Womb Revolution

I’m currently reading How to Raise a Feminist Son by Sonora Jha and I highly recommend it.

Her perspective as a single mom, a woman of color, and an immigrant resonates deeply with me and my experience raising boys.

I just finished a chapter about stories, the stories we’re telling our children, and it brought to mind many sweet memories of my own childhood when my mom would re-imagine classic fairytales for me and my sister.

In these new stories we were invited to empathize with the stepmothers, we were asked to question why a princess needed to wait to be rescued, we were invited to imagine a new perspective. Those are some of my favorite memories of my mom, moments in which she planted seeds of rebellion that would later on give me the strength and bravery to carve my own path.

It also made me think about this wonderful book I found in Mexico a few years ago called “Princesas al Poder”, which would translated as something similar to “Empowered Princesses” or “Power to the Princesses.”

I found this treasure in a bookstore in my hometown and I came back to my mom’s house so excited to show off my wonderful find.

My stepdad glanced at the book and looked at me with curiosity and confusion. “Isn’t this book for girls? You have two sons!”

Stories of adventurous girls in positions of leadership aren’t only for little girls’ ears!

I want my sons to read and listen to these stories of a Little Mermaid who fights fiercely to defend the ocean from the plastic that humans are dumping in the water.

I want my sons to hear about Cinderella starting her own cleaning company that pays all the employees fairly.

I want my sons to imagine a Little Red Riding Hood who protects the wolves and their important role in the forest ecosystem.

Sharing books and stories with our children is a beautiful way to bond, to start important conversations and to engage our imagination together so we can create new narratives.

I would love to hear some of your favorite books to help kids reimagine and challenge gender roles!

New blog post!

I have been working on writing this for a while and I’m so excited to finally share it with you.

has the potential to undo systems of oppression within family units. But for it to truly do so, we need to q***r our narratives around family.

We need to stop the glorification of the heteronormative nuclear family as the gold standard and look at parenting from an intersectional, feminist lens that acknowledges the systemic challenges that get in the way of our safety and therefore, our ability to self-regulate.
Let’s talk about it!

We can’t let gentle parenting become another tool of patriarchy and white supremacy.

I have been working on writing this for a while and I'm so excited to finally share it with you.

Gentle parenting has the potential to undo systems of oppression within family units. But for it to truly do so, we need to q***r our narratives around family. We need to stop the glorification of the heteronormative nuclear family as the gold standard and look at parenting from an intersectional, feminist lens that acknowledges the systemic challenges that get in the way of our safety and therefore, our ability to self-regulate.

I would love to read your thoughts!

This is how patriarchy weaponizes gentle parenting and leaves moms behind Pregnancy has a very special place in our society’s collective imagination. We associate it with ideas of hope, tenderness, love, vulnerability, a blank slate, a new beginning. ​ As a birth...

I got a lot of unwanted advice during my pregnancy and yet... nobody told me how triggering parenting was going to be.

I remember nursing my first child and feeling overwhelmed by the tenderness and vulnerability of my baby. All of a sudden, I was crying these old tears, my body remembering my own experience of vulnerability when I was an infant and the profound loneliness and confusion of my mom.

The hardest parts of parenting, the dark moments where we feel despair and profound frustration, are rarely just about the dirty socks on the floor or the toy the kids are fighting for.

Our nervous systems are in constant communication with each other.
Our children mirror back our unhealed parts to us. It’s hard.
If we stay on the surface, it’s easy to get stuck in constant power struggles, stories that repeat over and over again.

Peaceful parenting requires us to take a deep dive into ourselves first. All the scripts on how to talk to your child won’t help if you:
1. Aren’t able to calm down your nervous system before reacting
2. Aren’t able to understand that your child’s behavior isn’t an intentional attempt to push your buttons

Having someone to guide you in this long, hard journey of being in right relationship with yourself, with your community, and with your child(ren) to reclaim joy in parenthood is incredibly helpful. If you’re ready to learn about the benefits of peaceful parenting coaching, book a free consultation using the link in my bio. You got this!

What kind of mother/parent did you think you would be before your children came into your life?

What kind of standards are you holding yourself up to?

Where do those standards come from?

Do these ideas help you enjoy your relationship with your children? Do they help you feel more connected and do they bring joy into your life?

I’m excited to take a deep dive into this subject with my dear friend Steph on Monday during APPPAH Live . Register for free using the link in the bio!

I'm excited to be a presenter for APPPAH Live this upcoming Monday to talk about the steps we can take to break free from the myth of the perfect mother.

This presentation will explore the overt and covert patriarchal messages that we start internalizing since childhood about what it means to be a good and a bad woman and a good and bad mother.

We will analyze how this messaging affects our decisions about our reproductive lives, our relationships with our children, our experiences of parenthood, and our kids development from womb to adulthood.

Finally, we will discuss how we can start breaking free from outdated, harmful mandates and reclaim the joy of deep family connections.

Join us for free! Registration link in bio!

Back in March, I recorded a podcast interview for about overcoming the gap between expectations and reality and it was an AMAZING conversation.

