LLL Mother-Daughter Musings
Three of Ginny Braun’s four daughters became LLL Leaders and later, Ginny followed suit! Ginny and her daughter Lynn Huber co-lead LLL of Warren, Michigan. Here Ginny and Lynn tell their story of being Leaders together.
Ginny first found La Leche League (LLL) in Detroit Michigan in the early 1970s. She had breastfed all of her children, but it wasn’t until she was nursing her youngest, Molly, that she and her four daughters had finally found their community! Ginny embraced the LLL concepts and soon became a Leader Applicant, but due to life happening, did not become a Leader until much later. In the meantime, her daughters grew and became mothers themselves. Three of the four became accredited LLL Leaders, the fourth was a dedicated Group member and Ginny was thrilled that all 16 of her biological grandchildren had the benefits of being breastfed.
One of our favorite LLL enrichment activities that we have participated in over the years have been La Leche League Conferences. These conferences were the highlight of our year for decades. We have jointly attended over 25 Michigan Area Conferences, 4 International Conferences around the USA, and several regional Leader Development Seminars. Ginny, Lynn and youngest daughter/sister Molly have all been conference speakers, and served on our Area Conference Committee multiple times as well, learning and sharing information with other mothers more times than we can reliably count. The three of us have enjoyed other Area jobs as well. Molly was the Area Professional Liaison for several years and on the Eastern United States (EUS) regional team in the early 2000’s. Lynn is currently the Area Facilitator of Communications (AFC) for Michigan and was with the Leader Department as District Coordinator (DC) and District Advisor (DA) for many years. Ginny has been a DA for many years as well. Through these endeavors, the networking we have done together and the resulting connections we have made with other people have been among the greatest privileges of our lives.
It was at an LLL Michigan Area Conference in the mid-2000s, that Ginny got encouragement from Leaders around her age, many grandmothers themselves, to complete the Leader Application process she had started some 30 years earlier but, due to life’s circumstances, had never finished. She reapplied soon after that conference, quickly became accredited and has been an active Leader ever since. That year Ginny and Lynn became co-Leaders for the first time and have been Leaders in the same local Group for over a decade now.
Outside of the day-to-day running of our local Group with two other precious co-Leaders, plus both of us doing Area Council/Area Team work, one of the things we have loved most about our LLL journey together is the relationship we have built with one another and with our LLL community across our local area, the Area, the region and the country.
Some particularly amazing memories include the times we met and enjoyed the company of LLL Founders Marian Tompson and Edwina Froehlich at various LLL Michigan Conferences, as well as researchers and authors Theresa Pittman, Dr. James McKenna and Dr. Jack Newman, just to name a few. At the international conferences, we enjoyed a panel discussion with all of the founders and got our copies of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding signed one year. We also attended sessions and got books signed by people integral to modern breastfeeding and parenting information, such as Dr. William Sears and U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher. At one International Conference, Lynn’s two-year-old son was getting restless during a session by The No-Cry Sleep Solution author Elizabeth Pantley. On the way out of the auditorium, he swung a chubby hand at the panel of buttons controlling the lights and the room of 300 attendees went completely dark. In the darkness, unable to see the panel to restore the lighting, Lynn exclaimed under her breath “what did you do?!” to her toddler. Flailing, he hit the panel again and the lights came back on. Elizabeth graciously made a comical remark while Lynn and her squirming son quickly exited to the rest-and-rock-room to nurse.
Through our LLL adventures, we have acquired countless books, tote bags, t-shirts, coffee mugs, silent auction treasures, theme basket wins, information/goods/services and especially beloved handmade fundraiser items from local Groups. But BEST of all, we have learned and grown together through a lifetime of meaningful and enriching relationships with our LLL family. The LLL adventures we have had and continue to enjoy are precious and have generated irreplaceable memories for this multi-generational La Leche League family!