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Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change
From the acclaimed author of Like a Mother comes 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 mothering is among the only essential work humans do. In response to the increasing weight placed on mothers and caregivers—and the lack of a social safety net to support them—writer Angela Garbes found herself pondering a vital How, under our current circumstances that leave us lonely, exhausted, and financially strained, might we demand more from American family life?
In Essential Labor, Garbes explores assumptions about care, work, and deservedness, offering a deeply personal and rigorously reported look at 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 context—the 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. In Essential Labor, Garbes reframes the physically and mentally draining work of meeting a child's bodily and emotional needs as opportunities to find meaning, to nurture a deeper sense of self, pleasure, and belonging. This is highly skilled labor, work that impacts society at its most foundational level.
Part galvanizing manifesto, part poignant narrative, Essential Labor is a beautifully rendered reflection on care that reminds us of the irrefutable power and beauty of mothering.
The Covid-19 pandemic shed fresh light on a long-overlooked mothering is among the only essential work humans do. In response to the increasing weight placed on mothers and caregivers—and the lack of a social safety net to support them—writer Angela Garbes found herself pondering a vital How, under our current circumstances that leave us lonely, exhausted, and financially strained, might we demand more from American family life?
In Essential Labor, Garbes explores assumptions about care, work, and deservedness, offering a deeply personal and rigorously reported look at 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 context—the 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. In Essential Labor, Garbes reframes the physically and mentally draining work of meeting a child's bodily and emotional needs as opportunities to find meaning, to nurture a deeper sense of self, pleasure, and belonging. This is highly skilled labor, work that impacts society at its most foundational level.
Part galvanizing manifesto, part poignant narrative, Essential Labor is a beautifully rendered reflection on care that reminds us of the irrefutable power and beauty of mothering.
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First published May 10, 2022
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May 14, 2022
I was so disappointed by this book after the glowing reviews. The memoir portions are interesting and well written, but the cultural analysis is not. Because the book is so short--and, to be honest, rather vague in places--much of it consists of brief ideas and quotes with relatively little analysis.
Insofar as the book has a defined thesis, it's that mothering in the USA is too individualized and
Garbes centers her focus as an American-born daughter of Filipino immigrants, and that's fine (and as I said, interesting). Unfortunately she's too prone to simplifying her analytical lens, treating all white people as a single cultural mass and allowing generalizations about African and Indigenous cultures to pass without comment. While she considers the intersection of race and class for herself, she's less careful for others. She brings up how the liberation of white women was and is predicated on the low-wage labor of other women who are largely Black and brown, but there isn't much thought to the experience of working class white women. I was honestly somewhat surprised--while her contemporary experience is almost stereotypically PNW urban middle class, she grew up in rural Pennsylvania. I was also a little surprised--and frustrated---at her lack of acknowledgement of body size issues (beyond her own personal issues with her body) and how that impacts people's experience with exercise, movement, and outdoor activity.
I wound up frustrated at so many points because there was so much more to say. She briefly surveys ableism and disability, but it's limited, and there's not much thought to the experiences of parenting disabled children, or the stress of the sandwich generation and how it pulls on women. The usual point about the Western (not just American) primacy of the nuclear family is brought up, but there isn't much digging into that beyond "because capitalism." Some European countries are even more strongly in this direction than the US; others have retained more extended family links. Conservatives actually argue that the introduction of government care services weaken the traditional family. While Garbes acknowledges that the extended family is not always ideal and shouldn't be put on a pedestal, again, there's more to examine here about why people don't always want their biological families, what separates them, and the difficulties of finding your own links and "chosen family." She's prone to quoting without reflection; for example, she quotes Angela Davis on her ideal of socialized childcare and meals. Well, the kibbutzim tried that in Israel, and it was a failure, and it could be worth examining why that happened and why parents hated it.
Overall, this book felt like it could have done with more time and research and editing.
Insofar as the book has a defined thesis, it's that mothering in the USA is too individualized and
Garbes centers her focus as an American-born daughter of Filipino immigrants, and that's fine (and as I said, interesting). Unfortunately she's too prone to simplifying her analytical lens, treating all white people as a single cultural mass and allowing generalizations about African and Indigenous cultures to pass without comment. While she considers the intersection of race and class for herself, she's less careful for others. She brings up how the liberation of white women was and is predicated on the low-wage labor of other women who are largely Black and brown, but there isn't much thought to the experience of working class white women. I was honestly somewhat surprised--while her contemporary experience is almost stereotypically PNW urban middle class, she grew up in rural Pennsylvania. I was also a little surprised--and frustrated---at her lack of acknowledgement of body size issues (beyond her own personal issues with her body) and how that impacts people's experience with exercise, movement, and outdoor activity.
