Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change [Paperback]

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Angela Garbes has given us the definitive explanation for something we all share: the sense that something is not right about our societys treatment of parenting.Essential Laboris a beautifully written, painstakingly researched, and courageously personal book. Garbes reveals the way systems exploit caregiving and shows us how the essential work of mothering can fix not just family life, but society. A timely and unforgettable book.Heather McGhee,New York Timesbestselling author ofThe Sum of Us

From the acclaimed author ofLike a Mothercomes a reflection on the state of caregiving in America, and an exploration of mothering as a means of social change.

The Covid-19 pandemic shed fresh light on a long-overlooked truth: mothering is among the only essential work humans do. In response to the increasing weight placed on mothers and caregiversand the lack of a social safety net to support themwriter Angela Garbes found herself pondering a vital question: How, under our current circumstances that leave us lonely, exhausted, and financially strained, might we demand more from American family life?

InEssential Labor,Garbes explores assumptions about care, work, and deservedness, offering a deeply personal and rigorously reported look at the economics of care and what mothering is, and can be. A first-generation Filipino-American, Garbes shares the perspective of her family's complicated relationship to care work, placing mothering in a global contextthe invisible economic engine that has been historically demanded of women of color.

Garbes contends that while the labor of raising children is devalued in America, the act of mothering offers the radical potential to create a more equitable society. InEssential Labor,Garbes reframes the physically and mentally draining work of meeting a child's bodily and emotional needs as opportunities to find meanló%