Gemma Hartley

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

Mom friends were the ones to whom you were supposed to spill all those dark parenting thoughts. I wanted that mom-magic. I knew it was out there somewhere.

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.

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

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.

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.

I felt unique in my passion for martial arts, my affinity for Call of Duty, my go-with-the-flow attitude toward boyish adventures. I wanted to be “one of the guys,” while still retaining the distinction of my sexuality. I longed to be the quintessential cool girl — desirable yet approachable. But in retrospect, all that really amounted to internalized misogyny.

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.

While the trials of caring for three small kids make it easy for jealousy to bloom, what makes stay-at-home life even harder is the lack of empathy and understanding I get for this 24/7 job. I have spent a frustrating amount of time trying to “prove my worth” to my husband.