Gemma Hartley

This straggler struggle is weighing on me! That is, the struggle of having one straggler child left at home, and I’m wondering if it will ever get better.

I am sometimes painfully envious of other (usually childless) writers who are doing the very thing I swore I would have done by now — publishing a novel.

My first child’s milestones were elaborately marked, photographed, and celebrated with much fanfare... My third child however? Not so much. His first birthday was a much quieter affair — if it could be called an affair at all.

I want and need to save some room for myself, to know that I am worthy of a place in the world without the label of mother.

Your dirty brown garbage water is a scourge upon the human race, and I'm here to say it's time to call it quits. Let's all just admit that coffee is disgusting, and move on with our lives. It has no place beside delicious breakfast foods, and it is high time we banned this foul liquid from sullying the world of brunch.

The real reason I’m worried about sending my kids to school is that I’m going to be alone. For the first time in nearly a decade. And that’s scary.

When I was a teenager, I felt very certain that I was not a feminist. I didn’t exactly understand the textbook definition of feminism, but I had a pretty good sense from the negative connotation I had gleaned while growing up in a narrowly Christian setting.

Mom friends were the ones to whom you were supposed to spill all those dark parenting thoughts. I wanted that mom-magic. I knew it was out there somewhere.

Travelling solo for the first time allowed me to regain my sense of self outside of motherhood. It showed me that I could still be a whole and interesting person without using my kids as my stand-in.

At Santa Rosa Christian School, dancing was a gateway drug. The gyrating, the slow romantic swaying...