TIME's jaw-dropping breast-feeding cover: Too provocative?

The newsweekly's latest cover features a gangly 3-year-old boy latched onto his mother's breast, igniting debate over attachment parenting — and the image's propriety

TIME's controversial breast-feeding cover
(Image credit: time.com)

TIME magazine sent a jolt through the blogosphere when it unveiled the cover image of its latest issue: A 26-year-old mom breast-feeding her 3-year-old son, who's standing on a chair to reach her nipple. (See the image to the right, and larger below.) The accompanying article, "The Man Who Remade Motherhood," examines the rise of attachment parenting, a style of child-rearing that abides by three main tenets: Extended breast-feeding, co-sleeping, and "baby wearing," or attaching infants to the parent as often as possible with a sling. "To me, the whole point of a magazine cover is to get your attention," says TIME's managing editor Rick Stengel. Mission accomplished. But does the provocative image go too far?

It's brilliant: This button-pushing cover takes a page out of the sales-spiking playbook that Tina Brown perfected with Newsweek's popular covers, says Hanna Rosin at Slate. "There are many aspects to its genius." Both mom and son wear "impassive expressions, with just the teeniest hint of So What? Fuck You." And the cover features the sort of mom — relatable and urban with stylish highlights and skinny jeans — that sends the message that attachment parenting "is not just for the yahoos."

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