Essential Labor: Mothering As Social Change

I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside.

To me, parenting is a very hopeful and revolutionary act because I am believing that we can make the world better, even if I'm not actually physically there when it happens.

We'll be right back.

You.

I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. I'm a clinical psychologist. I'm a mom of three, and I'm on a mission to rethink the way we raise our children. Angela Garbiz is the author of the book Essential Mothering as Social Change. In it, she makes the case that we are undervalued in the US and how, as parents, we will need to lead the revolution to change that.

I'd love to just start this conversation hearing, in your words, like, what is this book all about?

That's a good question. It's about a lot of things to me. I mean, primarily, I'm going to talk about why I wrote it and sort of, like, the history of it. So I was actually under contract to write a different book. I was going to write a book of essays about the body and how, for better or worse, the body you're born into affects how you move through the world. Right. Like, I have a brown body. My husband has a very, like, thin, white body. And when we go to, like, get a mortgage, like, he does the talking because they take him more seriously, right? So it was gonna be about that. But anyway, like, I had been trying to write it for two years, and it wasn't going very well. And my deadline was July of 2020. And by April of 2020, when I had no daycare, no preschool, and I had been with my kids, like, 24, seven for just, like, a month, I was like, oh, there's no way I'm gonna be able to do this. So I basically pushed my deadline back for a year and was really struggling. And I felt a lot of loss and grief around that. You know, I missed my work writing, but I also felt that taking care of my kids, it felt like the most important thing I could be doing. You know, writing a book or doing anything else didn't matter in comparison. But I was wrestling with these, like, bad feelings also. And around that time, I was seeing how, you know, we were talking about essential workers. We were talking about healthcare workers, sanitation workers. Right. Teachers, who are all essential. But I was working all the time as a parent, and I was like, what about us? What about me as a mother? Like, we are all working our butts off, and why aren't we talking about that? And so that was sort of like the seed of it. And then I ended up writing an article for New York magazine that was sort of taking all of my bad feelings and noting that, you know, mothers specifically were forced out of the workforce. You know, In September of 2020, 865,000 women left the workforce. And that was because schools remained closed. And, you know, that idea of that we don't have a social safety net. We have mothers, right, who pick up the slack and who take care of everyone. So, you know, I wrote this article that was just sort of talking about how, like, we hear these numbers, but they don't even begin to scratch the surface of how. How terrible this is mentally and emotionally for people. And to my surprise, the article had this viral life, and Elizabeth Warren retweeted it. And I was like, oh, I wrote a thing that was about all my pain from this last year, but I'm not alone. And that was kind of really when I was like, okay, I know what I wanna write. That other book is gone. The book that I wanna write is talking about how have we made care work and mothering and parenting like we expect it for free. We don't value it socially, we don't value it culturally, financially, but we all need it, right? We all desperately need it. It's the work that makes all other work possible. And when we didn't have childcare, when we didn't have. Without people to care, our society was, like, really on its knees and people were reeling and were lost.

You know, I wonder for everyone listening, and especially if you are someone who really identifies in that, like, caretaking role, maybe you are a work inside the home parent. You're a work inside the home mom. I'm really curious if you've ever said to yourself, like, I'm an essential worker. I am an essential worker to my family's functioning. But also. Angela, right? To. To. No, no, no, no, no. Like, to the world's functioning. Right. Like, I am an essential worker. I mean, you know, it's so obvious, but your title, Essential labor parents who were inside the home during the pandemic. I don't remember them being included in that list. And it's interesting with essential workers, I remember when the essential workers were able to get vaccines first. Right? Yeah. And I remember a lot of people saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now, like, my babysitter is actually eligible, but, like, me as, like, a parent staying at home, like, what about me? And it's just really empowering, you know, I feel like you and I actually are like, Doing the same work. Like, I feel like this more and more, this idea that caregiving and having this role of a caregiver as a mother, like, there is such power in our ability to, like, create a revolution.

