Funny story!

I'm now reading a book called "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" which is very good. Its about a little girl growing up in a poor part of Brooklyn in the early 1900's. This next little exerpt I'm going to put here was pretty funny to me, and may even be true because I believe that the author wrote this book based on her experiences growing up in this area at this time. *Warning* may be too graphic for some, but I still think it is really funny. Sorry its a bit long!

"Gussie, a boy of six, was a murky legend in the neighborhood. A tough little hellion, with an overdeveloped under lip, he had been born like other babies and nursed at his mother’s great breasts. But there all resemblance to any child, living or dead, ceased. His mother tried to wean him when he was nine months old but Gussie wouldn’t stand for it. Denied the breast, he refused a bottle, food or water. He lay in his crib and whimpered. His mother, fearful that he would starve, resumed nursing him. He sucked contentedly, refusing all other food, and lived off his mother’s milk until he was nearly two years old. The milk stopped then because his mother was with child again. Gussie sulked and bided his time for nine long months. He refused cow’s milk in any form or container and took to drinking black coffee.
Little Tilly was born and the mother flowed with milk again. Gussie went into hysterics the first time he saw the baby nursing. He lay on the floor, screaming and banging his head. He wouldn’t eat for four days and he refused to go to the toilet. He got haggard and his mother got frightened. She thought it wouldn’t do any harm to give him the breast just once. That was her big mistake. He was like a dope fiend getting the stuff after a long period of deprivation. He wouldn’t let go.
He took all of his mother’s milk from that time on and Little Tilly, a sickly baby, had to go on the bottle.
Gussie was three years old at this time and big for his age. Like other boys, he wore knee pants and heavy shoes with brass toe tips. As soon as he saw his mother unbutton her dress, he ran to her. He stood up while nursing, an elbow on his mother’s knee, his feet crossed jauntily and his eyes roving around the room. Standing to nurse was not such a remarkable feat as his mother’s breasts were mountainous and practically rested in her lap when released. Gussie was indeed a fearful sight nursing that way and he looked not unlike a man with his foot on a bar rail, smoking a fat pale cigar.
The neighbors found out about Gussie and discussed his pathological state in hushed whispers. Gussie’s father got so that he wouldn’t sleep with his wife; he said that she bred monsters. The poor woman figured and figured on a way to wean Gussie. He was too big to nurse, she decided. He was going for four. She was afraid his second teeth wouldn’t come in straight.
One day she took a can of stove blackening and the brush and closed herself in the bedroom where she copiously blackened her left breast with the stove polish. With a lipstick she drew a wide ugly mouth with frightening teeth in the vicinity of the nipple. She buttoned her dress and went into the kitchen and sat in her nursing rocker near the window. When Gussie saw her, he threw the dice, with which he had been playing, under the washtubs and trotted over for feeding. He crossed his feet, planted his elbow on her knee and waited.
“Gussie want tiddy?” asked his mother wheedingly.
“Yup!”
“All right. Gussie’s gonna get nice tiddy.”
Suddenly she ripped open her dress and thrust the horribly made-up breast into his face. Gussie was paralyzed with right for a moment, then he ran away screaming and hid under the bed where he stayed for twenty-four hours. He came out at last, trembling. He went back to drinking black coffee and shuddered every time his eyes went to his mother’s bosom. Gussie was weaned.
The mother reported her success all over the neighborhood. It started a new fashion in weaning called, “Giving the baby the Gussie.”

I have always thought, personally, that nursing longer than one year is too long. I learned at a breastfeeding class that I went to that the average age worldwide at which a child stops nursing is five. FIVE!! Granted, in most third world countries that is the only food source available, so I guess that is understandable. I am all about nursing and the benifits it gives to the baby and will continue to nurse all of my children, but one year is my max, and is probably even pushing it for me!