Gemma Hartley

There is a time to be prudent and fair to “many sides” of an issue, but dealing with Nazis is not that time.

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.

...[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.

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

When I made the decision to become a stay-at-home mother, the choice was an easy one.

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.

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.

I went on to drink a small glass of wine or two per week throughout my pregnancy once I got over the initial shock of it being unplanned. Once I had adjusted to the fact that I was going to bring another baby into the world, I was still overwhelmed by the stress it brought on. I had suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of my son and we had decided not to have any more children. I didn't want the risks or the horrible anxiety that came with pregnancy. Yet here I was, facing all that uncertainty again. Damn right I needed a drink.

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.

Sometimes, I think back to all the ridiculous things I did for boys when I was younger and cringe.