I mean, first of all, there's never. Historically, there's never been a revolution without mothers and babies. Right. Like, and children. Right. And I. I agree. I mean, I think part of writing this book was I wrote it for myself because I have stood in front of the mirror and said, like, I'm an essential worker. And I encourage people to do that as well, because it really starts with us, with parents, caregivers insisting on that, because society isn't going to tell us that even though we know it to be true. It is true. And I think, you know, the revolution, we need change on all fronts, but I think the revolution, actually a powerful place for it to begin, is for us to think of ourselves that way. It changes a lot. You know, I tell people, like to talk to your, like, peers, your parents. Right. The people in the trenches. Right. With you every day, like to talk about yourselves that way. We need to value ourselves in that sense. And that was a journey for me. And now I'm on this place where I'm, like, never going to shut up about it, and I'm going to tell people they need to do that. There are so many things that I want for our country, you know, top of mind right now. I'm like, I want people to have bodily autonomy. We don't have that. That's not guaranteed. And sometimes I think, like, I don't know, I believe that we can get there and have that. I don't know if I'm going to be around, you know, like, social change is very slow. It's meaningful work. I can't think of better work to be doing, but there's no guarantee that I'm gonna, like, live to see, like, the end of white supremacy in America. Right. But my kids, it could happen when my daughters, While my daughters are alive, and my daughters could be part of that. And I think a lot about parenting as, like, legacy work. You know, to me, it's really important to leave the world better, like, than I showed up, even if just a little bit, even for just a few people. And to me, parenting is a very hopeful and revolutionary act because I am believing that we can make the world better, even if I'm not actually physically there when it happens.

Yeah, you're changing the blueprint, right?

Yeah. And I'm imparting the values that I have, like, to my children. And this book is a lot about how I've had to mother myself. I mean, I have a wonderful mother. I wonderful parent. I have wonderful parents who have bathed me in so much love. But they also are human beings who are flawed. They're immigrants who came over and were like, we're just focused on survival. Right. So there were a lot of things, like, in my own cultural inheritance too, you know, like, my mother never talked to me really, about my body and having, like. And valuing my body beyond aesthetics. Right. And I think about a lot of things that I have had to unlearn, you know, to know that my body is like, I'm enough just as I am. Like, that's a huge thing that I. I've had. I'm like, I came to that as an adult. And I feel like if I can give my daughters that now in an early age, like, they're ahead of the game. Right?

They.

And I just want life to be a little bit easier for them.

Yes. And you know, what you want for your kids. I always say, if there's one self belief, I want my kids to go into the world. It's, I'm the only one in my body and I'm the only one who knows how I feel and what I want. And I feel like that's more important than anything they'll learn anywhere else. And is actually, like, a revolutionary idea, especially for women. It really is, number one, that I have wants, that I have wants that I know what they are, that I can put them out there and that.

I know that I'm entitled to them. That's like my birthright as a human being.

Yes. I always think about this, that babies, right, come out as just a bundle of desire with total freedom to expression. Right. Like, there's no baby who's like, but would that baby over there want the milk now too? Like, maybe I'm making a big deal out of this. Like, I don't know. Excuse me. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Maybe it's right there. Like, it is just that, you know, that's what leads every essence of their being. And, like, how do we get from there to, like, here where, you know, so many caregivers and yes, so many women I found, you know, in my private practice, the single most disorienting question was, what do you want? And most women, we know what our wants are after they haven't been met. But we don't know them proactively because we learned to turn them off so early. And the idea of, like, mothering a social change. And the idea of being. Being an important, sturdy, essential worker. Right. I think puts us back in touch with so much of that power. Right. And world watch out, because things will happen when more of us tap into each other. And this is the next thing I want to ask you about and when we connect with each other, because I feel like in your book, you talk a lot about community, the importance of community, what you learned about community during COVID This is always on my mind for caregivers. And I'm curious if you could speak a little bit about that.

