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 December 16, 2021
The Hazards of Mixing Causes
La Leche League has had ONE goal for 65 years: promoting breastfeeding.
The purpose of LLL is to provide breastfeeding support, information and encouragement to mothers who request it. Like all adults, LLL Leaders may be passionate about many other issues, such as home birth, right-to-life, homeschooling, religion or politics. But whenever they represent LLL, Leaders are expected to remain focused on breastfeeding.
The purpose of LLLI is distinct. The purpose as stated in the Bylaws does not prevent interaction with other organizations with compatible purposes, but La Leche League will carefully guard against allying itself with another cause, however worthwhile that cause might be.
-- From LLL Policies and Standing Rules, LLL Philosophy
https://www.llli.org/about/policies-standing-rules/#philosophy
This policy is a safeguard for both Leaders and the mothers who approach them for breastfeeding help. It has helped the organization remain focused, and not allowed Leaders to get side-tracked into debating issues or promoting personal beliefs or causes. When women ask a Leader for help or come to an in-person meeting, they don’t need to worry about being judged for any lifestyle choices they have made. Information is customized to address the unique circumstances of each mother/baby dyad.
Here is a succinct summary that was published in the Leader publication Leaven in 1997.
https://www.texaslll.org/how-leaders-can-avoid-mixing-causes/
First, when discussion during a meeting or phone call strays to one of these other topics, we are no longer talking about LLL’s cause, mothering through breastfeeding. The more time we spend on other subjects, the more likely mothers get a distorted view of LLL. By sticking with our message of mothering through breastfeeding, we help ensure that the attendees get a clear picture of LLL philosophy. It also enables us to help mothers who may hold different opinions about these other topics due to their cultural or religious backgrounds.
However, a new policy, implemented in August 2020 with little Leader input, contradicts the long-standing prohibition against mixing causes:
La Leche League is committed to help and learn from all Leaders, mothers, and families who seek our information and support to nourish a child with human milk. In order to reflect this commitment . . . publications produced for LLLI will use a variety of terms to describe Leaders and the people whom we serve.
-- From LLL PSR, Cultural Sensitivity in Publications, August 2020
This policy promotes the political agenda of gender ideology, requiring that the language used in LLL publications and LLL webpages must be changed to accommodate the preferences of those who choose not to identify with their biological sex.
The phrase “use more ink” has been employed to encourage this, as in mothers and parents, or families and mothers. This is supposed to make those who find the word mother problematic feel included. Adding more ink effectively promotes the gender ideology belief system. When the phrase women and lactating people is used in text, it implies that mothers are choosing the gender identity of woman—when, in fact, many women reject the entirety of gender identity theory and the stereotypes attached to womanhood. Many mothers believe that womanhood is dependent only on biology.
Adding words to mother is unnecessary, confusing, inaccurate, and contrary to published peer-reviewed research and global health policy.
Experience has also shown that using more ink is a temporary expedient, and where mothers and parents may be used at first, space constraints lead to the erasure of mother and the shortening of mothers and parents to simply parents. An example of this can be seen in the mission statement of LLLUSA, where the word “mother” is altogether absent:
La Leche League USA helps parents, families, and communities to breastfeed, chestfeed, and human milk feed their babies through parent-to-parent support. LLL USA encourages, informs, educates, supports, and promotes the use of human milk and the intimate relationship and development that comes from nursing a child for as long as mutually desired.
Currently, LLL is promoting a variety of causes on social media through the use of memes. What follows are visual examples of ways that LLL is mixing causes.
"Racism is a Public Health Crisis." Yes, it is; but Black Lives Matter (which this meme was supporting) is not breastfeeding support.
“Pumping is breastfeeding.” This misstatement fails to give women the information they need to make an informed choice. Pumping is decidedly not breastfeeding; it is a sometimes-needed, labor-intensive, second-best alternative. Leaders may routinely help those who need information about pumping and its challenges, but pumping should not be normalized as a choice equivalent to breastfeeding.
Surrogacy is a “difficult beginning,” as depicted in a recent LLLI meme; but it is a complex and controversial issue, as well as being illegal in many countries.
“Not everyone loves to nurse.” This is certainly a discouraging message. One should consider what an audience who didn’t know about breastfeeding would think after reading this. Does it encourage women to try breastfeeding? Or does it undermine the breastfeeding relationship and lead to formula feeding?
“LLL supports everyone…” Who is “everyone?” Leaders offer mother-to-mother support. Allying with #Transgender Awareness Week promotes a political agenda.
This post for trans day of remembrance on an LLL Leaders’ Facebook page received lots of support. It promotes violence (“My rage is forged in death.”) and has nothing to do with supporting breastfeeding.
The LLLI Board has received many letters from Leaders concerned that the organization is prioritizing the political agenda of gender ideology over support for breastfeeding mothers.
Although the Board persists in maintaining that they are not mixing causes, they seem to contradict this in saying that they agree that much more research needs to be done around transgender breastfeeding, and in particular nursing by biological men.
LLLI is mixing causes with a gender ideology that believes a male can change his sex by identifying as a woman. A biological male will never become pregnant, birth or breastfeed his own baby that has come from his body. Supporting this is supporting medical experimentation on babies and focusing the wants of adults over the needs of vulnerable babies. There is no mother in this scenario. A mother is crucial to making breastfeeding work safely and ethically.
By espousing gender ideology, the LLLI Board is violating its own Inclusivity Policy by excluding gender critical women (women who believe that a person's biological sex is immutable) from LLL discussions and LLL leadership. This policy is exclusive because it demands an adherence to a political ideology.
The LLLI Board needs to look carefully at the negative effects that mixing causes has created already, and work to repair the harm by returning the organization’s focus to the mission of helping mothers to breastfeed their babies.