Gemma Hartley

Getting pregnant after postpartum depression may have stolen a lot from me, but it gave me a lot more.

My six-year-old son got into the car after school and declared he only wanted to have one kid when he grew up.

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.

It wasn’t the name I would have picked — not originally, at least — but as days turned into weeks, it grew on me.

A breakup, Mom, a cheerleading competition, and Valentine's Day...

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

The insecurities about my age pushed me over the edge, making me work myself to the bone trying to be what I thought society would deem as a “good mom.” So I wish people understood that it’s never OK to comment on a mother’s age — young or old. Because the judgmental connotation is always there, no matter how innocent the intent.

I don't want motherhood to be where my life begins and ends. Sure, we can still talk about our kids, commiserate, and share in one another's parenting accomplishments — but at some point, we need to be more than mere storytellers of our children's lives.

Anti-choice folks love to say that these laws aren’t about controlling and punishing a large portion of the population, they are about the sanctity of life. And life, according to those who are anti-choice, begins when sperm meets egg.

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.