Treated as a pedophile because she is breastfeeding her 3-year-old son, a mother responds

Sarah Mills is an Australian mother of three children: Monroe, Hendrix and Morrison. On her Facebook page, she recounts her life as a single mother and confides in many subjects without taboos. On January 28, she shared a photo of her daughter sitting on the floor in a supermarket. While stocking up on school supplies with her toddlers, she had an anxiety attack and felt the need to sit down for breathing exercises. It was then that her youngest, who just turned 3, asked him to feed him.

Strongly insulted because she is breastfeeding her 3-year-old son

Sarah Mills shared this photo of her breastfeeding in public not to talk about breastfeeding, but to talk about her anxiety. She has been suffering from this problem for years, and tells how she is trying to get out of it. This publication was supposed to draw attention to this problem and lift a certain taboo. Fortunately, that was the case, and many people thanked her for her testimony. But, social networks being far from being a world of pure benevolence, some users have attacked her because she continues to breastfeed her 3-year-old son.

Insults were flared on the part of some. The young mother has been called a “pedophile”, a “bad mother”, and even worse. Others told her that she was mistreating her little Morrison and that she should kill herself. Words of incredible violence, which are absolutely intolerable and which can in no way be justified. First of all because each family makes its own choices, but also because breastfeeding is by no means a form of mistreatment. This should in no way lead to a surge of hatred and even less to an invitation to die. Remember that in many countries, including France, incitement to suicide and online harassment are heavily penalized by law.

She responds to her detractors

Faced with these attacks, Sarah Mills decided not to be intimidated and responded to those who attacked her. “A woman who successfully manages her anxiety and runs into stores with three children, instead of hiding in shame, sees hundreds of people […] tell her how disgusting and evil she is. Because she feeds her child in public. My son who just turned 3, who, as a reminder, has a problem that weakens his muscles which makes him choke on many foods. He has developed a fear associated with eating different textures and we are still relying on breastfeeding as a source of nutrition for him to develop, while we are trying different therapies to improve his diet. “she wrote. She also adds that breast milk still has benefits at this age, and that It is not because the child is more than 2 years old that he will suddenly become impoverished.

Sarah Mills then tackles the accusations of pedophilia, in particular by recalling that breastfeeding is natural: “Breasts are made to breastfeed. This is literally what women have breasts for”. “I have tough skin, but let me tell you – as a survivor of sexual assault, treating someone as a pedophile is the most hurtful thing you can say. It is excruciating. My whole existence is for my children. I would give my life to make sure they are safe and that we take care of them “, adds this Australian mom.

Let’s stop judging ourselves between mothers!

“A woman nourishing and reassuring her child, is it child abuse?”asks Sarah Mills, stressing that most of the criticism came from women, mothers, even when they should support each other. “Why don’t women support women? How can we expect men to respect women when we don’t even respect each other? You can’t claim” girl power “when you only support things that match your ideas. You cannot start a sentence with “I support breastfeeding BUT”, you support it or you do not support it. There is no “but”. Stop. It is scandalous that a woman is called a sexual criminal because she breastfeeds her child “, explains this mom.

She adds in passing that this does not only concern nursing mothers. Critics seem to be as harsh no matter what choices mothers make : “If I had published a photo of him with a coke and a donut, we know there would have been a whole other army of women to tell me that I am disgusting.” And unfortunately she is not wrong. In 2020, we can hope that women, mothers, users of social networks, everyone in general, will learn to no longer judge others and to support them in their choices.