We chatted about societal expectations around motherhood all the way from getting pregnant to the parenting experience, and how those expectations can be a huge source of suffering.

🪄We discussed the harmful idea that there is some sort of magical list of steps to follow in order to achieve the dream of a happy, peaceful, nuclear family.

🔥We also talk about the ways in which we can reclaim joy, play, connection, and love in our identities as mothers and how that experience can be deeply healing and transformational.

🎧Listen to the full episode in your favorite podcast app and let me know what you think!
Link in bio.

A few weeks ago I got the chance to tune into the "Flourish with your Complex Child" summit my mentor put together and it was amazing. Lots of resources of parenting

I particularly loved Amanda's talk about the difference between low demand parenting and permissive parenting and this one phrase from the talk deeply resonated with me. "A system where adults repeatedly use their power over children produces more adults that can only understand having their needs met by using power over other people."

I was a strongly determined child who couldn't tolerate injustice.

I still resonate so strongly with the kid who I was, constantly being told by adults that my opinions and thoughts were unimportant.

For many of us, parenting is the first time that we find ourselves in a position with so much power over another person and unfortunately, we can very easily start repeating the scripts about power and control that we lived during our childhoods.

ourselves during those moments and constantly working towards intentionality in the way we see children are essential acts of rebellion that will help us raise brave change-makers for a better world.

As I start slowly reviving this account and getting back into my passion work of supporting moms, non-binary parents and their families through birth and parenthood, I have been thinking of ideas I’m excited to share, content I want to create, and conversations I want to have.

I also have been thinking about Palestine every single day and feeling despair, anger, grief and sometimes hopelessness about the state of the world right now.

I don’t have a huge platform I can use to discuss this matter and neither am I an expert on the many complexities that undoubtedly affect what is happening in the Middle East.
I’m also not a big fan of telling people what to do or what to think or how to react to difficulties.

All I can do is invite you to connect with your humanity, get informed, and speak up in whatever way you can.

Like most of us, I’m trying to live my life and continue working and caring for my children while also sitting with the pain of the violence that continues to be founded on US tax dollars and which is devastating the lives of innocent civilians on the other side of the world.

I see the pictures and videos of children being dug out of the rubble and the many other unthinkable tragedies that are happening.
My heart breaks thinking of the parents who are holding their children one last time.
My heart also breaks for the families of kidnapped people.
I sometimes even get trapped into online discussions that often go nowhere.

And then I cook. I march. I clean. I write. I run errands. I call my representatives. I play with my kids. I share stories on social media. I hug my friends. I meditate and sit with all my feelings.

I admire the work of many parenting coaches, therapists, birth workers, and healers who are using their platforms to speak up against the horrendous violence and displacement Palestinian people are suffering. I will share their content in my stories and if that makes you uncomfortable, I invite you to unfollow me.

If you’re looking to unfollow everyone who is asking for a ceasefire and saying that one war crime doesn’t justify more war crimes, by all means, go ahead and click that button.

But also, I want to be transparent that in many ways I’m starting my work as a parenting coach from the ground up. In the next few weeks and months, I mostly will be sharing content about feminist peaceful parenting, tools to improve connection with your children and perspectives to help you shift your attitudes about the many young humans you will cross paths with throughout life.

I hope I can find the right balance in these days of uncertainty.
I hope you can find that balance too.

👋🏽 Hello there! It's been a long while since this page has been mostly dormant and it's definitely time to wake up!

✨ My name is Marissa Bolaños, I'm a q***r, Mexican, single mom of two multiracial kiddos living in the PNW.

✨ I have been working with families for almost a decade as a birth doula, childbirth educator, and fierce advocate. Now I'm embracing a new and exciting role as a peaceful parenting coach.

🔥 I believe parenting is a unique opportunity to heal ourselves, dismantle systems of oppression, and change the world.

⚖️ As a parenting coach, I’m honored to support intentional families in the process of re-parenting, connecting deeply with their children, and gaining the tools to successfully parent from a model of shared power instead of “power-over” children.

🔥 My focus (and the content you will find here) centers on autonomy, feminism, social justice, mothers'/non-binary parents' rights, fighting childism, and working towards collective liberation through love, connection, self-compassion, and radical acceptance.

I'm still teaching Childbirth Education and supporting pregnant folks, but for the most part, I'm no longer attending births.

Thanks for reading this update. I'm so glad you're here!

If you want to learn more about my parenting support services or book a free consult, visit www.wombrevolution.com

How often have you apologized for your child's normal, big emotions, because you felt you were being perceived as a bad mother?

My daughter and I were in a clothes shop and heard a little girl crying on the floor near us. A woman - I’d guess her mother - made her way over to the girl. I felt her anger radiating. I’ve been there too. She smiled at me and said “I’m so sorry”. The phrase ‘naughty girl’ was directed to the child.

It’s a difficult dance with a stranger, in trying to respond with depth but brevity. To find a space of connection and reassurance.

And to also see the child. Her existence is not an inconvenience or a disturbance to me, the stranger.

