Salon, I assume out of a desperate need to fill space, recently posted an article on “parenting lessons” one can learn from watching Game of Thrones. This one popped out at me:
2. Wean your kid.
Young Robin Arryn’s breast-feeding was voted “Most WTF Moment in GOT” at Fanpop, and it’s easy to see why. There’s something unnerving about breast-feeding to begin with. Oh sure, it’s beautiful and natural and it saves money on formula, but it’s a fundamental repurposing of a woman’s body: What was once A is now B (and maybe a little bit of A if the kid’s asleep). The hijacking that starts in pregnancy continues until — well, for Robin, it appears to have gone on way past my wife’s rule: “If he’s old enough to ask for it, he’s too old for it.”
Look — everybody’s made uncomfortable by the unweaned 7-year-old, but the highlighted sentence above really exposes the writer for what he is. If you’re a man who’s about to be a father and you haven’t yet grasped that the “repurposing” is just… the purpose… then I feel like you’re unqualified to take on the job you’ve just volunteered for. The days when “A” seemed like the fundamental purpose of anything are long gone, dude.
As usual, Louis CK gets pretty close to the heart of things:
(As for things children should give up when they’re old enough to ask for it, how about diapers? I’d rather have conversations with my kid about nursing than about who’s pooping during dinner.)
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