Your Custom Text Here

Our Vision

We envision a healthy and productive society where everyone prospers because of the contributions of women and mothers; where the value of mothers in the workforce is intrinsic and motherhood is not a limiting factor in how women succeed professionally and personally.

Our Approach

&Mother currently focuses on removing systemic barriers to allow full participation and success for mothers in sports, demonstrating a supportive and enabling path for all mothers in all industries.

We are storytellers and community builders. We work to shift the narrative around motherhood, challenging stereotypes, resetting assumptions, quantifying invisible barriers that mothers face, highlighting solutions, and elevating success stories that inspire our community.
We are catalysts. We drive demand for change across industries and society by demonstrating the value of women when supportive structures and systems allow full participation.
We are path makers and collaborators. We partner with others to systematically remove barriers in sports, creating best practice standards and proof-points while codifying a path for other industries to create workplaces where mothers can thrive.

Our Current Work

Ongoing programmatic activities include:

Building a community and shifting the narrative around sports and motherhood – challenging stereotypes, resetting assumptions, naming invisible barriers that mothers face, highlighting solutions, and elevating stories of success.

Directly supporting individual athletes through our “Changemaker & Mother” grant program, and working with them to drive change for professional female athletes.
Defining support structures and working towards standardization of best practices: for example, providing model sponsorship contract provisions for pregnancy and parental leave, and event support including child care services and lactation support
Working with sponsors excited about the opportunity to improve support for athlete mothers.

We will continue to update our resources as our work evolves.Stay up-to-date by signing up for our newsletter, and supporting us as we advocate for female athletes navigating their personal and professional choices around motherhood and career.

The latest on ongoing projects

How It Started

Alysia Montaño

co-founder, President & CEO

Alysia is an Olympic medalist, a six-time USA Outdoor Track champion and mother of three. As an author, analyst, spokesperson, and entrepreneur she has channeled her gift for inspiring others to demand for and make change.

Alysia first brought the world’s attention to the reality of professional female athletes choosing motherhood when she ran at the USA Nationals Championship while eight months pregnant with her daughter Linnea. This moment in the spotlight earned her the nickname, “the pregnant runner”, and since that event, she has used her platform to change the dialogue around the capabilities and experience of professional athletes when they become mothers. In 2019, Alysia brought worldwide attention to the barriers and bias that professional athlete mothers face with her viral New York Times op-ed: Nike Told Me to Dream Crazy, Until I Wanted a Baby. The op-ed initiated the #DreamMaternity movement, characterized by several high profile professional athletes coming forward with their own stories and widespread media coverage demonstrating the universality of the problems that working women face when making this choice.