“I swore I wouldn’t be her,” Allison says. “But I just got a more educated version. I traded ironing for organic cold-pressed juice. I traded church potlucks for anti-vaxxer playdates. The performance was different, but the script was the same: A good mother disappears into her children. ”
A store employee in a blue vest crouched next to her. “Ma’am? Do you need me to call an ambulance?” mutha magazine article allison
Allison remembers the exact fluorescent hum of the Stop & Shop on Route 9. It was 2:47 PM on a Tuesday. She had thirty-three minutes to get the gluten-free dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets (the ones her youngest would only eat if the eyes were perfectly spaced), almond milk, the specific brand of cheddar bunnies that didn’t have “weird coloring,” and a sympathy card for her mother-in-law’s neighbor. “I swore I wouldn’t be her,” Allison says
She is writing a book now. Not a parenting guide. A memoir about the year she stopped performing. She calls it The Unbecoming. The working tagline is: “What you lose when you stop being everything to everyone is not a tragedy. It’s a beginning.” I traded church potlucks for anti-vaxxer playdates
“I had become a verb,” she tells me, stirring her coffee. We’re sitting in her living room, which is messier now than in the old photos—blankets piled on the couch, a half-finished puzzle on the table. “I wasn’t a person who mothered. I was mothering. Past tense of myself.”
“They needed a competent mother,” Allison says. “They didn’t need a dead one.”