Motherhood Liberation 101: The future of Mothering. An independent online course from undoing motherhood. Shown are course materials like homework and early reviews from people who have looked at the course saying it's transforming and they want to do the course even though they aren't mothers.

Let this be the year that changed everything for you and your kids

"MOTHERHOOD IS IMPOSSIBLE."

-Elizabeth Gilbert

Do you sometimes assume motherhood is difficult because something is wrong with you? That you need to find the right "mom hack"? Do you think you're "just not made for this"?

Do you feel like you have to hide your less-than-joyous feelings about motherhood from friends and family?

Why are you taking on so much guilt when you're the person who probably cares the most about doing 268,245 things perfectly right? If you could do more, you would, no? So, if you're not doing more, what's in your way?

Perfectionism, maybe? Caused by fear of judgment and fear that one day someone will say you were a terrible mother?

You're expected to do the work of a whole system while hiding that system's neglect behind your inexhaustible listening ear, your perma-smile, and the smell of freshly baked cookies.

THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN

And you are simply its indicator light.

You are not the whole damn car.

When the light is blinking, something is out of balance or broken in the car.

IT'S TIME TO STOP BEING
A GOOD MOTHER

You're just trying to be a "good mother." It seems like a simple concept and surely the worthiest goal. But what is a "good mother"?

What makes a "good mother" (lowercase) is a matter of personal opinion. But a Good Mother (uppercase) is a thing. It's an invention. It's a cultural concept that emerged in early-modern Europe and it has a whole ideology around it. Very likely, your goal of being a good mother is actually the Good Mother ideology acting on you.

I want to help you understand how the Good Mother ideology came about, why, who it helps, who it hurts, how it works, how to recognize and analyze it, how to dismantle it, and what to replace it with.

My proprietary thought models and tools for decision-making, analyzing, coping, and prioritization will help you be the best mother possible with much less guilt, shame, or overwhelm—or your money back.

Self-paced self-liberation for any stage of mothering

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN MODULE 1

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN MODULE 2

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN MODULE 3

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN MODULE 4

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN MODULE 5

Why our world thrives on motherhood oppression
How mothers are oppressed in a way so invisible to us that it's thought to be mothering itself
Why liberating yourself of mother shame is the single-most revolutionary act you will probably ever do in your life
How to make your own custom parenting prioritization plan that can adapt and pivot according to need
How to find the root source of your problems using systems thinking and what to do about them
How to stop blaming yourself for everything without shirking your accountability to your kids
How and why to stop judging other moms (and maybe extend your own mother some grace)

Feel bathed in self-compassion, -understanding, and -love
Lose the fear that investing in yourself is selfish
Worry less about your mothering being judged and evaluated
Know how to tackle big sticky life problems
Know where to focus or surrender in your mothering priorities
Surrender the belief that your kids determine your value
Feel connected to and fiercely protective of other moms
Feel entitled to ask for and demand support without feeling shame for not doing it all yourself
Understand your own mother in a way you never expected
Learn Sociology 101 concepts and vocabulary

35 text- and graphic-based lessons in five modules:

Power & Oppression 101
Motherhood Oppression 101
Mom Shame 101
Mom Shame Freedom 101
Reimagining Motherhood

Includes:

Private online platform—desktop or mobile
Learn by video or by reading hand-typed lessons
30+ PDF worksheets to print off for homework
Quizzes to gauge your understanding
Links to affordable therapeutic resources
Easy user interface with beautiful graphics

LIFETIME ACCESS:
Take the course repeatedly and access all newly added and updated lessons—FREE!

HOW IS THE COURSE CONSTRUCTED?

1

Right now: for readers

If you're like me, you're too impatient for video lessons and you'd rather zip through the material, reading at your own pace. Version 1 of Motherhood Liberation 101 is for you!

If you don't enjoy reading, now is not the time to buy unless... you want to take advantage of the introductory Version 1 pricing and wait for the upcoming iterations (note: 60-day guarantee still applies from purchase date):

Version 1.1: Audio recordings of the lessons so that you can listen while driving or doing chores, or just have my voice reading the text aloud along with you. This will also serve seeing-impaired learners.

Version 1.2: Video lessons, with grammatically accurate closed captioning:

2

Designed around seven general goals

Motherhood liberation needs a multi-pronged approach.

At the beginning of every lesson, you'll see a graphic showing which of the six course goals that lesson serves.

We start with two lessons on the basics of kyriarchy, different kinds of power and oppression, the true definition of an ideology, how ideologies work together and birth new ideologies, and the difference between bigotry and prejudice.

