Ok so this evening for turkey dinner my Father In Law (FIL) brings up
the subject of "so when are you going to wean her?" I just said that
she'll wean when she's good & ready. We discussed politely for a while,
& then he says, in response to some "guinness record" commentary on TV
(nothing to do wi/ nursing) "How'd you like to make your own guinness
record?" I asked what kind of record & he said of nursing the oldest
child, as i suspected he would. i raised one eyebrow at him & said i'd
have to nurse more than 21 yrs, or something like that. He seemed
suitably surprised, but then my Mother In Law (MIL) pitches in that
that's just pure incest. So I say "what makes you say it's incest?"
"Well, because it's not normal" So I say "You mean having a hug with
your child isn't normal, & is incestuous behaviour at 21?" She rolls
her eyes & says of course not, it's not the same, as it's not sexual.
Well, then I started discussing how the breasts are not made to be
sexual objects either...society dictates that they are. She said "no,
of course not! People decide for themself what turns them on...maybe
for you they're not sexual, but for other people they are!" and I said
that probably society has a lot to do with how people think they feel
about something. She did not agree with this either, but anyhow, I
digress.
Anyhow, we had a perfectly polite conversation, and I don't think I
convinced her of much, but it was interesting to talk about. And yes, I
did bring up Kathy Dettwyler's chapter on sex and the breasts. ;-)
When I brought out the book she asked if I was going to have her read a
book...I said no, I wouldn't even try to get her to read it...I have a
hard enough time wading through it myself, LOL! It's an interesting
read, but very heavy going, I find, for myself, anyhow! My MIL is
french, so reading such a heavily scientific book in english would not
be easy (though she does understand enough english to get by, i.e. read
a recipe or whatever).
I said that I would not follow Sandrine to university either, so if she
decided to still be nursing at age 18 or whenever, and it meant enough
to her to continue, she'd have to choose a university close to home.
;-) LOL...that sure got their goat.
I noticed that she is making progress though. When I started nursing
Sandrine she thought that nursing past 9-12 months was completely
un-necessary, and even detrimental. Now she's willing to admit that it
can be good for a child even older than that (2-4 yrs or so!) though
still "un-necessary" in her eyes. Her famous phrase is "well, we've
evolved since cave-man times and we have more variety of foods and we
can prepare them better, so we don't need to nurse until age 5 just
because we can't chew the tough old bison we happened to kill...". ;-)
There's work left to be done, but she's mellowing out.
Fio.
nak
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