Joni Edelman

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

When I had my first child, I couldn't have prepared for the way it would make me feel.

I’m lucky to be smart, to have an astonishingly good memory. Or maybe I’m lucky to be bipolar.

All boobs are good boobs. And all areola too!

In today's HELLO, OBVIOUSLY news: National Coffee Day.

Oh hey remember that time in 1804 when Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton had an actual duel, with actual guns and Burr shot Hamilton and Hamilton did not shoot Burr. And then the next day Hamilton died.

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.

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.

I want my kids to have an understanding of the truth of sex, the ins, the outs, the details no one wants to ask anyone—least of all their mom.

Is that incense I smell? A drum circle in the distance perhaps? Chanting? Herbal potions? Perhaps a cauldron? Could it be homebirth?