Gemma Hartley

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.

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

Becoming an adult didn’t magically open me up to their world and their psyche as I thought it would. Even having children of my own did little to unravel the mystery of my parents, because I wasn’t really interested in exploring honestly. I have always been concerned with who my parents were in relation to me, not who they were on their own.

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.

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.

Clearly, it does not take long for my over-ambition to turn me from a vision of perfection into a train wreck you can't look away from. Behold, my first week of school splendor, versus my second week of school ineptitude.

I wish I had realized there was no such thing as being too young to have mental health issues. That there was nothing shameful about postpartum struggles.

Getting pregnant after postpartum depression may have stolen a lot from me, but it gave me a lot more.

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.

We are often so focused on what we say to girls, that we forget the impact our words have on our boys. One flippant mention of my son’s “skinny” figure has turned into a source of unnecessary turmoil for him, and has lead to this difficult but important conversation about body image.