Gemma Hartley

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.

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

My resolutions regularly remind me that I don’t think I am enough, just as I am. So this year, instead of focusing on habit changes, I'm more concerned with changing my perspective.

I’m not saying there is no joy to motherhood. I go through periods where I do feel like I’m at my parenting best. There are times when I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for the amazing life and children I’ve been given. It can be so, so good. But what I’m saying is, it doesn’t always have to feel like that.

Making friends as a grown woman is hard. I figured out a few tips on how to set up successful one-on-one friend dates, as well as how to handle the territory of a budding platonic relationship with another woman.

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

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.

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

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.

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