A Lament for Leaders Lost

A guest post by Mothers for Mother

Mothers for Mother (MfM) was a website started by disaffected La Leche League Leaders who could see that the LLLI Board was literally killing this venerable organisation by its insistence on using “a variety of terms” in place of mother. For 65 years LLL Leaders have provided mother to mother breastfeeding support at no cost to the many thousands of women who contact them every year. LLL has literally changed the course of breastfeeding history, but is in grave danger of losing its credibility as Board members alter policies (largely without consultation) to include men and erase women.

It was necessary for Mothers for Mother to be totally anonymous as no public criticism of LLL is ever allowed by Leaders. Leaders who complain (even in private League Facebook pages) are promptly bullied by gender woo warriors and threatened with being disaccredited. In the beginning, when MfM had a comments section, every Leader who commented was sanctioned/booted off committees or otherwise punished for their ‘insubordination’. Some Leaders are still fighting for their right to remain a Leader while at the same time holding gender critical views (AKA believing in facts and biology).

Because of the level of secrecy required to operate MfM, this website has been taken down. Reprinted with permission of the Mothers for Mother authors I am republishing a series of their posts as a form of archiving them for future readers who appreciate the sanity of those who believe in biological facts, over the thoughts of those who posit that nothing is more important than what they feel or believe about a made-up world of their choosing.

This was first published on February 16, 2022, and the situation within LLL has not improved for the better in the last year.

A Lament for Leaders Lost

Consistency has always been one of the appealing aspects of La Leche League. A mother could move anywhere in the world that had an LLL Group and immediately find kindred spirits and make new friends. The LLL philosophy of “mothering through breastfeeding” was paramount in every Leader Applicant’s training, and even if mothers had nothing else in common, they could find sisterly camaraderie in this grass roots movement that has endured for 65 years.

What an amazing accomplishment: Seven women built a global network out of the seeds sown at an afternoon picnic in a park.

Lately, the camaraderie has faded. The LLLI Board has ignored the organization’s long-standing policy about avoiding mixing causes as it has been captured by the politics of gender ideology and queer theory. Ironically, inside an organization whose membership have long prided themselves for their empathy and effective communication skills, the conversation has devolved into an aggressive argument.

It has become a transgression to state biological facts such as “only women can get pregnant and breastfeed their babies.” LLL now proclaims itself supporting “everyone” to breastfeed – or chestfeed or human milk feed. Mothers are expected to step aside and make room for “parents” and “families.”

Language is being changed in the name of so-called “inclusivity and diversity” by erasing universally understood terms like “mother” and “breastfeeding” and replacing them with dehumanizing terms such as “birthing person” and “lactating parent.” The needs and feelings of over 99% of those who embrace their status as mothers are being dismissed in order to prioritize the feelings of those with gender identity concerns who might experience distress when referred to in female terms.

Rather than carefully listening to Leaders from all over the organization and taking their concerns to heart, the LLLI Board has unilaterally decided to embrace the use of de-sexed language. Leaders who have dared to assert that the biological reality of sex is more important than the politics of gender ideology have been ignored or silenced. The social coercion is perceived as a deliberate move to manipulate people to ignore the scientific reality of biological sex.

Those who have had the temerity to try to exercise their freedom of speech and politely disagree have been met with name-calling and removal from platforms, if not from their LLL positions.

Now “no debate” edicts are escalating, and those who have dared to disagree are being threatened with disaccreditation and removal from LLL altogether. This is a sustained and organized attack against those who speak out against misguided policies and their implications. Many of the tactics used, such as monitoring Facebook accounts and asking members to report infractions of fellow Leaders, are reminiscent of the techniques used by totalitarian governments to keep their population under control. People who cannot debate the merits of their own position are using censorship to shut down civil discourse.

MothersForMother.com has contacted some of the Leaders who have been censured for their public support for keeping sexed language in LLL. As these Leaders look back at the way they were treated, they express a deep sense of sadness. They feel forced to use de-sexed language that is incompatible with the work that they do on a daily basis with mothers. They became Leaders to help mothers breastfeed, not to promote a political ideology. Below, several Leaders share their stories about becoming Leaders and their concerns for the organization’s future. Their names have been redacted to protect them from further retribution for expressing their views:

Leader A:

I attended my first LLL meeting when my baby was nine months old and nobody in my surroundings had ever breastfed “that long.”  What a relief it was, to feel so welcomed and understood right away!  Shortly after, I was invited to evaluation meetings and became a Group helper.  Nine months later, the Leader encouraged me to become a Leader Applicant.  I felt honored that she asked me. Since I strongly believed in mothering through breastfeeding and felt compelled to continue transmitting this through mother-to-mother support, I accepted her suggestion, and with her guidance, I became a Leader.

