What unites the work of both Allisons/Alisons in Mutha Magazine is their shared gift for granting permission. They write not as experts or influencers, but as comrades in the trenches. Their articles are rarely how-tos; they are “me-toos.” They acknowledge that loving your child and finding motherhood tedious or maddening are not contradictions but coexisting truths.
Her follow-up, “The Gratitude Journal That Tried to Kill Me,” is a brilliant short-form satire, written as a series of increasingly unhinged entries in a mandated “blessings” diary. It begins earnestly ( “Grateful for tiny handprints on the glass” ) and devolves into ( “Grateful I didn’t scream ‘I hate you all’ at the family craft time, only whispered it into the laundry hamper.” ) mutha magazine articles by allison or alison
These articles avoid the “warrior mom” trope. Instead, Allison focuses on the ambivalence of early motherhood—the love so huge it’s violent, coupled with the grief for a former self who could sleep in and drink hot coffee. Her Mutha pieces are often cited in comments sections as “the thing I read at 3 AM while nursing that made me feel less alone.” She has a knack for naming the unnameable: the rage, the boredom, the strange erotic dislocation of one’s body becoming public property. What unites the work of both Allisons/Alisons in
In a media landscape that often demands mothers perform a specific kind of cheerful resilience, Mutha provides a confessional booth, and writers like Allison/Alison are the raw, witty, and unflinching confessors. To read their work is to feel a tight chest loosen, to hear someone say: “Yes, this is hard. It’s supposed to be. Now let’s laugh before we cry.” Her follow-up, “The Gratitude Journal That Tried to
While Mutha features multiple writers with similar first names, two distinct strains of “Allison/Alison” emerge from its archives: one who leans into the ferocious vulnerability of early motherhood and another who dissects the social performance of being a “good mom.” Both, however, share a refusal to sugarcoat.
In pieces like “The Fourth Trimester Wreckage” (circa 2018) and “Leaking, Bleeding, Weeping: A User’s Manual,” Allison writes with a raw physicality that is rare in mainstream parenting lit. She doesn’t just mention the cracked nipples and pelvic floor issues; she elevates them to a kind of war poetry. One memorable passage reads: “I am a vending machine that dispenses milk, guilt, and the faint smell of vomit. No one puts a quarter in. They just pry my mouth open.”