Motherload Liberation
Podcast guest, long-term community member, and Mom for Mom‘s Graeme Seabrook has an amazing new program launching, Motherload Liberation. We asked Graeme if she would share what she means by Motherload Liberation and why it’s so important, especially in the wake of the pandemic’s impact on mothers.
The last 18 months have been brutal. But let’s not all pretend it was sunshine and roses before. We moms, all 43.5 million of us, moved into this pandemic period already bruised and on the edge of (or fully in the midst of) burnout. It’s how modern motherhood is set up. We are expected to manage the mental, emotional, physical, financial, and cultural/spiritual health of ourselves, our children, and our families. We’re expected to do this while also being contributing members of our wider society outside of those roles. We’re expected to excel in all of these areas as if patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy aren’t poisoning us and our world.
It would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic, if so many millions of us hadn’t internalized these expectations. So yes, this pandemic period has been awful in many ways – and it has also revealed rot that was already there.
I work with moms. As the founder of The Mom Center™, I hear from all kinds of moms from all around the country (and the UK and Brazil so far) and I’m hearing the same thing – burnout, frustration, and anger.
Even while so many of us are celebrating our moments of reconnection with friends and family, while we’re trying to navigate this ‘new normal’ I know that we cannot let the lessons learned during the height of the pandemic fade.
The way it was simply assumed on every level from the national government down to individual households that mothers would bear the childcare burden.
The way that was assumed by moms, themselves.
The millions of mothers who were forced out of the workforce.
The millions of mothers whose spouses began to work from home, but who never acknowledged all the home-work that was being done on a daily basis to make that possible.
Each year, I teach a course called Motherload Liberation. Not in 2020, though. I spent last year reworking the entire thing from the ground up. I did that because what I was seeing in homes across the country and around the world broke my heart and filled me with rage.
Mothers were being ignored, discarded, undervalued. Fathers who were oblivious.
And now the talk has shifted to going back to offices and jumpstarting the economy and somehow gaining back the losses women in general and mothers, in particular, have suffered. I don’t see how that’s possible without both personal healing for moms and collective action to change the systems in this country (and globally).
Because this will happen again. Or something similar will. There will be some emergency that puts pressure on the idea of the 50/50 relationship and the lie will crumble right before our eyes.
I cannot, on my own, affect systemic change. I can help moms to peel back the curtain and understand how these systems have impacted them, their partners, and their parenting. I can help moms make sustainable changes in their lives and relationships that will alter the balance of responsibility.
Motherload Liberation is a 10-week course for mothers who are married or partnered with men that address how patriarchy and capitalism show up in your relationship and in your parenting. The course includes an entire year of support from me as well, so no matter what comes our way you will not be alone in navigating it.
This course supports the inner healing work necessary for you to make sustainable changes in your life and in how your family works. I’m not talking about reading an article and trying something for a week – I’m talking about a seismic shift in who is responsible for all aspects of raising your children.
This course is for the mom of young ones who have been under immense pressure to be your child’s everything while in isolation and is overwhelmed and exhausted.
This course is for the moms of older kiddos who navigated online school, and missing friends, and reentry drama.
This course is for moms of teens who think it’s too late to make real changes and who are just holding on until graduation.
If you’re a mom in a relationship with a man, this course is for you. And now is the time. You’ve seen how even though “he’s not as bad as my friends’ husbands” he still doesn’t carry anywhere near the load that you do. You’ve felt the exhaustion and cried out the frustration. And I’m telling you that you can, you absolutely can break these systems down within your own home.
That change will ripple throughout your life. That change will embolden you when you are in the world outside your home. That change will show your children what adulthood and motherhood can be.
Motherload Liberation is enrolling now. I hope that you’ll join us. I hope you’ll share it with your friends. I hope you’ll choose now as your time.
Graeme is offering 10% off* for Mother’s Quest members. Prices go up after August 5, 2021. Click here to sign-up today!
P.S. Did you ever tune into the Mother’s Quest Podcast episode featuring Graeme? It’s a powerful conversation. Check it out here. During the episode, Graeme and Julie conceived of the Manifesto Challenge, what became a 5-day experience, with recorded videos, daily prompts, and a reflective journal to help you reclaim how you want to live your life in motherhood. You can now follow-along in a FREE self-guided journey on the Mother’s Quest Portal. Sign-up here.
* This post contains affiliate links to courses and products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.
