Goodbye, La Leche League, I prefer to remember you as you once were

A guest post by Valerie M. Hudson

Valerie M. Hudson is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of International Affairs at The Bush School of Government and Public Service of Texas A&M University where she directs the Program on Women, Peace, and Security. Her views are her own, and not those of her employer. She was accredited as a La Leche League Leader in the spring of 1987 and left the organization on principle in late 2022.

Over thirty-five years ago, I received one of the greatest honors of my life—I was accredited as a La Leche League Leader.  I had loved La Leche League for years; I’d been going to LLL meetings since early 1984, when I was pregnant with my first child. And then in 1987, right after the birth of my second child, I was approved as a Leaders.

I cannot express how deeply my life was intertwined with La Leche League, and how many wonderful memories I have of both receiving help as a new mother, and of offering help to new mothers. I remember seeing one of the Leaders nursing a toddler, and thinking how odd but how peaceful the arrangement seemed.  I wound up nursing my toddlers, too.  I remember seeing a pregnant Leader nurse, too, and yes, I nursed through my pregnancies. I remember a Leader explaining how an SNS system worked, and when we adopted our youngest little one, I was able to use one myself.  I remember all the parenting tips and lessons, which influenced me strongly in my choice of attachment parenting, which has brought my family a legacy of love and healing. What incredible and positive role models LLL Leaders were to me in my development as a mother—they mothered me to be a better mother, and I am so grateful to these women!

I remember, too, the help in times of trouble. I remember Leaders’ help in finding a compounding pharmacy which make me a bespoke concoction for my nipple which had a surface strep infection. I remember all the help they offered with my one inverted nipple.  I remember all the help I received when my baby and I got a yeast infection, and every time I put her to the breast I felt as if my nipple were a candle on fire. Through all those difficulties, I persevered because La Leche League Leaders had my back and were willing to share the knowledge they had and I didn’t. Their womanly wisdom and desire to help made it possible for me to finally understand the power of united womanhood.

I remember reading the history of the Founders, and feeling a strong and deep kinship with them, for they lived in a time when breastfeeding was considered lowly and undeserving of societal support. How brave they were to buck that social trend!  How gutsy of them to build a small group of mothers into the powerhouse national and even international organization called La Leche League that was there for me and my family when we needed it!

So I honestly felt a profound debt; a debt that could only be repaid if I stood side-by-side with these women in the trenches, helping other women the way they had helped me. The Leader accreditation process was hard because I was a working mother, and in the 1980s that was frowned upon as showing lack of promotion of mother-baby togetherness. But I explained that in my work as a professor, I was often able to bring my babies to campus with me and combine my role as a mother and as an educator. When my application was finally approved, I kissed my newborn daughter’s head and promised her I would help other babies’ moms in her honor.

And so began my halcyon days as a Leader. We held monthly LLL meetings in my home and my backyard. I went out on calls to help women in their homes, and many times families sat in my living room as I helped with positioning and tongue position. I took countless phone calls—most of the mothers calling were at their wits’ end when we connected, and it was a privilege to help them feel steadier on their feet and give them hope by the time we hung up the phone. I kept the historical archives of our group and helped sell books and memberships. It was a great way to spend the years of one’s life, and I had not one regret.

When my first child with cystic fibrosis was born and diagnosed, ten years after becoming a Leader, I had to pull back from holding meetings at my home because of cross-infection concerns. But I kept up with phone help—so much so that my last help call was just last week. But that period of time when I had to draw back from holding meetings was also fruitful because I undertook research that resulted in adding a module on breastfeeding as an international development issue to my university course on women and international affairs. Every year, I get comments from my students about how they learned so much from our readings and class discussion on breastfeeding in the context of international development—things they had never known before--and how they have been discussing what they learned about breastfeeding with family and friends alike.  Here’s a few comments from this year’s students (2022):

“I have never had a real opinion on breastfeeding as I was not breastfed as a baby. I fell into the media’s push of “fed is best.” However, after learning all the benefits to my own health as well as the baby’s, I will share with all my expecting friends why breastfeeding is so important.”

“A topic I believe America needs to work on and that I will champion the rest of my life is that of breastfeeding and breast milk. . . . I plan to champion this shift by paying attention to the working mothers in [my field] and having frank discussion with them, as well as check in with the medical staff to see what kinds of [influence they have]. And I will work and breastfeed my kid, as well as support my people that choose to.”

“The industry behind birth and breastfeeding is something that shook me to my core. . . . Knowing that breast milk was so beneficial to not only children but the women who breastfeed, I assumed that it was something that was common knowledge globally or even just more widely practiced. . . . I honestly feel that women just don’t know these things and that’s why there may be a lack of breastfeeding globally. It all comes back to education.”

I feel honored and privileged to be in a position to discuss breastfeeding as a feminist issue and as a transnational development issue to my students, empowering them to evaluate choices in a context of knowledge rather than ignorance.

