Gemma Hartley

Minimalism is great in concept, especially when you’re looking at someone else’s well-curated life. Declutter, simplify, own only things that bring you joy. This is all well and good for the twenty-something living in a one bedroom apartment, beholden to no one. When you’re a parent, however, minimalism gets a lot more complicated.

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.

Did you read “gymnastics for grown-ass adults” and get real excited? Like, where can I find this? How can I do this? This sounds awesome! 

I know it won't be long until he can read the headlines before I can bury the truth. He will learn to read, and then to suffer. Words will haunt him.

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.

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?

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.

Last week, the internet went into an understandable uproar when a Christian woman decided to take to Facebook to talk about how she is

I hate some of the things I see my friends and family post on Facebook.