Gemma Hartley

I was lucky enough to avoid a great deal of body negativity growing up.

This straggler struggle is weighing on me! That is, the struggle of having one straggler child left at home, and I’m wondering if it will ever get better.

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

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.

My six-year-old son got into the car after school and declared he only wanted to have one kid when he grew up.

I felt unique in my passion for martial arts, my affinity for Call of Duty, my go-with-the-flow attitude toward boyish adventures. I wanted to be “one of the guys,” while still retaining the distinction of my sexuality. I longed to be the quintessential cool girl — desirable yet approachable. But in retrospect, all that really amounted to internalized misogyny.

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

My first child’s milestones were elaborately marked, photographed, and celebrated with much fanfare... My third child however? Not so much. His first birthday was a much quieter affair — if it could be called an affair at all.

A breakup, Mom, a cheerleading competition, and Valentine's Day...

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.