Bed Bunnies

I was recently exchanging opinions with a friend about breast feeding. This was in response to a recent magazine cover of a mom whose 3 year old son is shown standing--and nursing--at her breast. I am an advocate of breast feeding, and breast fed all of my kids for as long as they were interested (about a year). I think I would have cut them off if it went much beyond that, because it gets painful when they have teeth, and it's just a little weird, I think, when they can ask for it. But that's my personal opinion, and I've no quarrel with a woman who chooses to breast feed forever. I thought about this as I snuggled this morning with my 16 year old son. That's our ritual, both before he goes into his own bed at night, and before he goes to school in the morning. There's nothing remotely sexual about this; he just loves--and needs--to snuggle. It's such a precious few minutes of warmth and close calm for him and me that I wouldn't give it up for anything. But I wonder, would viewers of a photo of us snuggling impute nefarious motives to him, or to me? It's heartbreaking to think so, but such is our world of judgment and sexualization. When we couldn't get our kids out of our bed years ago, I prevailed upon my husband to get a bigger bed. King size, it is. And my happiest moments are when it's a family bed, when my eldest comes in to watch a movie with us, when my youngest brings her bellyache to be soothed with snuggling and bad tv, and of course when my middle man comes for his dose of snuggle love. So to the moms who want to breast feed forever, if it works for you, go for it. I can think it's weird or painful, but you can think the same of my snuggling with a sixteen year old. I've no business trampling on your pleasure and intimacy, nor you on mine. And we certainly have it over men here, don't we? They'll never know what they've been missing out on...