Privacy Policy Consent

WholeHumanMama.com and GraemeSeabrook.com is owned by Graeme Seabrook (“Company”, “we”, or “us”). The term “you” refers to the user or viewer of WholeHumanMama.com and GraemeSeabrook.com (“Website”).

This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, process, and distribute your information, including Personal Data (as defined below) used to access this Website. We will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy. The use of information collected through our Sites shall be limited to the purposes under this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service to customers.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy on the Website at any time without notice. In the event of a material change, we will let you know via email and/or a prominent notice on our Website.

Use of any personal information or contribution that you provide to us, or which is collected by us on or through our Website or its content is governed by this Privacy Policy. By using our Website or its content, you consent to this Privacy Policy, whether or not you have read it.

Information We May Collect
We collect personal information from you so that we can provide you with a positive experience when utilizing our Website or content. We will only collect the minimum amount of information necessary for us to fulfill our obligation to you. We may collect:

  • A name and an email address so we can deliver our emails to you — you would be affirmatively consenting to this by providing this to us in our contact forms.
  • Billing information including name, address, and credit card information so that we can process payment to deliver our products or services to you under our contractual obligation.
  • A name and an email address if you complete our contact form with a question. We may send you marketing emails with either your consent or if we believe we have a legitimate interest to contact you based on your contact or question.
  • Information from you from a co-branded offer. In this case, we will make clear as to who is collecting the information and whose privacy policy applies. If both / all parties are retaining the information you provide, this will also be made clear as will links to all privacy policies.

Please note that the information above (“Personal Data”) that you are giving to us is voluntarily, and by providing this information to us, you are giving consent for us to use, collect, and process this Personal Data. You are welcome to opt-out or request for us to delete your Personal Data at any point by contacting us at graeme@graemeseabrook.com

If you choose not to provide us with certain Personal Data, you may not be able to participate in certain aspects of our Website or content.

Other Information We May Collect:

Anonymous Data Collection and Use
To maintain Website quality, we may use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer the Website by identifying which areas of the Website are most heavily used, and to display content according to your preferences. Your IP address is the number assigned to computers connected to the Internet. This is essentially “traffic data” which cannot personally identify you but is helpful to us for marketing purposes and for improving our services. Traffic data collection does not follow a user’s activities on any other websites in any way. Anonymous traffic data may also be shared with business partners and advertisers on an aggregate basis.

Use of “Cookies”
We may use the standard “cookies” feature of major web browsers. We do not set any personally identifiable information in cookies, nor do we employ any data-capture mechanisms on our Website other than cookies. You may choose to disable cookies through your own web browser’s settings. However, disabling this function may diminish your experience on our Website and some features may not work as intended.

What We Do With Information We Collect

Contact You

We may contact you with information that you provide to us based on these lawful grounds for processing:

  • We may contact you if you give us your clear, unambiguous, affirmative consent to contact you.
  • We will contact you under our contractual obligation to deliver goods or services you purchase from us.
  • Legitimate Interest. We may contact you if we feel you have a legitimate interest in hearing from us. For example, if you sign up for a webinar, we may send you marketing emails based on the content of that webinar.  You will always have the option to opt out of any of our emails.

Process Payments
We will use the Personal Data you give to us in order to process your payment for the purchase of goods or services under a contract. We only use third party payment processors that take the utmost care in securing data and comply with the GDPR.

Targeted Social Media Advertisements
We may use the data you provide to us to run social media advertisements and / or create look-alike audiences for advertisements.

Share with Third Parties
We may share your information with trusted third parties such as our newsletter provider in order to contact you via email, our merchant accounts to process payments, and Google / social media accounts in order to run advertisements and our affiliates.

Viewing by Others
Note that whenever you voluntarily make your Personal Data available for viewing by others online through this Website or its content, it may be seen, collected and used by others, and therefore, we cannot be responsible for any unauthorized or improper use of the information that you voluntarily share (i.e., sharing a comment on a blog post, posting in a Facebook group that we manage, sharing details on a group coaching call, etc.).

Submission, Storage, Sharing and Transferring of Personal Data
Personal Data that you provide to us is stored internally or through a data management system. Your Personal Data will only be accessed by those who help to obtain, manage, or store that information, or who have a legitimate need to know such Personal Data (i.e., our hosting provider, newsletter provider, payment processors, or team members).

It is important to note that we may transfer data internationally. For users in the European Union, please be aware that we transfer Personal Data outside of the European Union. By using our Website and providing us with your Personal Data, you consent to these transfers in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Data Retention
We retain your Personal Data for the minimum amount of time necessary to provide you with the information and / or services that you requested from us. We may include certain Personal Data for longer periods of time if necessary for legal, contractual, and accounting obligations.

Confidentiality
We aim to keep the Personal Data that you share with us confidential. Please note that we may disclose such information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that: (1) such action is necessary to protect and defend our rights or property or those of our users or licensees, (2) to act as immediately necessary in order to protect the personal safety or rights of our users or the public, or (3) to investigate or respond to any real or perceived violation of this Privacy Policy or of our Disclaimer, Terms and Conditions, or any other terms of use or agreement with us.

