MOTHER TO MOTHER - A MATERNALIST ORGANIZATION IN LATE CAPITALIST AMERICA

This paper asks how La Leche League, an organization begun in the 1950 s to promote breast-feeding and the value of maternal nurturance, cont inues to attract women in the 1990s. The League represents an interest ing case of how conservative groups change in response to changing fam ily norms and practices, most notably the increased employment of moth ers of very young children and the acceptance of some egalitarian femi nist tenets. In contrast to other groups promulgating nostalgic family advice, the League philosophy is not focused on religious tenets hut solely on maternalism, exalting women's motherly traits. Using three s ources of qualitative data, (fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and conte nt analysis of publications), the paper discusses how the League has r esponded to mothers' increased employment, and to the increasing insec urities of the white, middle-class mothers drawn to the organization, as they are caught in late capitalist economic retrenchment. Finally, the paper examines the League's maternalism as an alternative morality , and the ways this meshes and competes with feminist discourses as ha ve maternalist arguments in earlier historical periods.