Instead, this week’s cover features Jamie Lynne Grumet, upright and staring at the camera as she nurses her nearly 4-year-old son while he stands on a chair. The title: “Are you mom enough?”

Naturally, the duo quickly dominated parenting websites, discussion boards and Twitter on Thursday, fuelling the eternally combustible debate over how long is too long to breastfeed, what makes a good mother and whether attachment parenting oppresses women.

The discussion’s tiring enough to put a baby to sleep.

Sears’ approach, developed with his physician wife, Martha, encourages parents to be responsive to a child’s emotional and biological needs through such practices as breastfeeding on demand, sling-wearing, co-sleeping and natural childbirth.

While plenty of commenters were outraged by the image, some parents saw it as a clever publicity stunt that didn’t reflect the subject of the story inside.

“Everything is getting lost in this except for the cover,” said Dee Brun, a mother of four from Kitchener, who questioned how a stylist could come up with the bizarre setup.

It is everyone else that has an issue with toddlers still feeding at the breast. Chances are that if you are still breastfeeding your 3 year old you will be gently or sharply ridiculed by friends and family as well as society. If you take it to heart you run the risk of becoming a closet feeder to avoid the negative innuendos and comments. This is sad because there is no harm in breastfeeding a young toddler. In fact many different philosophies on the matter are held. Le Leche League actually supports later feeding for a variety of reasons for moms who have the leisure to choose late breastfeeding.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that the world average for breastfeeding is 4.2 years and they recommend that all children be breastfed for at least two years. More often than not an older child will suddenly stop wanting feeds without too much bother or discussion. In reality would it better to give your 3 year old a cheese burger and milk shake? Many mothers find that a sick child that still nurses at her breast can be comforted and soothed more readily.

The emotional benefits alone, of breastfeeding your 3 year old are reason enough for some mothers to continue. The argument on the other hand is that those children breastfed for longer may develop an overly dependent attachment for their mothers. Research amazingly enough has found the opposite to true. In fact such children are more likely to be independent and not show needy behaviors around their mothers.

Time managing editor Rick Stengel, meanwhile, called it an “arresting image” that was aimed at making a splash and noted breastfeeding is one part of the story.

“Judging by the reaction on Twitter this morning, some people think it’s great, and some people are revolted by it,” Stengel said in an interview with the Washington Post style blog.

“That’s what you want. You want people talking . . . Do I expect some people to be outraged? Sure.”

The cover mom, Grumet, is a 26-year-old mother of two from Los Angeles who follows Sears’ approach and practises extended breastfeeding.

In a note accompanying the video, he writes, “Today was probably the most disappointing day of my life as a father and I don’t know how to correct the situation. Since I can’t seem to make any headway with my daughter on Facebook, I chose instead to remedy the situation permanently”.

Jordan, who uploaded the video on YouTube to post on his daughter’s Facebook wall, thought the video would be seen by maybe 500 people – her Facebook friends and his own Facebook friends. Instead, it has gone viral: on YouTube, it was viewed 3.7 million times in just two days.

Parenting experts have advised that shooting a laptop is probably not the best way to deal with an entitled teenager, but the thousands of people who rejoiced in Jordan’s act of parental abandon don’t seem to mind.

“After watching this I laughed and applauded u (sic)!” Tonya Greider wrote on Jordan’s Facebook page. “I have a 15 year old daughter and I know how hard it is.”

“You sir are my hero,” wrote Jason Harbolt.

And Erika Jove wrote, “As a daughter, mother, educator, and a psychologist, I comment (sic) your actions. I could only hope to work with more children whose parents made them accountable for their actions.”

“How bizarre is that?” the Fox News correspondent exclaimed Wednesday. “Confusing reality with a reality show? But you can’t make it into something cosmic. To inflate it to the decline and fall of the Roman empire, I don’t buy that.”

But the boundaries between illusion and reality, journalism and advocacy, fair trial and free press, all seemed elusive Wednesday as they were battered by conflicting waves of rage in the wake of Anthony’s acquittal on the charge of murdering her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.

As talk shows, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages erupted with rants against a verdict that many Americans considered shockingly wrong — Twitter comments denouncing the jury outnumbered those praising it by 64 to 1, according to the digital bean-counting company NM Incite — a countervailing wave of complaints that media coverage distorted the trial also took hold.

Anthony is scheduled for sentencing Thursday on four misdemeanor convictions for lying to police, which likely will only feed the growing storm of media criticism.

It came most intensely, and least surprisingly, from Anthony’s defense team.

A Florida Bar complaint has been filed against one of Casey Anthony’s attorneys for making an obscene gesture at reporters and spectators after Anthony’s acquittal on murder charges.

While celebrating the jury’s verdict Tuesday at an Orlando restaurant, attorney Cheney Mason gestured with his middle finger toward people gathered outside. An Associated Press photographer snapped a picture of the gesture.