It is a HUGE concern for me that LLLI is adding words and/or using new words. Familiar words like mother and breastfeeding are disappearing rapidly in different LLL entities and being replaced with words like parents and chestfeeding. This is so far from what La Leche League was meant to be. With this change of language and the underlying erasing of well understood words relating to breastfeeding, I am extremely worried that mothers will not feel welcome and understood at LLL meetings like I did years ago. I am sure that I would not have felt recognized as a mother if the Leader had kept using the words parents and chestfeeding instead of mother and breastfeeding.  LLL is losing its true meaning and its vital reasons to exist.

Leader B:

I remember the first year of my son's life as a difficult and intense time. I suffered from recurrent mastitis and was very depressed. Fortunately, someone told me to contact LLL and I did. A Leader supported me for several weeks, and little by little, using the information she gave me, I was able to correct my breastfeeding and overcome my terrible mastitis.  After the birth of my second child, I started going to meetings and was able to meet other mothers with children of similar ages to mine, which helped me to feel more connected by making new friends. I became a La Leche League Leader because, thanks to the Leader who helped me, I was able to save my first child's breastfeeding experience. I wanted to offer other mothers the kind of help that I had received.

I now worry that LLL has totally lost its essence, and that its actions are endangering the health of babies. With its new language, it is causing the role of mother to lose its exclusivity, equating it with that of the father or any other caregiver of the baby.  In a society that does not value the mother or the exclusive role of the mother, breastfeeding has no future. In its eagerness to include the trans collective, LLL is ignoring such obvious realities as the fact that in all of human history, in all cultures, and in all mammalian species since the beginning of their evolution, the sex that breastfeeds is the female.

LLL is undertaking a large-scale, uncontrolled experiment in which men self-identified as women may try to breastfeed after undergoing medical processes as they seek to create male breastmilk. And all this without considering the enormous harm that the baby may suffer from being separated from his or her biological mother. This is being attempted so that a man can satisfy his desire to perform a reproductive (and therefore sexual) act that does not correspond to his sex. In addition, LLL’s effort to satisfy the demands of women who self-identify as men, by calling them not "mothers" but "fathers," equates the roles of mother and father, putting gender identity above the role of MOTHER. This is very dangerous for motherhood, because when its exclusivity disappears, it undermines legal protections that allow mothers and babies to be together when they need it most. 

Leader C:

I attended my first LLL meeting about eight weeks before the end of my first pregnancy and was instantly “hooked.” After my baby’s birth, I attended meetings regularly, asked lots of questions and eagerly embraced LLL philosophy wholeheartedly. Soon, they let me run the Group library and I read everything I could get my hands on. Fast forward … baby #2 was a few months old when the Group Leader invited me to apply to be a Leader. Soon after I started my application, we moved to a different state and I had to start over in the new location. I plunged in with both feet and never looked back.

When it comes to practical breastfeeding support and knowledge, LLL both is—and  is not—the “only game in town.” LLL is the only global organization dedicated to mother-to-mother breastfeeding support, representing the lived experience of millions of women and mothers. However, LLL Leaders are volunteers, and they are not prepared or able to provide support for vast numbers of breastfeeding mothers in a given area. Those who are not supported by LLL may resent being ignored (possible) and/or realize that they, too, can support their friends (likely). Many newer organizations have formed for similar purposes, borrowing a lot from the LLL playbook. On the downside, the major reorganization that LLL underwent a decade ago undermined and possibly destroyed what was once a cohesive, global foundation. “Divide and conquer” has worked to the detriment of LLL as a global organization.

Leader D:

I started out wanting to breastfeed my first baby and knew LLL offered support, but I couldn’t find a Group. When my baby refused one breast at five months and my supportive doctor and I didn’t know what else to do, I had to wean her. When I was finally able to attend my first LLL meeting, I knew that I’d found a place of knowledge, support, like-minded mothers filled with answers and such fun women.

I stayed on as a Leader because of the women I met, including all of the mothers who served as an inspiration on what it meant to be a woman, not limited by age. I was enriched with ideas on mothering, breastfeeding, discipline, nutrition, and my eyes were opened to the global commonality of mothers.

