Michaela Mitchell

If someone you care about is suffering through the pain of first holidays without someone they love, there are things you can do.

You turn your back to deal with a crying toddler (I mean, answer a customer's question) and when you look back, every single shirt is unfolded and on the floor. Just at that moment, someone else walks by and rolls their eyes and sighs at how “nasty the store is" and wonders why they "can't they hire good people to keep it clean.”

Ever hear the phrase, “We were poor growing up, but I didn't know it?” It was a common refrain in my family. When my mother and aunt speak about those days, they wax poetically about tomato sandwiches and bread with every meal (meant to fill an empty stomach when there wasn't enough food).

How many times have you opened your mouth only to hear your parents instead? This happens to me all the time . . .

Somewhere between the birth of my first child and the first time my youngest hurt himself and I told him to “walk it off,” I lost much of my mom guilt. It helps that a very good friend of mine, who'd already raised her children years before, shared some of her own hard-earned wisdom with me.

Several months ago I read a piece from a mother who was so over people comparing raising kids to taking care of their “furbabies.” The annoyance and eye rolls practically leapt off the page.

In my family, it's not a matter of if cancer will affect one of us, but when. Right now, breast cancer has center stage in our lives.

My journey to acknowledging my guilt and privilege while embracing my feminist view on the world has been a slow, winding trip — with no end in sight.

God forbid a single group, like fast-food workers, attempt to unite and fight for a better living wage. The moment they do, stories about more deserving groups who don't complain about their income are thrown about.