I am the bad mommy at La Leche League

[flea]

Meeting tonight, and I'm conflicted about it. I really like several of the women at the meeting. I love seeing the kids and have watched them grow up over the past 8 months. But I''m getting tired of being the bad mommy at La Leche League. I'm the one who, when the leader (whom I respect and even like, but we are on completely different planets in any way you can imagine - she is a stay-at-home, homeschooling, Christian mother) says something like, "Well, women are more nurturing" says "Actually, I think nurturing isn't so much gender-defined as personality-defined. I know my husband is more nurturing by nature than me." I think many people at the meeting agree with me, but I'm the one who says it. I'm also the only one who is willing to be honest about how hard it can be to start breastfeeding; how it can hurt. It's not all rosy pictures and soothing quiet intimate moments - sometimes it's a yelling kid and blisters. And it gets wearing, being the truth-speaker. I wish La Leche League was only about breastfeeding support and not about "a way of mothering." I am not their kind of mother - but I want the community of breastfeeding mothers. And I want to work at making the organization - or at least this meeting - a place where women who work full time can be welcome, a place where women who make compromises and aren't anybody's version of the perfect mother can still have community support for their breastfeeding. So I speak out. But boy is it making me tired.

Comments

[burrell.livejournal.com]

Go you! I didn't even bother with La Leche League because I knew that I wasn't their kind of mother.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

> I wish La Leche League was only about breastfeeding support and not about "a way of mothering."

Yes, THIS. I went to an LLL orientation, and they really condescended to me for wanting to work. I got the brochures on working and nursing, and they were all "Well, if you HAVE to work, you can do this."

Most of the women I knew at the time agreed that LLL was a cult. A warm, loving, nurturing cult, but not at all supportive of alternate points of view.

[fufaraw]

Can you sort of make this comment at the meeting, without antagonizing The Perfect Mother types? I'd think they'd be eager to hear a viewpoint of another mother who has found the group to be of help, even if her philosophy differs.

But maybe that's just me being Pollyanna.

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

Well, go you with being the voice of dissent! Don't let the cult-leader run all over everyone!

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

The thing is, the La Leche League philosophy is a package deal. It isn't just "breastfeeding is good". Breastfeeding is good, "In the early years the baby has an intense need to be with his mother which is as basic as his need for food.", and "Good nutrition means eating a well-balanced and varied diet of foods in as close to their natural state as possible. "

It reminded me of the stop-the-draft rally I went to during the Carter years (!), which had speakers advocating nuclear disarmament, regime change in South Africa, and abortion rights. I was annoyed, because I was there to express disapproval of the draft, and I resented the assumption that liberalism was a package deal that I'd accepted all of.

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

It's very generous & strong of you to keep trying to make the local chapter a welcoming place for all kinds of mothers. I hope some of the other women there appreciate it and let you know.

I was lucky to be able to rely on my midwife for breastfeeding support. She came for a couple of housecalls when the Blue-Eyed Boy was 2 weeks old and screaming every time I tried to get him to latch on - she saved my sanity by telling me this was perfectly normal and that the milk was just coming too quickly for him.