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.

To be honest, it’s exhausting, and I am ready to shed this pesky baby weight once and for all. I mean that literally.

I spent most of my life assuming I was an introvert, but not a very good one. Then finding out I'm an ambivert totally changed my life!

I want to live my best life and, honestly, it's exhausting. Sometimes I wish I could just take a break and say I'm content with where I'm at.

As a freelancer who works from home, I get the best of both worlds as a parent.

I wish I had realized there was no such thing as being too young to have mental health issues. That there was nothing shameful about postpartum struggles.

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 husband and I have been together for 12 years, eight of them married, four of them teenaged.

We are often so focused on what we say to girls, that we forget the impact our words have on our boys. One flippant mention of my son’s “skinny” figure has turned into a source of unnecessary turmoil for him, and has lead to this difficult but important conversation about body image.

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