Gemma Hartley

If you were to walk into my house on any given day, you wouldn’t know that I am an efficient and organized person.

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.

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

Despite endless exhortations to "enjoy every second," the reality of three toddlers is not always a Disney postcard. And it's okay for some moms to admit that they look forward to having a little less mess, a little more serenity.

Back when I had my first child, back when he was still a baby, I imagined us moving to the mountains. I was thinking about having three more kids, living off the grid, and soaking up every last bit of their wild childhood. It was a fantasy, through and through.

It probably isn’t the sort of parenting moment that is supposed to make a mother proud — the hitting, growling, and otherwise uncivilized decorum... But I couldn’t help feeling a deep satisfaction with my daughter.

I wonder because I think I'm making the same mistakes with my daughter. She hardly eats. She's very picky. I feel like food is a constant struggle between us. I also feel like it's all my fault.

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 and need to save some room for myself, to know that I am worthy of a place in the world without the label of mother.

But I was yet to face the cold, hard fact that my lack of acceptance for my own body, was really a lack of acceptance for all the bodies I had falsely embraced for so long. Could I really love someone else’s ample stomach, when I could not love my own?