Article content

Full Disclosure: My son was so attached to breastfeeding that eventually I had to tell him “boobies broken” — repeatedly.

He was old enough to understand that logic; he was almost three.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Shannon Miller: I breastfed my sister's baby without telling her and didn't apologize. It's the natural thing to do Back to video

I’d returned to work, to a promotion, when he was 12 months old, and I thought the breastfeeding would have ended with my absence. Nope. He loved breastfeeding and latched on whenever he saw an opportunity. He later tried to negotiate: “What about if I’m bleeding, could I have boobies?” We eventually agreed (because my default mode of parenting is negotiating) that if his head was split open and his brains were showing I would give him the boob.

I get it. It’s hard to see something as both a sexual object and perfunctory feeding tool

If that bothers you, what I’m going to write next isn’t going to get any easier.

A friend sent me the Leah McLaren “removed” Globe and Mail article and I laughed, agreed and kinda understood.

McLaren wrote of how she once tried to breastfeed Conservative MP Michael Chong’s baby at a party, without telling the Chongs. Even though it was removed from online by the Globe and Mail, an archived version of the piece has surfaced and gone viral.