Gemma Hartley

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?

My mother called me the morning after the

I know it’s a lie when I tell myself that I’m “simply off” or “maybe I’m just having a few bad days” or “I’m in a funk” or “I must be upset about something, but I don’t know what.”

The money is great, but it is not the best part of becoming a working mom. Having my own career has shifted the power balance of my relationship.

Raise a glass to Friendsgiving - feasting without any sides of controversy or conspiracy theorizing. Friendsgiving is the best of all feasts.

At Santa Rosa Christian School, dancing was a gateway drug. The gyrating, the slow romantic swaying...

I had a lot of well-meaning friends and family searching for the right words to say after my back-to-back miscarriages. So many offered solace by guessing at where my lost babies resided in the ether: taken away to Heaven, perhaps forever, perhaps waiting for a better moment— an unknown, destined time these small souls were meant to break into the world. I accepted these comments silently, because they did nothing to comfort me.

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

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.

When my son was a baby, I used my husband as a second set of hands. He was my co-parent, the other caretaker... I was no longer viewing him as my partner, but rather as an aide to attaining the next level of mothering. Even though my husband never called me out on my behavior, I slowly but surely hung up my need for perfection. Because if being a great mother means being a crappy wife, I don't want any part of it.