Gemma Hartley

I was lucky enough to avoid a great deal of body negativity growing up.

...[M]en get a lot of praise for the “extra-credit work” they do in regards to domestic labor (the actual house cleaning and keeping work) and emotional labor (the invisible work that ensures the rest gets done) no matter what day of the year.

While the trials of caring for three small kids make it easy for jealousy to bloom, what makes stay-at-home life even harder is the lack of empathy and understanding I get for this 24/7 job. I have spent a frustrating amount of time trying to “prove my worth” to my husband.

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.”

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.

Making friends as a grown woman is hard. I figured out a few tips on how to set up successful one-on-one friend dates, as well as how to handle the territory of a budding platonic relationship with another woman.

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.

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.

My mother called me the morning after the

The money is great, but it is not the best part of becoming a working mom. Having my own career has shifted the power balance of my relationship.