Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change

"Working from home – amid unwashed dishes and unswept floors – has been a powerful reminder for me of how our economy relies on unpaid or underpaid domestic labor. Angela Garbes argues that the often unglamorous tasks of home maintenance, care work and mothering – a verb inclusive of anyone involved in raising children – are critical to society, yet they’ve been rendered invisible by capitalism and colonialism. Garbes characterizes parenting as a reminder of our bodily needs, and an avenue for social change as valuable as protesting and voting."