Mutha Magazine Article Allison [top] May 2026

Because the truth—the one we don’t say out loud, the one Mutha was founded to speak—is that you cannot pour from an empty vessel. And you are not a vessel. You are a woman. You are a mother. And you are allowed to stop performing long enough to remember which one you were first.

What Mutha understands—what Allison learned the hard way—is that motherhood is not primarily an emotional experience. It is a physical one. The body keeps the score.

Who will do it?

Allison stood in front of the bulk granola. She had not slept more than four consecutive hours in eleven years. She hadn’t had a bowel movement without someone knocking on the door in seven. She hadn’t finished a thought—a real, unbroken, private thought—since 2013.

“The myth is that mothering is instinctual,” she says. “But instinct doesn’t require you to remember 47 passwords for 47 different school portals. Instinct doesn’t require you to pack a ‘calm-down kit’ with kinetic sand and a breathing star. Instinct doesn’t make you the CEO of a failing small business called your family.” mutha magazine article allison

As told to Mutha

A store employee in a blue vest crouched next to her. “Ma’am? Do you need me to call an ambulance?” Because the truth—the one we don’t say out

Her phone buzzed: a text from the school nurse. “Mila has a headache. Please pick up.”