Britni de la Cretaz

In part, I didn't want kids because I knew that I couldn't even take care of myself, let alone someone else.

There’s nothing wrong with moms who decide to go for a stereotypical “mom cut.” If they like it, or if it makes their lives easier, that’s fantastic. Personally, my hair after I had children remained just as important to me as it was before I had them. My hair has always been a huge part of my identity — candy-colored, funky, and so totally me.

It’s bad enough when I’m street harassed out by myself — I feel vulnerable and deciding how to respond can be hard. But it gets really complicated when I’m harassed and with my child.

What I learned about myself is that I am full of crap, through and through. I also learned that I absolutely hated that fraudulent person — it didn't feel good to be a hypocrite. It didn't feel good to manipulate the people around me. And it didn't feel good to know that no one knew me for who I really was, including myself.

Loving someone who struggles with alcoholism and addiction is one of the hardest things to do. It’s a drain on friends and family in both financial and emotional ways. It comes with ups and downs, characterized by periods of hope followed by devastation when you’re let down yet again.

"Go ahead, call me a bitch. It’s one of the nicest things you could say about me."

Being attracted to your oppressor is hard. It means that the people you want to date (or fuck) are also people who contribute to your marginalization, who have privilege that you don't, and who, more often than not, have internalized some pretty gross ideas about you.

The first time I remember learning what a safeword was, I was sitting in my college dorm, devouring blogs about kink and BDSM. It all seemed so foreign to me, a teenager who couldn’t imagine real people doing any of the taboo things these blogs talked about.

After the positive test and the cautious excitement of we're having a baby! came what felt like a literal gut punch — intense, chronic, debilitating morning sickness. I'd wake up and be okay until it was time to get out of bed and try to make it to work. As soon as I was vertical, the nausea would kick in and I'd run to the bathroom.