Time's Breastfeeding Cover Causes a Ruckus

The latest issue of Time is sure to catch your eye when it hits newsstands Friday, as it shows a 26-year-old woman breastfeeding her 3-year-old son—who is standing up. At least two commentators have expressed shock that this is Time, rather than one of Tina Brown’s predictably controversial Newsweek covers. Reactions:

• “It's a bit of a jawdropper … We had to blink, rub our eyes, shake our heads and look again,” writes Adam Clark Estes on the Atlantic Wire. “We can't figure out if Time is trolling their competitor Newsweek or trolling us.”

• The cover has led to some shocked Twitter reactions, and a Morning Joe co-host “was visibly upset by it,” writes Dylan Byers on Politico. Morning Joe guest and Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett called the photo “a really cheap shot” and said it made her “wince,” and co-host Mika Brzezinski appeared to agree.
• On BuzzFeed, Anna North points out that cover mom Jamie Lynne Grumet's son “might regret this later,” adding that she hopes “the magazine is planning on paying this kid's therapy bills.”

Time’s blog explains that the photographer chose this particular cover image because the accompanying article is about attachment parenting, and, he says, "I liked the idea of having the kids standing up to underline the point that this was an uncommon situation." (More breast feeding stories.)