But Mason’s critique was echoed, in only slightly less pungent terms, through the legal and journalistic communities. Many there complained that some television news shows built their ratings up by taking an openly prosecutorial stance against Anthony, leading to public expectations that a conviction was a slam-dunk certainty

“The way TV has handled this is an embarrassment,” said Howard Kurtz, host of CNN’s media-criticism show Reliable Sources. “The sheer volume of coverage for stories that are basically local tragedies is impossible to defend. Toss in a tone of sensationalism, legal pundits who want to be the next Judge Judy, and a rush to judgment that belies the inevitable nuances of a criminal case, and you have the Casey Anthony story. She was convicted on the air long before the courtroom jury took a vote.”

The most pointed criticism was aimed at HLN’s Nancy Grace, a former prosecutor whose nightly attacks on the woman she scornfully referred to as Tot Mom almost single-handedly inflated the Anthony case from a routine local murder into a national obsession. Grace made no attempt to hide her rage at Anthony’s acquittal. “Tot Mom’s lies seem to have worked,” she exclaimed moments after the jury announced its verdict. “The devil is dancing tonight.”

Toobin believes that television should cover trials more, not less, as a sort of running civics lesson. So does lead CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin, a New York defense attorney who has also worked as a federal prosecutor. She believes the anger over the Anthony verdict resulted not because TV hosts misinformed viewers but because they got to see the evidence for themselves.

“There were cameras in the courtroom, and they showed a very competent prosecution team, a very competent defense team, and a very competent judge,” she argued. “You can say people were fooled, but I give them more credit than that. I think people watched — we know they watched, because of the ratings — and they made their own decisions.”

In any event, cautioned former Miami federal prosecutor Kendall Coffey, it’s nothing new for Americans to treat murder trials as entertainment.

The complaints submitted to professional bodies by the losing side in custody battles are turning experts off the important work, the group says in a discussion paper. The result is a “major social and legal problem,” it says.

The group urges changing the rules so disciplinary bodies can only consider complaints from such parents if they have been first approved by the judge in the case or by the other, winning parent, or have been screened to weed out frivolous grievances

“The family law justice system is seriously undermined every time a vexatious complaint is made by a parent to the college,” said the paper signed by 11 psychologists, psychiatrists, lawyers and social workers. “It feels like a professional sucker punch and has no correlation to the skill, experience and savvy of the assessor.”

Earlier this year, the Ontario Medical Association’s board directed its staff to work with other professionals to push for changes to protect members against such complaints.

A parents-rights organization, however, says people embroiled in emotional disputes often feel the assessor is biased against one side, and need some recourse to question their professionalism.

Kris Titus of the Canadian Equal Parenting Council said she has heard from parents about psychologists or others who will spend a whole day with one parent in their home, and an hour in a “sterile” office environment with the other.

“When you’re dealing with children, where every decision made is essentially going to affect someone’s entire future, there has to be strict regulation of assessors,” Ms. Titus said. “There are some assessors we have heard multiple complaints about.”

The report suggests three options, based partly on legislation in a handful of U.S. states.

• -Require that a judge approve any disciplinary complaint, ensuring that it is more than merely an attack on the assessor’s conclusions.
• -Require that the complaint be approved by both parents, again making it less likely the grievance will be just another appeal by the losing party.
• -Set up a vetting process within regulatory bodies that would throw out vexatious complaints before they are formally investigated.

Florida family law dictates that judges allow both parents to be in their child’s life unless there’s clear evidence it is detrimental to the child, he said, adding: “The appropriate thing to do would be to get the report, go to the court and say, ‘In light of this, it’s detrimental.’ ”

He compared the case to other parental abductions.
“People need to understand this is a typical child custody battle between two former spouses,” DerOvanesian said. “My understanding is that the ex-wife (Christa Finch) has made allegations about abuse to children and family services and these have been investigated and unfounded. It’s just back and forth all the time. These are fairly typical custody situations.”

Debra D. Chatman of Minneapolis has been charged in Hennepin County District Court with endangerment of a child, a felony, and malicious punishment of a child, a gross misdemeanor.

According to the complaint, William T. Hurley beat the boy with his firsts and an extension cord. Chatman admitted she initially punished the boy by striking him with a belt, then Hurley burned him with an iron, the complaint said. Chatman said she heard the boy scream, “He’s burning me.”
Chatman said the boy ran out of the apartment, so she grabbed him and dragged him back in, the complaint said. Hurley allegedly started punching the boy again, and the boy ran to hide in the oven and grabbed on to something in there. Chatman said she turned on the oven to cause the boy to “release his hold,” the complaint said.

When the boy got out of the oven, Hurley “continued to assault him,” the complaint said.

Hurley was charged last week with malicious punishment of a child.