The first two lessons are the only ones mandatory. Pass a test, then jump around according to your interests!

The course heavily focuses on directly addressing The Good Mother ideology or ideas linked to it. If this is all you learn, I think you'll be mindblown!

A term I've coined for how moms are scrutinized and judged until they perform Good Mothering. We'll learn to interrupt this cultural norm.

Super-loving moms do not automatically have superhero capacities. Bad outcomes do not prove "bad moms." We'll work on changing these narratives.

You'll learn how to design a flexible, changing Minimal Viable Mothering plan custom for your children, your values, your goals, and your resources.

You'll be introduced to ways to empower your kids to have a say in their own upbringing's priorities and prevent future resentment.

The future of motherhood will be less individualistic and egoic. We'll explore other cultures' communal practices and learn to expand our mutual care.

3

For independent study but with community help

You will get three free months of membership to The Matriarchy: Undoing Motherhood's private online community that you can access from an app on your phone! We can meet up by video share to discuss the course, or you can watch recorded sessions of previous conversations.

You can also leave comments directly on the course lessons, asking questions, and I will answer them for you and other students.

10-minute soothing guided meditation for mom shame-triggered emergencies
20-minute soothing guided meditation for more intentional belief rewiring (coming soon)
Steal my shame-free decision-making spreadsheet-based calculator
3 posters from Undoing Motherhood's online shop for you to print for free
Bonus curated resources for emotional self-care
Get support with 3 months free access to The Matriarchy private community (coming soon)

over $250 value in ever-growing bonuses!

If this course doesn't meet your needs for accessibility, or you need help understanding any content, you can get support by emailing

[email protected]

To access a full refund, you will need to fill out this form completely and submit within 60 days of purchase. Please look at the form before purchasing to understand the terms of course engagement required before a refund will be granted.

Note: Refunds are not granted on grounds of an ideology clash. You should understand in advance that this course is explicitly intersectionally feminist.

Why am I the person to help you?

I'm Natasha Coulis—a writer, strategy designer, community designer, and empty-nester. When I was young, nubile, and mothering four kids born in 5.5 years, becoming a Perfect Mother actually felt almost doable. With attachment parenting theory and Martha Stewart magazines in hand, I thought all I needed was "bad moms" to compare myself against to gauge my success!

Click here to read my story

I made a lot of life decisions that could only lead to unfortunate outcomes. As an only child born to a single teen mom in poverty, our extended family drowned in untreated generational trauma, abuse, and conflict. I didn't get much of a head start.

I wanted to create the family I never had. Though I knew I was queer, at 16 I naïvely thought I could join a high-control fundamentalist religion, marry a much older man at age 18, follow the script my religion gave me to have a large family while young, be a stay-at-home mom, forego a career, and I'd be happy. I believed in God and I thought God wanted this path for me.

I didn't grow much in those 12 years. I was busy, exhausted, and suffering from a yet-undiagnosed life-threatening endocrine disorder. Because many of my needs were neglected as a person and as a wife, my pain eventually prodded me awake. I realized I was in agony.

Still sheltered, naïve, and afraid, I agreed to leave the family home and give my trial lawyer husband primary care of the children. I agreed to absorb the consequences, limiting everyone's divorce trauma, especially my husband's. I prioritized his feelings over mine as my religion admonished me to do.

Looking back now, I see the inevitability of what followed: the worst divorce I've ever heard of. It's an uncork-some-wine-and-unbutton-your-jeans-for-two-hours-of-rapt-attention kind of story. It's a story that requires an intermission and some breathwork. It's a story that requires Julia Roberts to tell it. My partner tells people, "Natasha's story is a case study in why we need feminism."

My wonderful partner, five years younger, wants a baby. I love babies. I love kids. I love teenagers. I love mothering. I don't love how our culture and society force women to bet the whole house, bet their whole lives on mothering going near-perfectly.

There's no room for divorce, health problems, lack of family support, grief processes, or financial troubles—and these are just some of the ways middle-class white women's lives will experience hardship. Women of colour, queer women, trans women, trans men, non-binary people, anyone disabled or neurodivergent, polyamorous people and single people who want to mother children experience dehumanizing agonies in their mothering journies.

I'm deeply invested in the question of how mothering can be less risky, less moralized, less egotistical, and less isolated. How can it be liberating? How can children thrive without mothers' life forces being siphoned away?

I have four adult children whom I've nurtured lovingly and hurt, whom I've doted upon and neglected, whom I've taught the right things and the wrong things. I've tried to balance competing needs and impossible tasks like MacGuyver trying to prevent a bomb explosion using only a hair elastic, a safety pin and a Fruit Roll-up.