Yeah, well, I mean, I want to go back to the baby, right? The baby who cries. And it's not just that. So we're born with, like, this capacity to express. We're in touch with our desires, right? And they are met because someone is caring for us. And we don't question taking care of a baby. These helpless people who have done nothing truly to earn our love and affection except to be a human being. And why does that go away? Why does that expectation of having our needs, method that, like, to own our desires, like, that goes away. But I think that what we need to do is lean into that. I think what makes us human is that we are social and that we are vulnerable. The state of being a human being is to exist in a state of needfulness. And this relates to community. Because during the pandemic, I saw people. You know, we formed a pod. I actually hate that language. But, you know, I think of the people that we became really close to. I think of them as my co family. They're the only people we saw indoors for, like, the better part of a year. When I see people forming pots, when I see people talking about mutual aid, which is a thing that has come up, it's part of our, like, the, like, language of today. I saw people create community. Fridges, little free libraries and all of those things. They predated the pandemic, like, our needfulness. We kind of, like, were moving so quickly that we just pretended like we were fine, right? And even though we weren't getting our needs met, but to me, all of those things is. It's really beautiful. It's saying, I can't do this alone. We're not meant to take care of children. We're not meant to take care of the sick, the disabled, and our elders in isolation. We're just not. And if you look through the history of the world, globally, everywhere, like, people lived more communally. The home was not the sole province of women, men, Were not expected to go out and earn the wage to support the whole family. We live in a very distinctly American society that is, I think, pretty inhumane. And so what I've learned just is that, yeah, like, no one can do it alone. And I think it's important as the pandemic moves a little bit into the rearview mirror, like, thanks to vaccines and that kind of thing, I don't want us to let go of that. I want us to really double down on community, because I think the pandemic offered a chance for people to slow down a little bit, for better or worse, and spend time with themselves and kind of, you know, confront some things that maybe we have been avoiding, which is that, yeah, like, I want more. I want more connection with people. I want to feel like I belong. I want to be accepted. I want to be able to ask for help and say what I need and be in touch with my desires, like you were saying. And I think that that's. I think I've seen. I've seen people do that for each other and for themselves. That's what I learned in the pandemic. And I want us to continue doing that. I think it's how we're going to survive.

Being a parent is just so hard. Like, it just is, period. And, like, one of the things I always feel like I need to say, especially with, you know, now the way I offer kind of some parenting ideas is like, none of these ideas are to make parenting easy. Let me just, like. Like, that is not the goal.

And I appreciate that. Like, there's no. You can't, like, hack your way out of parenting.

No. But I feel like, especially women and mothers, we've so paired our struggles with our, like, self blame and, you know, kind of self deficiency. Like, we struggle with something, and immediately it's like, it's my fault. Something's wrong with me. And if something is wrong with me, state you don't want to reach out to others because you're worried about further rejection. Usually the things that bring on something is wrong with me thoughts are the things that everyone is so desperate to connect to each other about. Right?

Yes. Yes. I think it's really important to name this as. Because they happen in the home.

Right.

Because they're. And we've been taught, you know, like, the home is private. We don't talk about the stuff that happens there. Domestic labor, we hide it. Right. And we say it's not worth anything and it's very inconvenient. We should outsource it. But so I think what happens is we are led to feel. And this is a very na. I mean, it's not. At this point, it's natural. Right. Everyone feels that, like, this is my fault. But we perceive these things as personal flaws as opposed to systemic failures. And that's what I want people to know. Like, if in this moment, I'm like, if nothing else, know this. It's not your fault. It's because our society doesn't value us and doesn't support us. It is not your fault. Anyone who's listening, it's not your fault. You know, like, and then there's such.

A big implication of that difference, right? Because obviously, like, if we put our hands out and look at both hands, you're like, okay, my left hand is like, this is my fault. Something's wrong with me. And my right hand is. This is a systemic failure. And, like, I'm angry about that. Right?

Like, yeah.