According to the charges against Hurley filed in Hennepin County District Court, police arrived at an apartment on the 2000 block of Elliott Avenue on a child abuse call. The boy told officers that Hurley was upset with him for being in his mother’s bedroom. Hurley punched him and threatened to kill him for hiding under a bed, the charges allege.

Officers saw marks and burns on the boy’s body, and, as they spoke to him, Hurley said he had ‘whooped’ [the boy] and “that he would get another,” the complaint said. Hurley had to be restrained by police, the complaint said.

As the nation raised its flu alert to the highest “Red” level on Oct. 4, the ministry also halted the mandatory training for reserve forces and ordered almost 660,000 enlisted soldiers to stay at their barracks.

Meeting visitors, going and sleeping off-base are not allowed in principle, although the first and last regular vacations are still permitted. Individual decisions are to be made flexibly by commanding officers, ministry officials said. It was the first time in Korea that such a confinement measure has affected the entire army.

Since the announcement, the ministry’s online bulletin board, which had less than 10 comments a day previously, has been filled with more than 200 petitions related to the confinement decision.

Introducing himself as a father of two sons, both of whom are in the service now, Kim Hong-bae wrote that the measure had already demoralized young soldiers.

Military officials say soldiers inoculated with the flu vaccine will be able to take vacations from January. However, those due to end their military service around that time would not be included, they said.

Yoon Hae-jin, a student studying in the United States, fears that she will not be able to see her boyfriend during the winter vacation.

“I plan to visit him halfway across the world. The confinement measure seems too harsh for young soldiers. Please consider the feelings of their parents and girlfriends,” she said.

Some people questioned the effectiveness of the somewhat extreme measure.

Despite the growing complaints, the ministry has not yet issued an official reaction.

“In order to protect soldiers from the new flu, the suspension measure was unavoidable. Their vacations are not denied but postponed,” said an official of the Defense Ministry.

“Each military unit is developing other programs to boost the morale of soldiers. We hope the public will be understanding for the time being.”

As of yesterday, the nation’s death toll from the disease was 49. No fatality case has occurred in the army, while some 1,500 soldiers with mild symptoms have recovered.

It’s the minority of parents who strike gold with a daycare that can take their one-year-old all the way through to school’s start and then take care of their child from 3 to 6 p.m. when mom and dad make it home from work. This leaves parents with a patch-work of informal, unlicensed after-school care, privately-hired babysitters or nannies (for those affluent enough), neighbours, playdates or maybe no supervision at all.

Where do your kids go after school?

Setting aside for the moment whether or not it’s realistic to police smoking in cars, I wouldn’t have thought the ban would illicit such concern — not just for civil liberties, I get that — but that this is further proof children are taking over the world? Really?

Ya, sure, we’re clogging the aisles at Shoppers’ Drug Mart with our giant strollers, and our snot-nosed children are climbing the walls at Starbucks when you’re trying to enjoy your no-foam. But I don’t think that the government intervening to encourage people not to blow second-hand cigarette smoke into the faces of children when they’re in an enclosed space no bigger than six cubic metres is really terribly good evidence that the short people are taking over.

It would be nice to think that parents know better than to smoke in their cars with kids, but sadly, not all people do. Addiction sucks. It makes people do dumb things. Even people who are otherwise working hard to provide for and care for their children.

Commenter Larry Perlman makes the point that these type of bans are symbolic. Making them is not about how realistic the bans will be to enforce. It’s about subtly shaping what is considered socially acceptable. It was once perfectly legal to ride in a car without a seatbelt as well. Hell, I remember fighting with my brother over who got to stand “on the hump” for a better view over the front bench seat (all the better for rocketing oneself through the front windshield should a collision occur).

For the record, we did have car seats for some parts of our childhood — I can actually remember being embarrassed by the “babyishness” of mine, so my parents must have been generally fairly cautious for the time. The point is that back then most people let their kids be without a car seat or seatbelt at least some of the time, partly because it wasn’t illegal. The ban on smoking with children in the car will likely have at least some of that same effect.

It will now be prohibited to smoke within nine metres of playgrounds, wading pools and splash pads.

My colleague expressed surprise that this ban wasn’t already in place. Wasn’t this obvious, she asked? Sadly, I guess it is not, and when you consider the tenor of the comments, you get a glimpse at the kind of uproar that this causes among people who are fixated with the city’s “useless bylaws,” and with having their freedoms infringed upon.

It’s the same sort of debate we saw last week when the ban on smoking in cars when kids are present came into effect.

I think most parents will certainly agree that it’s best to protect children from second-hand smoke. My father died two months ago today from metastasized lung cancer. He never smoked a day in his life. We don’t know for sure how he got the disease, but in the kitchen where he grew up the air was nearly blue from both his parents’ cigarette smoke.

Maybe better to fall on the paternalistic side if it can save some otherwise perfectly healthy people from succumbing to second-hand smoke?

I think so.