Kristi Pahr

I have a confession to make. Target, meh. I’m just not that into it.

2016 sucked. If we can’t agree on anything else, I think we can all agree on at least that much.

“Is she Black or white?” I asked another mom who was describing a little girl in her son’s class that she thought my family might know.

I think we can all agree that there is some messed up stuff happening right now.

When I got pregnant for the third time, I was determined to have an unmedicated VBAC. I had big plans. This VBAC was going to be my birth experience salvation. It was going to be empowering and amazing and heal all my hangups. I was going to be a mama goddess and everything was going to be perfect. I was wrong.

When my oldest son was a baby, my husband and I used to talk about what sports he would play.

Life looks a lot different at 40 than it did at 25, and I have a whole new list of things to worry about. It's a very long list, and it makes me anxious on the best day, plain terrified on the worst day, and on a run-of-the-mill day, it just keeps reminding me that I'm clueless about what to think and what to do and how to be grown.

My version of self-care is a little less “best life” and a little more “no life”, but it works for me.

I found my first gray hair when I was 12 years old. Twelve. I had gray hair before I had a period.

As a mother of boys, I find this trend disturbing. Yes, we need to build up our girls. We need to empower them and teach them that they are capable and viable and powerful — that they are smart and that they matter. But we cannot devalue our boys in the process.