Passwords
To use certain features of the Website or its content, you may need a username and password. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of the username and password, and you are responsible for all activities, whether by you or by others, that occur under your username or password and within your account. We cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to protect your username, password, or account information. If you share your username or password with others, they may be able to obtain access to your Personal Data at your own risk.

You agree to notify us immediately of any unauthorized or improper use of your username or password or any other breach of security. To help protect against unauthorized or improper use, make sure that you log out at the end of each session requiring your username and password.

We will use our best efforts to keep your username and password(s) private and will not otherwise share your password(s) without your consent, except as necessary when the law requires it or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary, particularly when disclosure is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to others or interfering with our rights or property.

How You Can Access, Update, or Delete Your Personal Data

You have the right to:

  • Request information about how your Personal Data is being used and request a copy of what Personal Data we use.
  • Restrict processing if you think the Personal Data is not accurate, unlawful, or no longer needed.
  • Rectify or erase Personal Data and receive confirmation of the rectification or erasure. (You have the “right to be forgotten.”)
  • Withdraw your consent at any time to the processing of your Personal Data.
  • Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority if you feel we are using your Personal Data unlawfully.
  • Receive Personal Data portability and transference to another controller without our hindrance.
  • Object to our use of your Personal Data.
  • Not be subject to an automated decision based solely on automatic processing, including profiling, which legally or significantly affects you.

You may unsubscribe from our emails or updates at any time through the unsubscribe link at the footer of all email communications. If you have questions or are experiencing problems unsubscribing, please contact us at graeme@graemeseabrook.com

Security
We take commercially reasonable steps to protect the Personal Data you provide to us from misuse, disclosure, or unauthorized access. We only share your Personal Data with trusted third parties who use the same level of care in processing your Personal Data. That being said, we cannot guarantee that your Personal Data will always be secure due to technology or security breaches. Should there be a data breach of which we are aware, we will inform you immediately.

Anti-Spam Policy
We have a no spam policy and provide you with the ability to opt-out of our communications by selecting the unsubscribe link at the footer of all emails. We have taken the necessary steps to ensure that we are compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 by never sending out misleading information. We will not sell, rent, or share your email address.

Third Party Websites
We may link to other websites on our Website. We have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of any other individual, company, or entity whose website or materials may be linked to our Website or its content, and thus we cannot be held liable for the privacy of the information on their website or that you voluntarily share with their website. Please review their privacy policies for guidelines as to how they respectively store, use, and protect the privacy of your Personal Data.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance
We do not collect any information from anyone under 18 years of age in compliance with COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) and the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation of the EU). Our Website and its content is directed to individuals who are at least 18 years old or older.

Notification of Changes
We may use your Personal Data, such as your contact information, to inform you of changes to the Website or its content, or, if requested, to send you additional information about us. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change, modify, or otherwise alter our Website, its content, and this Privacy Policy at any time. Such changes and/or modifications shall become effective immediately upon posting our updated Privacy Policy. Please review this Privacy Policy periodically. Continued use of any of information obtained through or on the Website or its content following the posting of changes and/or modifications constituted acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy. Should there be a material change to our Privacy Policy, we will contact you via email or by a prominent note on our Website.

Data Controller and Processors
We are the data controllers as we are collecting and using your Personal Data. We use trusted third parties as our data processors for technical and organizational purposes, including for payments and email marketing. We use reasonable efforts to make sure our data processors are GDPR-compliant.If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at graeme@graemeseabrook.com

Last Updated: January 2025

The Empty Altar: Part I

“We are desperate to be seen as good mothers — to know we’ve gotten it right.”
January 17, 2025
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon.


At the top of a mountain stands a stone altar. To reach the altar you must climb a steep, narrow, and winding path. The path is covered in pebbles and riddled with holes. On one side is a rock wall, slick and high. On the other side is a sheer drop. The climb is terrifying.

The path is full of mothers. Mothers slipping on the stones and tripping in the holes, mothers helping each other up and other mothers pushing through the crowd. Each one carries a sacrifice — a piece of self to lay upon the altar.

“Here are my hopes and dreams,” one mother whispers as she unwinds her hair from her scalp. She lays it upon the altar and begs, “Now that I have given up my hopes and dreams, am I a good mother?”

There is no answer.

Mothers step up offering their limbs, their breasts, their stomachs, their hopes, their joys, their sexuality, their needs. They offer sacrifice after sacrifice and hear only silence.

Another mother steps up, opens her chest and lays her beating heart on the altar. “Here is my truest, deepest self. I relinquish it. Now am I a good mother?” There is only silence as there has always been. The mother sags at the base of the altar, unable to move on without her heart, stuck in this sacrificial pose as other mothers step around her and lay their own offerings down and send their own prayers up.

They believe the silence is proof they have not given enough, or that they have not given correctly.

They never notice there is no one behind the altar.

