Today, our very own Katy Elliott is getting real about all the things that make your 40s so very challenging: “I feel like I am out here on my own. There is no safety net. My dad is dead, and my mom hasn’t been the same since he died 20+ years ago. I am responsible for myself and my family,” she writes. “And it’s a lot and lonely. I’m married and have a spouse that I can lean on, but he is navigating his own story, too. We are no longer playing house, and we can’t f*ck this up.”

I think she’s really captured something important about the decade. Give it a read.

— Kelly Faircloth, Executive Editor

To her two stepchildren, Vice President Kamala Harris is simply “Momala.” And today, Jen McGuire, a single mom of four boys, is talking about how she herself desperately always wanted a “Momala” for her kids. She writes, “I couldn’t watch the movie Stepmom without sinking into a deep depression… But then I started to think about how things might get a little easier if we could somehow sort of band together, me and her. Maybe she would really love my kids and they would love her. Maybe she could become a sort of friend?” It’s a sweet piece about having unexpected people in your corner.