How can mothering be less impossible? To answer this for myself and for you, here's what I've done:

I've learned that "Perfect Mother" and "Good Mother" are ideological concepts that affect us oppressively.

Half of what I've learned has come directly from my life and from the stories of other mothers. Since age 16, when I subscribed to Parents and Mothering magazines, I've been listening closely to mothers' stories. If the pattern wasn't clear enough before 2020, the pandemic crystallized my awareness: Mothers are our culture's scapegoats and society's workhorses.

In 2019, spurred on by a Mother's Day Instagram post from Elizabeth Gilbert, I began writing things I'd never heard anyone say before, not even in my most recent university studies, not even within feminist and sociological discourses.

I hunted for academic literature that spoke to my experience. When I found entire sentences I had written repeated in the books and papers of academics from decades ago, I felt hoodwinked and foolish to think my realizations were unique. I laboured for understanding I could have found sooner if academia wasn't so siloed and if media wasn't so full of Good Mother ideology.

These feminist awakenings need to proliferate our dominant culture. Social change happens when people on TikTok who never attended a single university class understand big ideas and teach them to each other in their own words. If something sociological is true and right, a high school-drop-out farmer-mom milking a cow in her housecoat with a baby at her boob should be able to understand it if she wants to.

Social change happens when a collective of moms says it happens.

To dismantle motherhood oppression, I've combined my own lessons learned through hard-won battles; hundreds of hours of analysis and independent study in feminist theory and systems thinking; and my own strategic formula that is a combination of cognitive behavioural therapy, systems thinking, stoicism, and formal logic.

For me, it works. I think it will for you, too.

Are you ready for some "Fuck, yes!" liberation?

What will your course experience with me be like?

How might this course save you money and time?

You might stop using therapy to:

seek validation for your right to be resentful or hurt as a mom—learn how to know what is valid and why
process shame as you compare yourself to other moms
figure out what kind of help to ask for from your partner or family
figure out why you feel like you're failing as a mom
decide between two competing high-consequence choices

You might even:

get clarity on whether to divorce!
make peace with your experience with your own mom—even if you don't have a relationship!
cut back on the number of self-help books you buy!
cut back on unhealthy habits you use to numb feelings!
make new anti-shame, non-judgey mom friends!

BUY EARLY TO SAVE

This price won't last.

But not because of phony scarcity sales tactics (yucky!).

The thing is, right now, the course is entirely text- and graphic-based. When audio and video lessons are added, the value of the course will go up. And so it makes sense for the price to increase, too.

The anticipated future price for the course will be $379 USD.

The curriculum is comparable to a first- or second-year university course, including ideas from scholars and writers like:

Patricia Hill Collins
Adrienne Rich
Shari L. Thurer
Silvia Federici
Alva Gotby
Andrea O'Reilly
Donella Meadows
Kim Tallbear

If you buy now, you'll get every future update of content, additional resources, and new ways to learn at today's price plus early access.

LIKE ATTENDING MOM UNIVERSITY, BUT AT HALF THE COST!

$197 USD

Less than what you'd pay for two therapy sessions!

35 text- and graphic-based lessons
30+ page low-ink printable workbook
2 shame-busting guided meditations
my calculator for shame-free decisions
fun and soothing bonus resources to discover like Christmas presents!
THREE MONTHS of free membership to Undoing Motherhood's private online community, The Matriarchy to talk all about it!

Say less! Take me to the checkout page!

or 4 MONTHLY PAYMENTS of

$74.99 USD

(First instalment of $74.99 is non-refundable)

Okay, now I'm ready for checkout!

Questions you might have

Is this therapy? Are you a therapist?

I am not a therapist, no.

Out of an abundance of caution (because when we don't know what we don't know we can create problems, inadvertently) I took a course made for therapists that specifically addresses shame. I do cite experts in a couple of places. But this course is not structured to be therapeutic and has no saviour complex ambitions to replace therapy.

To support your emotional well-being, I've taken these measures:

1. I've placed trigger warnings at the front of course material I anticipate to be more emotionally strenuous, and I prompt emotional regulation exercises.

2. I've curated resources I find helpful for self-soothing and made them easy to find.

3. I've created a visible Disclaimers course section that includes four "lessons" titled:

How this course is meant to be used
Why I encourage formally accredited therapy, even as a self-healer
How to find a shame-informed therapist
What if you can't afford conventional therapy?

My understanding of shame is this: Any shame we feel from beliefs we've adopted later in life can attach themselves to childhood shame. We're more likely feel shame about a new thing if we have old shame "installed" on our "hardware."