I wound up frustrated at so many points because there was so much more to say. She briefly surveys ableism and disability, but it's limited, and there's not much thought to the experiences of parenting disabled children, or the stress of the sandwich generation and how it pulls on women. The usual point about the Western (not just American) primacy of the nuclear family is brought up, but there isn't much digging into that beyond "because capitalism." Some European countries are even more strongly in this direction than the US; others have retained more extended family links. Conservatives actually argue that the introduction of government care services weaken the traditional family. While Garbes acknowledges that the extended family is not always ideal and shouldn't be put on a pedestal, again, there's more to examine here about why people don't always want their biological families, what separates them, and the difficulties of finding your own links and "chosen family." She's prone to quoting without reflection; for example, she quotes Angela Davis on her ideal of socialized childcare and meals. Well, the kibbutzim tried that in Israel, and it was a failure, and it could be worth examining why that happened and why parents hated it.
Overall, this book felt like it could have done with more time and research and editing.
June 21, 2022
I have a lot to say about this one.
TLDR: The subtitle “mothering as social change” oversells what is really personal and specific reflections on motherhood interspersed with disjointed social commentary with some big gaps.
Full Review:
This book is strongest where Angela Garbes draws on the personal. She grounds her book in the experience of being the child of filipinx immigrants, using their story to demonstrate colonialism and care work. Along with descriptions of her childhood, she also writes extensively about her own experience mothering her children, particularly in the pandemic.
These passages, which read as memoir, are interwoven (rather choppily) with larger cultural commentary, drawing on other authors, and making some individual action and policy recommendations. To me, much of this cultural commentary was familiar and broad, but it could be introductory and instructive to other readers.
My main problem with this book is that by jumping back and forth from personal experience to societal level points, Garbes ends up not only centering, but universalizing her experience of motherhood. Her arguments fail where she treats her experience as a definition, rather than an example.
Two main gaps where this manifested for me were 1. queerness and 2. disability.
1. Queerness
In the chapter devoted to pleasure and sex, despite discussing sexual education and teaching her daughters about pleasure in detail— queerness is ONLY mentioned in reference to the animal kingdom. “Nature is queer and abundant. It’s homosexual and trans…the animals my daughters are taken with are…. [descriptions of animal sex acts]. Outside of animals, Garbes does not mention that reconsidering and relearning the patterns and power of sex and pleasure is something that the queer community has expertise on.
The heterosexual lens extends to the rest of the book as well. Garbes occasionally mentions that queer/non-binary folks exist but never goes beyond than that. In fact, she barely includes non-traditional families at all. Her writing draws on the experience of her own family and her neighbors—seemingly all two parent heterosexual families with non-adopted children.
Garbes’s fillipinx lens allows her to speak on the power of intergenerational families. But when talking about care work as communal, could queer families and found-family queer communities not provide another strong example of living communally?
When Garbes wrote in the introduction “My perspective has grown to consider the work of raising children as mothering, an action that includes people of all genders and nonparents alike,” I was excited to read about how mothering could extend to all people— beyond the gender binary and those traditionally included in care work. But in my reading, Garbes does not truly extend mothering to anyone beyond cisgender, and particularly child bearing, women. This as it turns out is just not the project of the book, but I was disappointed after thinking it could be.
2. Disability
In text Garbes admits to having never seriously considered disability until she was nearly 40, before comparing disability to letting her hair gray in the pandemic to make a wider point about the worthiness of bodies (she questions the efficacy of this comparison in text, but even self-aware the self-centering here left a bad taste in my mouth).
But the most glaring failure is the lack of acknowledgement of the existence of disabled children (and disabled mothers).
Garbes writes, particularly in chapter three, mothering as erotic labor, of the physicality of mothering, of showing love through physically meeting children's needs, of knowing your child’s body and trusting your instincts, that “love is an action verb. And one that can only be performed with our hands and arms and brain and torsos, however imperfect or tired or ungovernable they are” (64). She also writes “mothering is rooted in children's bodies” (102). And yet, she does not acknowledge that those bodies (and minds) may be themselves be disabled.
By making her universalized description of motherhood a description of her own, a seemingly able-bodied and mother caring for seemingly able bodied and neurotypical children, she reinforces disability as something that exists as other. Disability can be in a neighbor or a friend, it can be something to teach your children about, something to advocate for, perhaps something that could strike (through COVID or through aging), but it is not something that is built into the fundamental definition of mothering. Perhaps this is why she also fails to connect disability to her chapter on valuable labor— despite the rich connections that could be made to care work for disability.
