When Time magazine shared this portrait on Instagram on 23 December, it sparked controversy online. Slammed as “tone deaf” by one commenter and as a display of the “typical white woman with money having a POC take care of their children”, by another, some also remarked that the child was too old to be breastfed. Originally published in a feature on the confounding childcare issue in the US in Time magazine’s 21 October issue, the image depicts Rachel Kahan, who is nursing her daughter, while her nanny Annie Nabbie tends to the baby’s toenails. Kahan had helped Nabbie—who is originally from Trinidad—to successfully get a green card.
“This story is about the individual experiences of a dozen or so women and it is also about racial inequality, white privilege and how sexism has lead to women’s labour being undervalued. It is a photograph of a real moment in time, part of the morning routine, and also a photograph of a symbol which evoked a response from viewers,” Taylor-Lind explains. “I spent weeks photographing Annie and Rachel’s families. One morning Annie clipped Michaela’s toenails while Rachel was breastfeeding her. Michaela didn’t like having her toenails clipped and so Annie did it while she was distracted by nursing. I made hundreds of intimate images of daily routines around childcare- nursing, bathing, meal times, bed time, this was one of them.” This image is shown at Fotografiska New York until 8 March.