I just feel like anger is a sign that we need something that we're not getting. So it's very, very different state. And then if you think about over and over, this is my fault, Something's wrong with me. What happens? Like, literally, what's the movement in my body? I probably shrink. I freeze in shame. I, you know, go further and further into myself.

Yeah.

Versus this is a systemic failure, and I'm angry about it. Right. There's an energizing, like, activating kind of nature to that, and I would want to go talk to someone about it. And then probably they'd say back to me, yeah, me too. Right. And now we have this thing that you write about, too, this community. We have power in numbers. We really have power in connection and power in not feeling alone and power in togetherness. And that leads to change. So it's really, to me, like, the.

In.

I keep thinking about this as a psychologist. My mind has been so open in this journey that, like, there's no such thing as, like, individual psychology being different than, like, larger societal, political change because they're. They're so deeply connected. But that state of.

As long as we keep it as.

Our individual psychology, something's wrong with me. First of all, nobody wins. Like, I don't know, Patriarchy wins, maybe.

Yes, exactly. I was. I think about that a lot. Like, when we. That kind of shame, silence, like, it keeps us small.

Yeah.

It keeps us focused on ourselves.

Right.

Yeah. And who benefits from that? Not us.

Not us. It doesn't. Like, just simply. I feel like I'm just a pragmatist also. I'm like, does that serve me is that there's so many ways to view things, there's so many potential truths that, is this a truth that serves me? And if it's not, there's probably another equally truthful version that's out there. And the idea that mothering is essential labor, this is an important job. Like you said, I can't do motherhood alone because it was never meant to be done alone. And I have needs around this, you know? Yeah.

I mean, I think about how, you know, like, it was Elizabeth Warren, I remember at the Democratic Convention who got up there on the stage and I cried where she was like, childcare is infrastructure for American families. We need to be talking about it as such. But I also wanna say, like, parenting, mothering. Like, I specifically use this word, mothering. And the book is primarily about raising children. But I am very interested with this expansive idea of care. We think about motherhood, it's a static noun, but the action of caregiving, I mean, it's very much a verb. It's a lot of repetitive action. It's bending down, it's picking up, it's wiping, it's cleaning, it's on your knees, it's scrubbing, it's hugging, it's tending, it's brushing. It's all of this stuff it lives in, in the actions. And I think about how that stuff is. Mothering, to me is actually not gender specific. It is not parent specific even. I mean, I'm not the first person to say this. You know, there's a book that I love called Revolutionary Mothering that talks about how anyone can be involved in mothering. Anyone who is nurturing and affirming life. And that idea of, we can't do this alone. I rely, just personally, I rely on my husband, I rely on my mother, I rely on my father, I rely on a babysitter, I rely on childcare providers, I rely on early education, early childhood educators. I rely on my extended, like my chosen family, aunties. Right. Like uncles. And it's really wonderful to have connections with other people. Right? Like, this is the thing that America is bad at understanding and talking about because it's. It's intimate, it's personal, it doesn't have any particular value besides making us feel good. But that social nature and that sort of nurturing is something that exists in all of us and all of us benefit from it. And so I really think, like, this work of caring is community work, and it is. Everyone can be involved and everyone can benefit from it.

You know, I think about the Way we're structured as kind of like, we all have many parts of us and we all function the best and we have, you know, contact at least with all of them. And we all have parts of us that want to caregive and that benefit from sharing with others and connecting with others and learning in the process. That's, I think, also like, the biggest paradox is I always feel like becoming a parent is like the best opportunity we have for personal growth. If we allow ourselves to see our triggers and our hard moments with our kids through the lens of, wow, what is my body telling me? Rather than like, what is wrong with me? Right, sure. Very, very different. And everyone benefits from that. Men, women, you know, people who, you know, identify in any way. Not pre parents, non par grandparents. Right. And that's, that's also what, you know, there's like this, this myth. I don't know if it's a myth or like, of like mothering is like murderdom versus mothering. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. As like, this is my best opportunity to actually like grow into a sturdier leader that's like to me, the model of, of mothering. We want, you know, if I think about the CEO of any company, you want a sturdy leader. Like, you want someone sturdy, not someone who's running.

