An Australian mother is stunned over the attention a photo taken while breastfeeding her 6-week-old son at her college graduation has garnered.
Jacci Sharkey, 24, said she was not looking to make a statement by breastfeeding her son Alek during her graduation ceremony at the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), but wanted to let other mothers know that pursuing a degree while raising a child is entirely possible.
"It wasn't a statement [on breastfeeding] or anything like that. I would have sent the same picture to the uni had [Alek] had a bottle or a sandwich. ... It was just the fact that I'm a mum. It's not [that] I'm a breastfeeding mum, just I'm a mum," Sharkey told ABC.
“You don't have to give up the career to have kids and you don't have to give up kids to have the career ... you can have it all. It was really a message of thanks and that other mums can do it as well.”
Sharkey graduated from USC this past October with a degree in human resource management. Throughout her three and a half years at the college, she gave birth to two children, including Alek and 20-month-old Ari.
She took time to thank the USC administration for being supportive during her time there by allowing Alek to sit in on classes. As of Thursday, her photo has received over 275,000 likes and close to 10,000 shares on Facebook.
"I never expected it to go crazy. I thought I'd be really happy if it got 100 likes and then it's just gone out of control," she added.
"There has been a sea of thank you messages from people. Some were saying they were really worried about starting university but that I've helped them through it.
It was really heartwarming. ... You do come across your keyboard warriors, but it's just nice to see the positive outweighs the negative."
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