We don’t want to admit we are living out an abusive cycle of motherhood. Some of us will say that mothering is hard, more of us will agree our own mothers had it hard, but almost no one will look behind the altar and name the emptiness.

We are desperate to be seen as good mothers — to know we’ve gotten it right.Modern motherhood is made up of judgment, competition, and vast quantities of information. We are more plugged in, but less connected. We have so much knowledge at our fingertips but we find less and less grace for each other. More than ever we are convinced there is a right way to mother and we are more insecure than ever about our own journey.

Too many of us walk this road alone, and the isolation is killing us.

Parenting was meant to be a communal act. Humans are primates and primates parent together. When we say, “It takes a village to raise a child,” what we really mean is that no one person can do this alone and stay healthy and raise a healthy child. Yet so few of us live in true community with each other. Our families are either scattered or not supportive, we have neighbors but not communities, and many of our online interactions are filled with judgment and shame.

There’s this idea that there is a perfect mother, a right way to do this. There is more information at our fingertips than ever before about child development and psychology. There is more information about parenting styles and choices. There is more information about physical and mental health options for our families. We are overwhelmed with information, and many mothers lack a true village with which to have conversations where they can seek advice and support. This leaves mothers to carry an ever-expanding emotional, mental, and logistical load alone.

And the stakes are high, maybe the highest you will ever encounter. Add to this the fact that you cannot know if you’ve made the best choice for yourself or your family in the moment. You have to keep making deeply impactful choices daily, striving for an unreachable perfection with no sure roadmap.

Patriarchy has taught us to devalue the caring, nurturing, emotional work of motherhood. Capitalism has taught us to define work as production. White Supremacy has taught us that white women are at once fragile and superior and that women of color are at once unbreakable and inhuman.

And so we learn that these things that exhaust us are not “real work.” We learn we should be grateful for the smallest amounts of help from our partners. We learn to devalue the domestic work that mothers do and to scoff at the idea of mothers needing help with this work, especially mothers of color. This is the base, the DNA from which The Sacrificial Mother springs.

She is the ideal. She is the mother who will finally and absolutely be blessed as THE GOOD MOM. She will be secure in the knowledge that she did everything right and she will live a life free of blame, shame, and disregard.

She is an impossibility, constantly changing but always perfectly correct. She easily adapts to every bit of new information on childrearing, health, and nutrition. She gives the perfect amount to her children, her partner, her friends, and her family. She is the quintessential giving machine.

And because our world is what it is, she is also young, straight, white, cis-gendered, able-bodied, married, educated (but not too), and fully employed (but not career-driven). She volunteers, she crafts, she makes money, she loves sex with her husband only, and her desire level is a perfect fit for his.

The further away you are from this ideal, the more your mothering is judged by society at large and the harder your mothering journey is in general. The particulars will be decided by your own intersections and by those of your mother and your matrilineal line.

It isn’t just us and it isn’t just today. The Sacrificial Mother as we know her now has been shaped by every generation before us, whether they knew that’s what was happening or not. Every stereotype about womanhood plays into this one. Every idea about gender, sexuality, worth, race, about class — they all come together here. She may also wear a face specific to your race and culture. Mothers of color are frequently judged against both a cultural Sacrificial Mother and a white/western Sacrificial Mother.

All around me I see moms praising their own mothers for their sacrifice. I see folks talking about how their mothers gave up everything for them and how their mothers lived for them or through them. The child’s accomplishments became the mother’s because the mother had no dreams left.

We must begin to think more deeply about these norms and whether or not they are healthy. Is it healthy to ask a human being to relinquish all sense of self in service to another? And if that is not truly what we mean, then shouldn’t we stop saying things like:

“My child is my whole life.”

“It isn’t about me anymore, I live for them.”

“Motherhood is sacrifice.”

We see this rhetoric all the time. We tell mothers when they are pregnant or adopting that their lives no longer matter and the point of their life is now that child. We don’t stop to interrogate if that is true or if it is healthy for mother, child, or family.

If your life stops when you have a child and becomes their life, then what is your child living? And does this mean that when your child becomes a parent they must also ransom their lives against the lives of their children? That they must wait and hope and pray that they can pick up a thread of their own existence after their child has moved on from the home?

In this scenario, who ever gets to fully live? Childless people? Fathers?

And what of the child who has all of the hopes and dreams of one or more parent placed on their tiny shoulders? How do they flourish under that weight? How do they learn to be their own whole person?

The idea is that when motherhood begins, personhood stops. Motherhood is seen as binary.

But life is not binary. Life is not either/or. Life is both/and/also. Life is continuous, shifting, changing, and never truly ending.

So, what are the both/and/also versions of motherhood? We see the mother and daughter who graduate college together and their story goes viral on social media. What if instead there was the mother who has her child AND a college experience because she has a community of care around her to support both her and the child? That’s one way the story can be different. But we don’t talk about that because it would require such a deep shift in our current system. The types of communities that lead to the healthiest mothers and children do not flourish in a white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal system because each of those determinants is binary and humans simply aren’t.

Continue to The Empty Altar: Part II

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