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 is in danger of disappearing soon. 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 November 30, 2021
Breastfeeding has been around since the dawn of humanity. In fact, we owe our survival as a species to millennia of mothers breastfeeding their babies. Is there anyone who does not understand the notion of breastfeeding?
Yet recently, La Leche League International has created a new definition of breastfeeding and shared it on their website:
https://www.llli.org/breastfeeding-info/breastfeeding/
Why does LLLI think it necessary to redefine “breastfeeding?”
Breastfeeding is universally understood to be a mother feeding her baby breast milk from her breast. It is puzzling that the world's foremost authority on breastfeeding would want to reinvent breastfeeding, including statements such as the following:
“Breastfeeding is what happens when your baby drinks your human milk from your milk ducts at the nipple/breast ... (we) accept(s) that for many women around the world their breastfeeding experience may involve some supplementation ... (and that) ... some people are never able to latch their baby to their breast/nipple.”
These are not encouraging words for any new mother to hear! Placing doubt in a mother’s ability to breastfeed her baby is a tactic used by those who seek to undermine breastfeeding. Why align with a formula company marketing tactic?
Noticeably absent from this new definition is any discussion of the deep bonding that happens with breastfeeding. It ignores the breastfeeding relationship between a mother and baby that is so important to the psychological and emotional well-being of the baby. The definition completely misses the attachment that is fostered by breastfeeding, and how that love encourages the bonding that can help ensure a baby’s very survival.
Birth and breastfeeding are profoundly embodied experiences that require active participation to fully understand. Observing a birth may lend itself to an understanding of the birth process, but unless one experiences birth first-hand, it is difficult to understand how it feels. With breastfeeding, words are often inadequate to describe the feelings of the sheer physicality and life-affirming power of putting a baby to the breast. This physicality, this intense relationship, cannot be casually supplanted with any other kind of infant feeding method. LLL’s single most laudable achievement to date has been the honoring of the breastfeeding relationship.
In trying to incorporate parents, families, chestfeeding and human milk feeding in a mother-to-mother support organization, LLL is making it harder for mothers seeking breastfeeding support to find clear and concise information. Using language that prioritizes gender ideology is advocated as a way to "include everyone," but in practice it can exclude mothers from finding the help that they need to succeed at breastfeeding.
It is jarring to read “Breastfeeding as Described by La Leche League International.” This changed definition of breastfeeding implies that our body parts—milk ducts, breast tissue, and nipples—are what breastfeeding is all about. Breastfeeding is rendered as a mechanical process, and mothers reduced to a collection of parts.
The role of mother is not made up or adopted like some part in a play; it is formed from relationships and in the context of human connections. Ignoring this denies women’s humanity.
We are not machines.
We are human beings enmeshed in relationships with our babies.
We are mothers.
Thank you for these articles.
I am resigning my leader status after 35+ years this spring, and want to tell LLLI why. Do you publish guest posts?