Gemma Hartley

...[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.

When my son was little, I used to let him win board games a lot.

Sometimes, I think back to all the ridiculous things I did for boys when I was younger and cringe.

You know that annoying friend who loves to vaguebook about the woes in her life or is always complaining on social media about how her kids are destroying her home and mental health? Super annoying, right? Well, that was me — every damn day, for years.

How was I supposed to tell my son, who was already preoccupied and frightened by the idea of death, that his new little brother or sister was gone, that I'd had a miscarriage? I didn't know. So I lied.

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

Again and again I refuse to prioritize, refuse to let anything slide, at the expense of my physical and mental health.

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

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.

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.