This course is not equipped to help people with childhood shame. I explain further in the aforementioned lessons that a person taking this course may need to and want to see a trauma-informed therapist to address childhood shame. The degree of childhood shame we have could very well limit our ability to shake mom shame, specifically.

All that said, not every therapist is well-educated in social systems, structural inequality, or formal logic. They may not have a complete picture in their head for why moms feel as they do. You know that saying, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail?" You know that other saying, "Before you diagnose yourself with depression, make sure you're not surrounded by assholes?" (Or something to that effect....)

Sometimes we are all guilty of only viewing situations through the focused lenses we've been trained to use. It can be easy to see a mom's insecurity or shame as being evidence of a mental health problem when she's actually surrounded by sexism, classism, and more.

This course focuses on applying logic and systems thinking to the problems we experience as moms, to understand them holistically and systemically. It helps moms to incisively locate the reasons why they experience shame and problems within motherhood and to create a strategic plan for what to try to fix, when, and what tools to use.

I'm confident you can't get this kind of help anywhere else and I think working in conjunction with a therapist would increase your success.

How is this course trauma-informed?

Is this course trans-friendly?

Does this course meet BIPOC needs?

Because this course focuses on strategy using logic and systems theory, I believe it to be as agnostic as math or physics (recognizing there are different and culturally specific ways even to do math).

People who would struggle most with the course material would be those with fundamentalist religious beliefs that prevent them from acknowledging racism and sexism. Ex. This course refers to patriarchy, colonialism, capitalism, and Judeo-Christianity as systems of thought and systems of design woven throughout our culture—and it asserts these as facts. It's not a theory that patriarchy or racism exist—they factually do.

However, the course is written by a white settler disabled and neurodiverse queer cisgender Canadian woman in her '40s. My cultural references are white. My language is white. The group of mothers whose feelings and complaints I'm most familiar with are white. **I'm confident the course reads as white in its voice and some of its perspectives and is, in this version, alienating.**

I am formally and informally educated in some BIPOC history and needs, but I don't think this course could possibly take care of BIPOC moms as well as one written by BIPOC moms. I would love BIPOC partners to co-create a version of this course for BIPOC moms so that the course feels knowing, warm, and loving rather than like another alienating white-centered space.

If you are a BIPOC mom who purchases this course and finds the content to contain any microaggressions or otherwise racist content, you are entitled to a prompt refund without dispute. Of course, I have taken care to avoid such a scenario. :)

The course uses imagery and GIFS. When the imagery generally reflects moms, I try to employ diverse images, considering any possible harmful biases and tropes. When using GIFs, I avoid images of women of colour because I use the GIFs to represent my own emotions and I don't want to appropriate BIPOC images for myself or comedic purposes.

If you have questions I haven't answered, please email [email protected]

Otherwise, please understand you will take this course at your own risk and I may lack the resources at this time to support you outside of what is included with the course.

How academic-y is this course?

What is "lifetime access"?

Do you have more affordable options?

Not ready to commit?
Sample some content!

Sample course content by signing up for the newsletter:
get useful email you'll actually read and immediately receive the 5-minute 10-minute Shame-Busting Guided Meditation to download!

The kind of emails you hate to get are the kind I also hate to get and will not be sending. ;)

"MOTHERHOOD IS IMPOSSIBLE."

THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN

IT'S TIME TO STOP BEING A GOOD MOTHER

Self-paced self-liberation for any stage of mothering

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN MODULE 1

why it's not enough to attack patriarchy to improve the motherhood experience

the definition of "power" and 5 ways to accumulate it

why power has to be taken from the people who have it

the meaning of "cultural capital" and how it buys us power

the definition of "oppression" and the 5 general ways people experience it

the difference between what's societally structural versus systemic

the difference between bigotry and prejudice

the sociological definition of racism and why white people can't experience it in any white-dominant culture

the definition of "kyriarchy" and why it's the source of all our biggest problems