What a good work, then, that La Leche League Leadership has wrought for me in my life, a work full of meaning and love and transcendence. I experienced Leadership as truly a sisterhood of mothers, helping other mothers along the way. Leadership was not just about solving problems, but also about helping women find the power of mothering and womanhood through breastfeeding. I always felt that breastfeeding was a deeply feminist act, as also was empowering other women to breastfeed. The female body is a site of power, if we understand it correctly. Many women have been socialized to see the female body as an enemy of their personal empowerment, but part of my work was to help reveal to them this was a lie their culture had sold them. Their female body is their greatest source of power, and they should learn more fully to plug into that power source and utilize that power.  Breastfeeding is truly a “womanly art,” and we have the obligation to preserve and promote that knowledge among women. The work tasted so good, so fulfilling! I probably would have remained a Leader on phone help until they put me in a pine box to bury me.

Alas, here I am penning an essay on why I am stepping down as a La Leche League Leader after over thirty-five years of service (though I will continue to teach about breastfeeding every chance I get).  I have no problem with my co-Leaders at all. I would willingly continue as a Leader if not for the nagging voice that insists I stand up and publicly object to the direction LLLI is taking with regard to gender ideology.  Most Leaders must stay and help mothers and fight the good fight within the organization, and I applaud them for it.  But some must stand up and publicly leave, so that the reality of profound disagreement cannot be denied by those who would tell you all is well and that most Leaders are just fine with the changes being made. No, I represent the silent majority who are not just fine with the changes being made, but know they will be thrown out of the organization if they object. That is why I am using my real name, so you know that I am a real person, a real Leader.

In my opinion, the saga first began when the founders began to step back due to advancing age. This happens in all organizations and leaves a vacuum that invites mischief¹. La Leche League’s administration was turned over to a management company due to financial mismanagement of a previous executive director around 2014. This company’s business model was to run NGOs whose original Leadership was dying out but whose work was still needed.  Then came the terrible internecine wars of LLLUSA, the Alliance, etc., from 2016 onwards. The combination of new, non-Founder, administration and new nodes of power within the larger organization naturally opened new grounds for contestation of power.  “Inclusivity” became one of those grounds. There is nothing wrong with inclusivity—we want all women, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, immigration status, age, etc.—to feel welcomed and included in the work of breastfeeding, breastfeeding help, and breastfeeding advocacy.

But inclusivity morphed into the idea that men should be included in the work of La Leche League, and LLLUSA in particular began to promote that view (though the Alliance and LLLI have also gone in this direction).  The new push was not about including men as partners of women who were pregnant or nursing—this has always been the work of La Leche League.  No, now we Leaders were asked to assist men who wanted to induce lactation in their male bodies in order to feel the “euphoria” that comes from transgressing the material limitations inherent in sex. We are told we need to include these men in our efforts and to call them “women.” We are told to do this even though this is male colonialism at its most outrageous. We are told to do this even though in so doing we erase the very meaning of the word “woman,” and reduce breastfeeding to a mechanical act, stripped of all its womanly and motherly meaning, that can be rightfully appropriated by men. We are told to do this even though this is treason to the cause of women and mothers and feminism. We are told to do this even though it is a blatant lie. We are told to do this even when there are no good studies on what all these exogenous synthetic hormones and drugs may have on the baby. The new injunctions are a complete betrayal of everything the Founders stood for.

We are also asked to undertake other lies, such as when a woman who does not like being a woman but feeds her baby with her breasts must be treated as if she is not feeding her baby with her breasts, but rather with her chest. Of course, she is feeding her baby with her female, womanly, motherly breasts. There is a female material reality to her body that makes lactation possible in the first place. To deny that reality is, well, to deny reality.

We are even told that The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, the go-to source of knowledge for women about breastfeeding for literally decades, must be renamed--because “womanly” is wrongthink, and “breastfeeding” is exclusionary.  

Sorry, this is not some type of innocuous “keeping up with the times.” This is the destruction of the meaning of breastfeeding itself.  This is the erasure of women. This is the enabling of male colonialism and male appropriation of what rightfully belongs to women. This is a betrayal of everything La Leche League has stood for in the past. I feel literally nauseous at what the current Leadership of La Leche League is attempting, not just LLLUSA but also now LLLI. It is destroying what those wonderful Founders created as a gift for women.

I therefore announce that I am quitting the organization I have served for over thirty-five years. To paraphrase a quote, “I release you, La Leche League, with a full heart for the organization you once were.” I will remember those thirty-five years with satisfaction and joy, but I will not follow you down the road of betrayal of all that La Leche League and its Founders once stood for (and in the case of Marian Tompson, still stands for).  I prefer to remember La Leche League as it once was, not as it now is.

I hope that the current leadership will fail in their destructive efforts. While the current leadership may succeed in destroying La Leche League itself, the one thing we know without a shadow of a doubt is that women are resourceful. There are women now here among us who have as much courage and guts and vision as the Founders did. May there be new, green growth from the ashes of what was once a great, female-centered organization devoted to the empowerment of women.

Original artwork printed with the permission of the artist

1. Arguably, one of the first mischiefs was this case: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/breastfeeding-group-rejects-transgender-dad-s-Leadership-bid-1.1284289 MacDonald was eventually accredited, for LLL was not up for a legal fight over the issue.