It’s hard to believe Sesame Street has been on the air since 1969. Needless to say, our society has grown and evolved since the show originally released. Now, Cookie Monster is whacking out on vegetables (which this author still cringes at). One topic which has been brought to the limelight recently is how the show has handled the topic of breastfeeding. More specifically, how the show has completely axed breast feeding from segments which show babies being fed.
This all started on a blog titled, boobietime.blogspot.com (hold your snickers), where an astute mother discovered how the act of baby feeding had changed on Sesame Street from the 70’s, 80’s and into the 90’s.
She found clips of breastfeeding occurring in episodes in the 70’s and 80’s, but sometime during the 90’s the show started showing the bottle option exclusively. The article was posted at the end of December which led to an online petition in the beginning of January, titled: Bring breastfeeding back to Sesame Street.
The petition has a signature goal of 7,500, which it looks to hit. I started this article, went to lunch and came back to see the number of signatures grow from 4,700 to eclipsing the 5,000 mark. Here’s a description of what the petition is looking to gain: “Please take a moment to sign this petition to bring breastfeeding back to Sesame Street. Back in the 70’s and 80’s nursing was tastefully shown on the show but now they have replaced their nursing videos with bottles. Please note…We are not asking Sesame Street to remove bottle feeding. We are asking that both ways of feeding babies be shown as normal. If we normalize breastfeeding in our community, especially with our children, we can help raise a generation of breastfeeders which will support our economy, make for healthier children and lessen the risk of breast cancer for many nursing mamas!”
The original blogger found these clips of breastfeeding being shown on the program during the 70’s and 80’s…
…and here’s the latest version of the subject of babies, which released sometime in the 90’s.
As a 27 year old male I don’t think I could be anymore neutral towards the subject of breastfeeding. I don’t hold any negative connotations towards it, and wish these online petitioners the best. What I’m wondering is what occurred in the 90’s that turned us all into such prudes? When it comes to the more discrete aspect of our bodies, I tend to follow the belief of Kramer from Seinfeld. We all got em’.