Disability comes up again in an all over the place chapter seven, “mothering towards movement” through a quick mention of a non verbal child and disability justice, but Garbes does not interrogate how these sit with her overall prioritization of physicality and movement.
2.5 stars— despite the critiques above this book provides a basic primer on the history of care-work, is instructive on race and colonialism, and features truly beautiful writing particularly about the authors childhood and motherhood.
TLDR: The subtitle “mothering as social change” oversells what is really personal and specific reflections on motherhood interspersed with disjointed social commentary with some big gaps.
Full Review:
This book is strongest where Angela Garbes draws on the personal. She grounds her book in the experience of being the child of filipinx immigrants, using their story to demonstrate colonialism and care work. Along with descriptions of her childhood, she also writes extensively about her own experience mothering her children, particularly in the pandemic.
These passages, which read as memoir, are interwoven (rather choppily) with larger cultural commentary, drawing on other authors, and making some individual action and policy recommendations. To me, much of this cultural commentary was familiar and broad, but it could be introductory and instructive to other readers.
My main problem with this book is that by jumping back and forth from personal experience to societal level points, Garbes ends up not only centering, but universalizing her experience of motherhood. Her arguments fail where she treats her experience as a definition, rather than an example.
Two main gaps where this manifested for me were 1. queerness and 2. disability.
1. Queerness
In the chapter devoted to pleasure and sex, despite discussing sexual education and teaching her daughters about pleasure in detail— queerness is ONLY mentioned in reference to the animal kingdom. “Nature is queer and abundant. It’s homosexual and trans…the animals my daughters are taken with are…. [descriptions of animal sex acts]. Outside of animals, Garbes does not mention that reconsidering and relearning the patterns and power of sex and pleasure is something that the queer community has expertise on.
The heterosexual lens extends to the rest of the book as well. Garbes occasionally mentions that queer/non-binary folks exist but never goes beyond than that. In fact, she barely includes non-traditional families at all. Her writing draws on the experience of her own family and her neighbors—seemingly all two parent heterosexual families with non-adopted children.
Garbes’s fillipinx lens allows her to speak on the power of intergenerational families. But when talking about care work as communal, could queer families and found-family queer communities not provide another strong example of living communally?
When Garbes wrote in the introduction “My perspective has grown to consider the work of raising children as mothering, an action that includes people of all genders and nonparents alike,” I was excited to read about how mothering could extend to all people— beyond the gender binary and those traditionally included in care work. But in my reading, Garbes does not truly extend mothering to anyone beyond cisgender, and particularly child bearing, women. This as it turns out is just not the project of the book, but I was disappointed after thinking it could be.
2. Disability
In text Garbes admits to having never seriously considered disability until she was nearly 40, before comparing disability to letting her hair gray in the pandemic to make a wider point about the worthiness of bodies (she questions the efficacy of this comparison in text, but even self-aware the self-centering here left a bad taste in my mouth).
But the most glaring failure is the lack of acknowledgement of the existence of disabled children (and disabled mothers).
Garbes writes, particularly in chapter three, mothering as erotic labor, of the physicality of mothering, of showing love through physically meeting children's needs, of knowing your child’s body and trusting your instincts, that “love is an action verb. And one that can only be performed with our hands and arms and brain and torsos, however imperfect or tired or ungovernable they are” (64). She also writes “mothering is rooted in children's bodies” (102). And yet, she does not acknowledge that those bodies (and minds) may be themselves be disabled.
By making her universalized description of motherhood a description of her own, a seemingly able-bodied and mother caring for seemingly able bodied and neurotypical children, she reinforces disability as something that exists as other. Disability can be in a neighbor or a friend, it can be something to teach your children about, something to advocate for, perhaps something that could strike (through COVID or through aging), but it is not something that is built into the fundamental definition of mothering. Perhaps this is why she also fails to connect disability to her chapter on valuable labor— despite the rich connections that could be made to care work for disability.
Disability comes up again in an all over the place chapter seven, “mothering towards movement” through a quick mention of a non verbal child and disability justice, but Garbes does not interrogate how these sit with her overall prioritization of physicality and movement.
2.5 stars— despite the critiques above this book provides a basic primer on the history of care-work, is instructive on race and colonialism, and features truly beautiful writing particularly about the authors childhood and motherhood.
June 15, 2022
I really like Garbes' blend of personal storytelling and literature compilation on raising children. She doesn't do much theorizing or research herself, but she is a very good writer, pulling you in.
