Gemma Hartley

You are a professional. You want to handle your business with a certain air of sophistication. You want to tell them "f*ck no," but want to do so graciously, tactfully — you are, after all, a wordsmith.

Travelling solo for the first time allowed me to regain my sense of self outside of motherhood. It showed me that I could still be a whole and interesting person without using my kids as my stand-in.

Your dirty brown garbage water is a scourge upon the human race, and I'm here to say it's time to call it quits. Let's all just admit that coffee is disgusting, and move on with our lives. It has no place beside delicious breakfast foods, and it is high time we banned this foul liquid from sullying the world of brunch.

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.

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.

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.”

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

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

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.

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.