I would agree that it might be possible to coerce a child who was really not interested to continue breastfeeding. But, gee, parents coerce their children into doing things all the time and they aren't removed from their homes, even if we might think it isn't the best way to parent. Let's say this mother was giving her six-year-old some cow's milk in a baby's bottle every day when he got home from school, even though he says he might prefer to have it in a cup. We might think she was a bit peculiar, but I find it hard to imagine that her child would be put in foster care. Heck, if she was giving him Coca-Cola in a bottle nobody would even notice. If she was coercing him to go to church or school, she'd probably be praised, even though there are other parents who disagree with that. I think this has more to do with our society's sexualization of breastfeeding. Why else would everyone be claiming that this will cause the boy "great emotional harm?" Even if he's being coerced, why would this be more harmful than any other kind of coercion? Only if you imagine there is some sexual component to this. (Please note that I am not in favour of coercing children to breastfeed or, in fact, anything else. I'm a pretty permissive parent myself. But my argument is that we rarely consider parental coercion a reason for foster care - except when breastfeeding is involved.) Teresa Pitman Guelph, Ontario *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html