Each time I was asked to take on a new position, I eagerly said yes, knowing I would be enriched far beyond what I gave. The motivational speakers, the LLL physicians, conferences, other Leaders—each experience opened a world of wonder and diversity. I learned to write, to edit, to think, to question, to validate, to empathize. I never would have had the joys of home births or homeschooling had I not found such maverick women.

About five years ago, I began to feel concerned about the way that social media platforms were proliferating and impacting LLL. A few vocal individuals dominated forums, cutting off any discussion that was not in agreement with their views, bullying, labeling, vilifying. Most Leaders were shocked to experience public name-calling. LLL culture deteriorated rapidly when this behavior continued without restraint. The LLLI Board deferred responsibility to the Direct Connect Entities (DCEs) or forum administrators, claiming it was not their purview to monitor, and intolerance continued unabated.

Currently, this Board is making decisions that stray from our sole purpose by both embracing gender identity in its publications and by defining breastfeeding in such broad terms that the essence of who we are is watered down. Despite the foment that their belief has engendered, they are not listening to nor engaging Leaders, whose numbers continue to decline.

Leader E:

Over the past two decades, frequent moves because of my partner’s job have led us to live in a variety of cities and countries. Arriving in a new place as a full-time mother has required building new support networks for myself and my children.  My first contact has always been with people in the service industry: Movers, grocers, janitors, and waiters become fast new friends and help me navigate my new circumstances.

Hispanics now represent almost 20% of the population and 40% of the labor force in the U.S.A. A compassionate ear and local insights have often helped me find my feet in a new community, and I have always felt honored to hear their stories.

Breastfeeding activism through mother-to-mother support has felt like the most efficient way to give back. From countless conversations with Hispanic mothers, I have gathered that most don’t receive even basic breastfeeding information and support when they give birth. If a mother is classified as low-income, she will be put in touch with a Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program that will provide formula for the baby from day one, without a warning of the detrimental effects of formula on the mother’s milk supply; on the mother’s ability to physically benefit from breastfeeding; or of the risk artificial milk poses for babies.

Many mothers have no one to help them advocate for their right to be in close contact with their babies. Most mothers will need to go back to work before they fully heal from labor. They will not be allowed to bring the baby to work or have extended, paid maternity leave. Although pumping is not the same as direct breastfeeding, even this is denied to many, who will not have any support or the ability to request pumping breaks. Their cumulative difficulties are heartbreaking, and I want to be part of an effort to reach out to this neglected demographic. Mothers need us.

I am very concerned about the future of LLL. I find it inexplicable that attention seems to be focused on initiatives that make critical information for the new mother harder to understand. The insistence on replacing the words mother and breast in favor of “a variety of terms” renders information confusing and potentially harmful. We are excluding millions of mothers from our efforts, under the pretense that a small minority might be made to feel at home.

I have not seen any evidence that the size of the demographic that supposedly benefits from these linguistic changes compares to the number of mothers who are being left out. We are getting distracted from effectively reaching millions of mothers with clear messages.

We need to be mindful of the conditions of hard-working mothers, recognize their hardships, and act with compassion for the challenges that they face.  I find it difficult to believe that there is any good soul in this world who would want to make it harder for a new mother, fragile as most of us are at that point, to access basic life-saving information.

Leader F:

I didn’t need help with breastfeeding—it was desperation over my baby’s night-waking that drove me to attend my first La Leche League meeting.  A Leader was quick to pinpoint dairy intolerance as the cause for my baby’s misery and suggested co-sleeping to deal with my sleep deprivation. Our nights improved dramatically, and so I kept coming back. I became a Leader out of a desire to help other mothers discover, as I had, that there is a great deal of experience-based mother-wisdom that one doesn’t readily find in books, websites or physicians’ offices.
 

The last few years, I have felt revulsion every time I have encountered LLL messaging that includes usage of terms like “chestfeeding,” “breastfeeding families,” and “birthing parents.”  Even though, in the past, I enjoyed mentoring many women to become Leaders, I stopped encouraging anyone to apply for LLL leadership. I don’t see a future for an organization that has built its reputation on the generous volunteer labor of mothers, but now allows others within its ranks to use social media to disparage them. Leader numbers are dropping, and it’s hard to see how others are going to be inspired to take their places.

Art used with permission of anonymous artist