The Cover Shot Heard Round the World

Shockwaves still reverberate from the Mother's Day issue of TIME Magazine; you know the one with mother Jamie Grumet and her nearly three year old son (at the time)breastfeeding standing in a chair in his camos. Well, I'm happy, no thrilled to report that there's been a "do over" of that infamous cover shot. One of the most frequent criticisms by those who support child-led weaning is that a) it was exploitative and intended to create a visceral reaction and b) the TIME cover didn't accurately portray how a mom would actually nurse her toddler. So the editors of Pathways to Family Wellness Magazine decided to right this wrong and sent a photographer to photograph Jamie's beautiful family...check it out, it's gorgeous! The photographer is a former doula, Lori Dorman, who spent four hours photographing the family. Many other beautiful photos are included in this September issue. Here's how she felt about the whole thing: “Most mothers are shoved into the closets when it comes to nursing toddlers,” says Dorman. “It’s considered taboo in our culture, when in fact millions of women do it every day. The Time cover made it more difficult for those women to find acceptance. My goal was to correct the misperception that was created on the Time cover. Its message was that nursing a 3-year-old was outrageous and inappropriate, when in fact nursing a 3-year-old is a normal, healthy activity in the world today. There couldn’t be a healthier interaction between a mother and a child.” Also, I'm proud to say that Barbara Nicholson and I also have an article in this issue on The History of Attachment Parenting that is an excerpt from our book Attached at the Heart. After all we need to look at the big picture from a historical and theoretical perspective. Pathways to Family Wellness is an international, nonprofit, educational magazine with over 250 gathering groups meeting worldwide through Pathways Connect, an outreach project where families can safely explore holistic insights and empowering resources and find respectful support for their individual wellness choices. Order your own issue today at the Pathways to Family Wellness website.

Coming Soon! Attached at the Heart parenting curriculum

A colleague in family life education and child advocacy, recently told me that she felt that our book, Attached a the Heart, was the best parenting book she had ever read. She told me that few programs focus pre-birth all the way through the first three years (as we have also found), so we're excited to fill that important void. The major emphasis of our evidenced-based curriculum will be to help parents become more sensitive and empathic to their children which is at the root of so many parent-child relationship problems.

Our next big step is to enlist the help of a select few universities and agencies to help pilot the program this fall and help us gather data. Anyone interested?