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 7, 2021
How can it hurt to try to be inclusive and kind to everyone?
Many organizations supporting childbirth and breastfeeding have headed down a path of trying to include everyone. To accomplish this, some have been eliminating the word mothers and replacing it with birthing parents, postnatal people, menstruators, cervix-havers and other new phraseology.
Some find these new words offensive because they transform mothers into a series of body parts and leave them feeling excluded from their own woman-centered world. While women and mothers are inclusive words that describe female adults, talking about birthing people introduces the mistaken notion that some who give birth are not women.
Many researchers studying breastfeeding and publishing articles have headed down a similar path. In a departure from past work that has focused exclusively on the breastfeeding mother-baby dyad, some researchers are trying to make their work sound more inclusive by using the words parents and families when they mean mothers, and using chestfeeding when they mean breastfeeding.
The object is to be sensitive to those who are biologically female but do not wish to be referred to with sex-specific terminology. One-on-one, this is easily accommodated. But when messages intended for everyone are modified to avoid basic words like mother, what happens to everyone else?
Mothers become confused. Once the familiar word mother is eliminated, health messages become more difficult to understand. Clarity and conciseness are essential for educating and informing anyone who struggles with the written word. Even those with a good grasp of written language have trouble deciphering messages that reference parents and breastfeeding families. To protect newborns from COVID-19, it matters whether vulnerable infants are being separated from their biological mothers—or their parents. For sex-specific activities, sex-specific words are both appropriate and necessary.
Mothers hesitate to seek help. Will a new mother, hoping to find support, attend a meeting if it is unclear whether it is women-only or includes biological males? Vulnerable women looking for a supportive space may no longer feel safe in meetings that don’t make it clear whether men who identify as women are routinely welcome. Expecting women to accept a man’s feeling, that he IS a woman, prioritizes gender identity—what people say they are—over biological sex.
Babies’ lives may be put at risk. Efforts at applying political correctness to breastfeeding seem to forget that the needs of babies should not be ignored to privilege the wants of some adults. Denying empirical facts in the name of social accommodation undermines public trust in science and can inadvertently cause harm to those who are most vulnerable by limiting accurate information. As an example, accuracy can be vital regarding safety precautions for co-sleeping, where it could be life-threatening for babies if research that has been done exclusively with breastfeeding mothers is misrepresented as applying to any parent.
The mother’s authority within the family is compromised. When patriarchal structures are dominant, replacing the word mothers with parents undermines the mother’s decision making ability. If we talk about breastfeeding families, it reinforces maladaptive power dynamics where others have a say in where the baby sleeps, how long the baby will be allowed to breastfeed—or even if the baby will be allowed to breastfeed at all. In this famous photo (below), the mother-in-law dictated to the mother that the twin boy would be breastfed, while the twin girl would not.
Is this what volunteers signed up to support? Organizations like La Leche League have attracted women willing to give their time and energy, offering mother-to-mother support. LLL Leaders are advocates for women and strive to be compassionate and caring. In talking with individuals, Leaders have always provided individualized care, and this may include use of terminology requested by that person.
There is a rising number of women, especially young women, who have been seeking medical and surgical intervention due to gender dysphoria (discomfort with their bodies and with societal expectations for females). These individuals who have undergone elective mastectomies and may be taking hormones and other drugs have special needs for which LLL volunteers lack experience or expertise. Those same volunteers also may not feel comfortable when expectations are further expanded to providing parent-to-parent support and helping not just biological females, but biological males who may want to breastfeed.
While there is a place for inclusive language in conjunction with the minority to whom it applies, an overall inclusiveness policy cannot replace the years of struggle and advocacy to get women recognized, to get breastfeeding and breast milk recognized, to get the programs and services women need for pregnancy/birthing/breastfeeding respected and put into place globally. We need inclusivity, and more of it—but not the type that leaves over 99% of those whom we are trying to support feeling excluded.
If the goal is to be kind to everyone, then it is essential to use language that anyone can readily understand.
Photo credit: UNICEF. (Picture of twin babies.) "One Baby Lived. The Other Died." http://www.whale.to/w/baby_milk2.html 12/7/2021.
“When patriarchal structures are dominant, replacing the word mothers with parents undermines the mother’s decision making ability.” Thanks for sharing this post and for this statement. What happens to mothers and babies cannot be understated : Being Kind and Inclusive to Everyone hurts the position of mothers in the family. It’s time our Western culture admits that some people (like males) need to be excluded from sexed female activities in order for women and babies to thrive.
So much to say! I'm limiting myself until I find out if this account will allow dissenting and questioning comments though.
<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....> If you are an LLL Leader you ought to know very well that the 'variety of terms' used by LLLI is alongside, and not in place of, mother. And that there was wide consultation about the policy before it was adopted by the democratically elected LLLI Board. It is vexatious and misleading to suggest that consultation and democratic votes are an imposition. Decisions being made that you do not agree with do not mean you have not been heard, or that a decision has been imposed on you - it just means your view is in the minority.
Noone is replacing actual mothers or the term 'mother'. And I do enjoy a good bit of hyperbole, but noone is 'literally killing' the organization! There is much evidence that La Leche League is very much alive - far surpassing the mid-year fundraising target (despite the nefarious website exhorting people not to donate to LLLI), accrediting new Leaders, increasing reach, engaging in global advocacy, launching new projects and resources etc. Anyone wanting to know more can read LLLI's new publication here https://www.llli.org/lll-today-1/