Gemma Hartley

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.

I hate some of the things I see my friends and family post on Facebook.

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.

You are a professional. You want to handle your business with a certain air of sophistication. You want to tell them "f*ck no," but want to do so graciously, tactfully — you are, after all, a wordsmith.

My resolutions regularly remind me that I don’t think I am enough, just as I am. So this year, instead of focusing on habit changes, I'm more concerned with changing my perspective.

If you were to walk into my house on any given day, you wouldn’t know that I am an efficient and organized person.

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.

Fortunately, when I look back at my childhood, it was mostly happy. I had parents who loved me. I had plenty of friends. I had access to food and shelter and education and more. Yet even with all my privilege, I don't want my daughter to have the same adolescence as me.

I know it’s a lie when I tell myself that I’m “simply off” or “maybe I’m just having a few bad days” or “I’m in a funk” or “I must be upset about something, but I don’t know what.”

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.