Gemma Hartley

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

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

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

...[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.

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.

There is a chasm separating "bad behavior" from "being bad." Our kids have to learn from us that their one-time actions do not permanently define them.

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

But how do I go about actually practicing mindfulness with my kids when I still can’t seem to get them to find their shoes in 30 minutes or less? To be honest, it’s not always easy. However, there are a few key things that I have found really helpful in getting my kids started on the path to a more mindful life.

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.