Retired Leader Kay Semion was an active member of LLL for six years and a Leader for about three years in the Canton-Plymouth-Northville area in Michigan USA. “When I found LLL, I was already a nursing mother,” says Kay. “I had had no trouble nursing -- it naively never occurred to me that there could be trouble. I joined for the mothering support, which LLL was very good at.” At the time of this interview, her daughter and son were 23 and 25 and she was a writer and editorial page editor for the Dayton Daily News in Ohio.
 What led you to journalism?
I stumbled into it. As a junior in college, I took a newspaper class and
loved it. I knew immediately that was what I wanted to do.
What made you decide you wanted to work as an editorial writer and editorial page editor?
That revelation came after I had to go back to work part-time at the Ann Arbor (MI) News, just as my daughter turned two. I worked on the copy desk from 5 am to 1 pm so my children wouldn't have to be with babysitters all day. I was a zombie, but it was worth every minute I invested to be with my children. I was in graduate school at the time, taking one course a semester, and knew when I finished I’d have to make a decision about whether to stay in journalism or go into something else. The one job that I wanted was on the editorial pages. I worked toward that and was promoted as editorial page editor four years later, after the children were both in school.
Do you typically write on any particular issues?
For the Dayton Daily News, I write about education, economics and trade issues, environment, health care, the arts, and foreign affairs. The joy of being an editorial writer and editor is that every day is an education in one subject or another. The crunch of being an editorial writer and editor is that you are always on a learning curve.
How did your time as an LLL Leader affect you personally, and affect your life as a family?
My LLL years were a very positive time in my life. I was always dedicated to my family, but LLL helped me become a better mother. I also made some very supportive friends. As a Leader, I loved being able to help mothers with their nursing challenges.
What effect did being an LLL Leader have on your current job?
I learned as a Leader how important it is to be tolerant. I found I had to look at situations from the perspective of the mother, not from my own, in order to be a good Leader. To really help mothers, I had to understand the problems they were coping with. Some, such as sore nipples, were simple and easily resolved; others were complicated human problems or keeping the milk flowing when mothers were employed and separated from their babies. That desire to be tolerant is still with me and influences my approach to many of the topics I write about.
There were also things outside of the mainstream that I was exposed to when I was in LLL, from family bed to homeschooling. Interestingly, homeschooling—not a big issue back then—came to the forefront just as I started working on the editorial pages. Because I understood its roots in loving family life, I could look beyond the cliches when it became a political item.
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By Diane Bengson, Ohio USA
This interview first appeared in Continuum,Vol 14, No 2, 2001
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