Joni Edelman

As the mother of three teens, I'm here to tell you: You have nothing to freak out about.

It doesn’t get any more difficult to insult ourselves, regardless of how old we are. It would be ideal if it got easier to respect ourselves, but it generally doesn’t do that either. Every year you age, and every year the aging you looks at the you of the years before and thinks, I can’t believe I thought I was fat/ugly/etc.

Suffering is America’s favorite thing to do. We starve ourselves to lose weight, and we’re a success story. We don’t sleep, and we’re just getting SO MUCH DONE. We do a thousand things a day and involve our kids in a thousand activities, because somehow, in some perverted way, that makes us successful.

No, Bill Cosby isn't my dad. But he was like one to me growing up.

You know what’s an epidemic? Making people feel second rate and ashamed, criminalizing them for something like having an obese pregnancy.

Psychiatric illness is still stigmatized. And that’s hard when you have a psychiatric illness.

“I don’t even know what to say, Joni. Your baby isn’t alive.”

I didn't get a lot of mothering as a child, but when I did, it was from her. She taught me how to sew, how to crochet. She taught me how to stand up for myself, to be tough. She taught me how to make fried chicken and fried okra, which I will never make, because it's fucking gross.

You do not have to hate your body — but you don’t have to love it either. While I'm happy with my fat body, I miss being thin.

The Interent is ugly sometimes. And raising kids using it doesn't always make it easier.