The woman repeatedly apologised to me and before leaving, commented about the struggle of the school holidays. “I get it, I feel it too”, trying to break any potential shame with connection.

Shame only fuels the anger-guilt trap of ‘should-ing’ on ourselves, self-sacrificing to live up to idealised motherhood, and feeling deeper depletion/resentment before meeting another trigger where our discontent surfaces.

In a cultural context of patriarchal motherhood where we’re mothering without enough support, are judged at every turn, and battle a loud inner critic of prevailing guilt that is embedded through our socialisation into patriarchal motherhood.. it’s extremely difficult.

Patriarchal motherhood invisibilises mothers and leaves little space for their full humanity, and it does the same to children.

The ‘good mother’ cultural ideal is inextricably linked to the ‘good child’ ideal.

So in this context it is almost inevitable that we’ll be cast into the roles of both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ mother. Our children will also be cast into the good/bad binary.

Understanding how these social forces function can give us some freedom.

We’re still subject to a public gaze. We’ll still participate in social surveillance according to these ideals. We’re still social creatures IN a social context.

But…

When we start to see and understand the bigger context that we’re mothering within and how it shapes the way people see us and how we see ourselves, it’s a step towards liberation.

It can invite in a greater capacity for awareness and compassion - for others, and ourselves.

💫 DM me ‘private podcast’ for a training on patriarchal motherhood

Parents raising their kids with compassion and emotional intelligence is a good thing.

Via https://instagram.com/theempoweredfamily

Womb Revolution updated their phone number.

Womb Revolution updated their address.

Editing is pretty magical and it can make things look way easier than they were in reality.

Every birth experience is different.

As a white person who tries to be anti-racist, I am intimately familiar with white fragility. I have felt defensive, angry, self righteous, offended, like a victim, when I've been called out for doing or saying something racist.

For people with any kind of privilege, it is a necessary practice to learn (over and over again) to decenter yourself and get perspective on the situation, centering the person you've harmed instead. No matter how well-intentioned you thought you were, casting yourself as the victim is actually piling on *more* harm.

Likewise, when the topic of birth trauma comes up, it's so interesting how closely some physicians’ reactions mirror this pattern of defensiveness rooted in privilege. I've started calling it Obstetric Fragility.

Recently a doctor weighed in on my post asking OBs to learn about birth trauma as possible perpetrators of it. She first said the post *traumatizes doctors* and later called it "vicious." had a spot-on response:

“What about the post do you find vicious? Being asked to decenter oneself is uncomfortable, granted, but for too long these things have gone unsaid for fear of offending. And that has only perpetuated the problem.

“I understand that the reflexive human reaction to being told you or your group has hurt someone, or even passively and/or unknowingly participated in a system that hurts people is defensiveness. But just like white people and straight people and cis people have to decenter our feelings of defensiveness when faced with our privilege and place in systems of oppression, so must physicians in positions of power, privilege, and players in systems that institutionalize trauma.

“We cannot continue to treat those perpetuating trauma with kid gloves out of fear they will be offended. We need providers to step up, take a breath, and recognize their gut reaction of defensiveness.

>>> “There is no comfortable way to say please stop perpetuating trauma. It’s not vicious. It’s just hard to hear."

These would be absolutely perfect for a cord burning ceremony

Incredible image, important information!
Did you know that new research shows that the egg chooses the s***m?

Just some s***mies surrounding an egg for your viewing pleasure. Wait till you read this...👇

The typical conception story is so often centered around the s***m ( ). You know... the "strongest and mightiest" s***m swim towards the egg; only the most fit make it and break through the egg's outer membrane in order for conception to occur.

Well, the EGG actually has a lot more to do with conception...

We know, for example, that in order for the s***m to make it through the journey alive, the cervix actually needs to provide a certain quality of fluid for protection. And, that it is actually contractions of the uterus that propel the s***m upward into the fallopian tubes, not the prowess of the s***m alone.

GET THIS...
New research from Stockholm University and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust show that eggs may actually CHOOSE s***m! 👏

It's all about something called chemoattractants (chemicals released by eggs to attract s***m!) that live in the follicular fluid which surround eggs. They wanted to know if eggs use these chemical signals to pick which s***m they attract.

The results? Eggs effectively choose the s***m they want and reject the others.
And...
the egg does not always agree with its owner's choice of partner.

The egg is all 🤭 ... “not you, boo”

Image by , made using C4D and xParticles for publication in a 2018 medical illustration book."

(Shared from )

Reminding myself # # #

"The myth of the good mother creates an impossible, contradictory standard that endangers women’s health and distracts them from fighting back against oppression."

The Tyranny of the Good Mother: How We Use Motherhood to Control All Women — Zawn Villines When I was three years old, I decided I had had enough of life as a mere mortal. The bedtimes, the grueling chore load, the parents who just didn't understand the oppression of life at three...it was all too much. I needed an upgrade, and that's why I became the Virgin Mary. I donned a veil, demand

Womb Revolution updated their information in their About section.