4 general ways power is maintained

the definition of "wicked problem" what makes motherhood oppression such a problem

why solving a wicked problem must start with dismantling the ideologies that created it

the definition of an ideology and why it's not inherently a bad thing

the ideologies that built our Western dominant culture and how they work together

how ideologies birth new ideologies which then feed the originating ideologies and how they then falsely authenticate each other

ways to dismantle an ideology

why Black American women are uniquely positioned to have insight into the sociology of motherhood oppression

the definition of "controlling images" and why they work so well to harm us even when they seem like positive images

the controlling images of Black motherhood

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN MODULE 2

the scapegoating of mothers using the controlling images of "Good Mother" (also known as "SuperMom," "Perfect Mother," or "Angel Mother") and "Bad Mom" (also known as "Selfish Mom," "Narcissist Mom," "Crazy Mom") and how they impact us

how the strain and tether of biological motherhood is forced and then exploited to create motherhood oppression, and why this oppression isn't necessary or inherent to motherhood

how motherhood irreversibility is culturally enforced or forgiven according to the needs of capitalism and white supremacy

how the concept of a "mother" is invented by religion, media, family, and historical relics

how mothers are forced to be the isolated stewards of children's emotional lives and how this leads to unhealthy co-dependence

how Chimeral Mother Pain is created by the four pathways of motherhood oppression working together: the social construction of motherhood, the irreversibility, the biological strain, and the isolation of the nurturer

how Chimeral Mother Pain is a new identification of oppression that isn't addressed by other analyses of oppression (for example, sexism or classism)

how other axes of oppression like racism work on Chimeral Mother Pain to exacerbate and amplify it into states of torture and "slow death"

the surprising origins of the Good Mother ideology that totally makes sense once it's explained

how capitalism thrives off of the Good Mother ideology

The Motherhood Pain Hexad of shame, isolation, exhaustion, trauma, grief and cost—how they interact and cycle individually and generationally

The Mom Gaze and how it polices and controls mothers

how mothers are oppressed in our culture by lack of childcare options

how mothers are oppressed by our child support systems

why mothers should be paid a wage for their labours

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN MODULE 3

what today's Good Mother looks like

the 6 problematic themes in the Good Mother ideology and how they set us up to feel shame

how shame and guilt differ from each other

why guilt is pro-social and harder to undo than shame, once you're at the point of awareness for each

why shame isn't useful for changing behaviour

how mom shame causes problems in our lives and how to identify its presence and absence

what moms feel shame about—beginning our root causes mapping

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN MODULE 4

the psychological heuristics that cause shame to become so sticky and embedded within us

how to determine who is to blame for problems, who is accountable for them, and who is responsible— and why this matters

why you don't need to be a Good Mother

an explanation of systems thinking

the definitions for a system, including stocks and flows and how they work

an explanation of reinforcing feedback loops and balancing feedback loops

examples of how mom shame is used as a reinforcing feedback loop

how to locate a system's true purpose, ignoring what it claims its purpose is

how using systems thinking and mapping can help us locate ways we are set up to fail and suffer

how using systems thinking can help us figure out the true source of our problems and where we need to make a change

how the circular logic of oppressive belief systems works

13 transformational systems thinking questions to help you map your shame to root causes

the 5-step SICAH Method for addressing mom shame or guilt

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN MODULE 5

my Minimal Viable Mothering model for discovering and outlining mothering goals, values, time, effort, and action

my ACME mothering strategy for prioritization

how having your own bespoke parenting strategy protects you from outside judgement

The Futurist Mother model and how it's the antidote to The Good Mother ideology

how your children can play a role in designing their own upbringing, getting their needs met, iterating as goals change

how to create and participate in a culture of mutual aid to get your parenting needs met in community, making less work for you

how the role of "mother" can be more expansive to include multiple people and people of different genders

Why our world thrives on motherhood oppression

How mothers are oppressed in a way so invisible to us that it's thought to be mothering itself

Why liberating yourself of mother shame is the single-most revolutionary act you will probably ever do in your life

How to make your own custom parenting prioritization plan that can adapt and pivot according to need

How to find the root source of your problems using systems thinking and what to do about them

How to stop blaming yourself for everything without shirking your accountability to your kids

How and why to stop judging other moms (and maybe extend your own mother some grace)

Feel bathed in self-compassion, -understanding, and -love

Lose the fear that investing in yourself is selfish

Worry less about your mothering being judged and evaluated

IT'S TIME TO STOP BEING
A GOOD MOTHER

Power & Oppression 101
Motherhood Oppression 101
Mom Shame 101
Mom Shame Freedom 101
Reimagining Motherhood

Private online platform—desktop or mobile
Learn by video or by reading hand-typed lessons
30+ PDF worksheets to print off for homework
Quizzes to gauge your understanding
Links to affordable therapeutic resources
Easy user interface with beautiful graphics

LIFETIME ACCESS:
Take the course repeatedly and access all newly added and updated lessons—FREE!

[email protected]

To access a full refund, you will need to fill out this form completely and submit within 60 days of purchase. Please look at the form before purchasing to understand the terms of course engagement required before a refund will be granted.