Yeah. Steady hand on the wheel.

Yeah, exactly. That's what our kids want too. They don't want the mother who's running themselves into the ground and resentful. I mean, we've had those mothers for too long. Like, they don't even want that.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's important to rec. I mean, I was like, I don't have time for, you know, this sort of martyrdom, I should say. Like, that's very much what was modeled to me. I think many of us grew up with that model. And that's what American culture, you know, motherhood, sacrifice, suffering in silence. Right. You've become a mother. Physical pain from childbirth, like, that's just what you get for becoming a mother. And it's worth it because you have this beautiful child. And we need to really talk about the sort of nuances and all the changes that happen. Right. But yeah, I think that I want to acknowledge that it's hard work to get rid of that idea and to unlearn that and to ban it because the call is coming from inside the house too. So that is real work to do that. And I think that's, it's so important to say that it's not easy, but I can't think of More important work to do, which is both helping ourselves and helping other people and the next generation.

So one question that is a little bit of a. I don't know if it's an antidote to the hard work that is parenting is the joy in mothering.

Yeah. I mean, that's a huge part of this book that I want to talk about. I don't want to just talk about the hard things. One of the things that we don't discuss enough is that is the kind of, what do we feel in our bodies? Like, I'm someone who is very focused on physical pleasure and embodiment. I think joy is, like, my right. And parenting is a lot of drudgery and a lot of hard work. But that sort of intimacy.

You know.

Tending to myself, not just like. And I don't mean self care. I mean, like, taking a nice shower, like going for a dip in the lake. Like, that feels really good. And parenting to me and caring for other people and caring for my children gives me physical pleasure. Like, we need to have, like, connections. Like, this is what fuels us. And I think that there is so much joy and potential. And part of writing this book was to. Is to lean into that. You know, Like, I. We're taught to, like, hate our bodies or think of our bodies as, like, very inconvenient, or to think we'd be better off without them. Right. But I mean, I actually love. I mean, my favorite thing in the world is to clean earwax out of my daughter's ears. I love it. And it's just like, that warmth, that feeling, like. And it's because, Becky. It's because my mother did that for me. And when I think about, like, my strongest sense memory from childhood of, like, feeling held, feeling, like, loved, it's not verbal, you know, it's not my mom being like, I love you. It was. I can transport myself to this moment where I would have my head in my mom's lap and she would be cleaning my ears. And that's, like, what my body knows and remembers. And, like, that's what I want to give to my kids, what I want to give to other people. Like, we. Feeling it in your body. There is no substitute for that.

Yeah. And for the parent listening who's thinking that joy in parenting, like, that feels so far from where I am. Like, what. You know, what do you share?

