I would be
very uncomfortable indeed about that kind of "sharing" of my body.

The difference is in how I -- with my own personal, cultural history -- feel
about those two kinds of interactions with those two kinds of people; how my
body relates to them as seen through my personal cultural lens.

So yes, Tina, I would also want my body back from the 11 year old.   But I
can still get my head around somebody else not needing theirs back.   If it's
working for them, in a healthy-and-not-neurotic arrangement in their own
family, well, great.

Elisheva Urbas
struggling every day to attain and maintain a less judgmental stance in New
York City

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