I've. I spend a lot of time in that place or I have a lot of moments like that. And, you know, the last thing that any parent needs is, like, something else to do. Right. And so I think it's hard. I. I mean, I. In some ways what I want. What I want to tell people to do is to. To the extent that they are able to, to like, stop thinking. You know, I think American culture really encourages us to not trust ourselves to like, every pregnancy book is like, don't do this, don't do this, don't do that. Why would you want tea? Like, don't have sushi. Right. It's a lot of it is this, like, denial of pleasure and prioritizing your brain over your body. And I don't want to prioritize one over the other. And I just want to encourage parents to, like, let go a little bit, to trust themselves, like to tune into their wants, their desires and their bodies. Becoming a more embodied person for me. And that's something that I've been like, working on my whole life, but becoming more embodied and sort of like integrating like the bottom up knowledge with the top down knowledge has been so crucial for me in letting go of a lot of things and feeling just good enough as I am and knowing too, like, I'm not going to do a perfect job as a parent because I'm just a person. And that's okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Just to piggyback on that in terms of so many parents I know right now, it's so hard to find joy. So I would, I would go back first to what Angela and I started with in the beginning. Just notice if your first thought is, something's wrong with me versus, oh, like maybe there's something systemic and mothering. Right. That, you know, that is impacting my experience. Right. And just, I always say we just have to make. You can't beat the voices that come up inside us, so you got to join them. So just say hi to like the. Okay, yeah, there's that something is wrong with me thought like, oh, something's wrong with me that I can't find joy. And then. And then I have two kind of concrete things to offer around that. Number one is I feel like things like joy and happiness, like, we focus a little too much on like, cultivating them rather than like, well, what sets the stage for their emergence? And like, I feel like that's not. Not just like a verbal difference, like, what feelings are crowding out joy versus how can I find it? Or different. And usually the feelings that crowd out joy are the list of things, the lack of support. And so rather than why am I not feeling joy as a parent, you might think, like, what is something I Need to feel a little bit less in survival mode. And what would it be like to ask for that, right? Is it asking if I have a partner? Like, hey, I really need you to do bath time? Is it calling a friend and saying, I'm doing bath time again. Can you send me? So I think that's one. And then the other thing I think that, you know, I think about a lot is just really, like, the reminder that two things can be true. Like, I really can feel like being a mom right now is really hard and really overwhelming. And I could, while feeling that way, dance to my favorite song in the show. Like, I can do both. Like, I both can be true. And then after that shower, I can go back to like, oh, this is the worst. Like, oh, I can give myself full permission. I don't have to integrate or, like, balance it out. Like, I can coexist. And I think even starting with, like, I. That is my right.

I have the right to two minutes.

Of joy a day. And if I find those two minutes and I don't have joy doing that dance, well, you know what? I'm practicing a muscle. My joy muscle hasn't been flexed. Then like any other muscle, you gotta flex it a few times before it really kicks in. So you're in the building to joy phase.

Right.

The one thing I wanna say is that. But I also feel like we don't exist in states of happiness and joy for, like, you don't get there and then you're just there. I think about it as they're moments and they are, God, you know, like, parenting is such a slog. But when I look back, a lot of those bad times are not what I remember. I remember, like, when I was down on my hands and knees. I don't like imaginative play, but I was down on my hands and knees with my toddler one time when I chose to meet her there. And we were like, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. Like, in doing sort of, like cat poses and, like, what you remember are these moments. And I think if you can have a few moments of pure joy and happiness in your body with your family, like, I don't know, once a day, a couple of times a week, like, that's not nothing. And that is great, you know? And I think getting to that place where you can. Yeah. Like, I'm having this beautiful moment, and five minutes later, like, I'm gonna be in some sort of mild battle with my child about clothing or something. Right? Or like, that's gonna happen. Like two things can be true. But yeah, your relationship is richer because it's not just work. It is also something that gives you joy and pleasure. And I think it's working with like when you're saying that you're like in the, you're building to joy of realizing like it is, it's accessible and it takes a little time and it's not like you're, you can't like do joy. It's not like an achievement that you get there and you're like hanging out there forever. Yeah. It comes in waves. It's like riding the waves, I guess.

Yes, exactly. Thank you for, you know, this conversation. Thank you for your critical work. Thank you for putting like words to, you know, so many unformulated experiences that people now have more of an understanding around. And look forward to the next time we connect.

This has been great. Thank you for your work and for having me.

Thanks for listening. To share a story or ask me a question, go to goodinside.com podcast. You could also write me@podcastoodinside.com parenting is the hardest and most important job in the world and parents deserve resources and support so they feel empowered, confident and connected. I'm so excited to share Good Inside Membership, the first platform that brings together content and experts you trust with a global community of like valued parents. It's totally game changing. Good inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Newsome at Magnificent Noise. Our our production staff includes Sabrina Farhee, Julia Natt and Kristin Muller. I would also like to thank Erica Belsky, Mary Panico, Jill Cromwell Wang, Ashley Valenzuela and the rest of the Good Inside team. And one last thing before I let you go, let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves. Even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain Good Inside.