My biggest frustration was that after introducing a wider definition of "mothering" in the first chapter - something that goes beyond gender, explicitly - she never mentions how men can start mothering as well, or whether she has an alternate concept on "fathering". This goes along with her strangely distant treatment of her own husband when telling stories about her children. It feels like a huge weakness in the book. If mothering continues to be a gendered concept, something only women (mothers, grandmothers, aunts, nannies, babysitters, daycare workers, health aids, nurses, etc.) do, then how is this social change? I was just surprised Garbes never goes there, because otherwise it's a good general-style book.
My biggest frustration was that after introducing a wider definition of "mothering" in the first chapter - something that goes beyond gender, explicitly - she never mentions how men can start mothering as well, or whether she has an alternate concept on "fathering". This goes along with her strangely distant treatment of her own husband when telling stories about her children. It feels like a huge weakness in the book. If mothering continues to be a gendered concept, something only women (mothers, grandmothers, aunts, nannies, babysitters, daycare workers, health aids, nurses, etc.) do, then how is this social change? I was just surprised Garbes never goes there, because otherwise it's a good general-style book.
July 15, 2022
i hate hate writing bad reviews … but what’s in this book strays so much from the title to the point where it felt deceptive.
August 4, 2022
3.5 stars This is an important book and the prose is very, very good. I was nodding my head through the first half, and took loads of notes. But in the second half, I think Garbes’ structure is asked to carry more weight than it can handle. Her main premises, that mothering is not gendered, that it is highly skilled and essential labor, that capitalism and colonization undervalue care-giving of all kinds, are spot on. But things get a little confusing toward the end - is this also a book about immigration? Filipino culture? Women's bodies? women's pleasure? I loved just about everything she had to say, I just didn't think she tied it all together as clearly as she could have. Still, I would definitely recommend this book and know that I would have found it a lifeline as a young mother who often felt I had to justify my existence and never heard anyone articulate that my work was valuable and vital.
September 23, 2022
I thoroughly enjoyed this book - but I found it much less an analysis of how and why mothering is a means for social justice but more of an interesting and thought provoking memoir of a contemporary. Not as advertised!
May 5, 2022
Part memoir, part cultural critique, Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change shifts the perspective on mothering from unskilled drudgery to essential contribution with the opportunity to make a far reaching impact on the world, an essential contribution that deserves a hell of a lot more esteem.
As with Like a Mother before it, Essential Labor tackles a wide range of ideas, some more compelling than others, that are thought provoking and perhaps plant a seed for deeper consideration. From mothering in a social and historical context to all the small details and acts that make mothering the verb it is and how those actions can intentionally grow not just our children, but also the world we want to see.
Motherhood can so often feel like a thankless grind. It's indisputably necessary work, but it's the kind of work people only miss when it's not done rather than value it in real time. But the goal of parenting is to raise adults who will go out and impact this world, hopefully in good ways, a necessary contribution which should be considered as such, both by those doing the work and by society at large. Reading this feels like one big affirmation that the work we're doing matters.
Thank you to Harper Wave for the ARC.
As with Like a Mother before it, Essential Labor tackles a wide range of ideas, some more compelling than others, that are thought provoking and perhaps plant a seed for deeper consideration. From mothering in a social and historical context to all the small details and acts that make mothering the verb it is and how those actions can intentionally grow not just our children, but also the world we want to see.
Motherhood can so often feel like a thankless grind. It's indisputably necessary work, but it's the kind of work people only miss when it's not done rather than value it in real time. But the goal of parenting is to raise adults who will go out and impact this world, hopefully in good ways, a necessary contribution which should be considered as such, both by those doing the work and by society at large. Reading this feels like one big affirmation that the work we're doing matters.
Thank you to Harper Wave for the ARC.
August 23, 2022
Tied with _Bad Fat Black Girl_ for best political essay collection I've read this year! Garbes is so thoughtful and builds arguments in an accessible, organic way. The discussion of disability and the discussion of the erotic stretched mothering critically. I am already planning to reread this as a physical book not audio, so I can spend more time with it and take notes. Also didn't hurt that she began with an examination of US nurse labor. Adding her book on pregnancy to my list immediately!
July 17, 2022
Let me start by saying that Garbes’s writing is gorgeous. Her descriptions of motherhood and the Philippines and life are lovely to listen to. And I enjoyed and agreed with much of the premise, but, didn’t really know what this was truly about. Was it about immigration? The Philippines? Mothering? All of the above? Unfortunately, my attention strayed a bit because the thesis didn’t seem that cohesive to me.
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May 22, 2022A fascinating and powerful look at "mothering" and how it manifests across various cultures and how it is uniquely undervalued--derided, even--in white "American" culture, despite the fact every human relies on some form of mothering to live their lives. There's a lot here about the importance of "doing" nothing, which ties into a lot of what I've been thinking about existentialism and even for folks with no interest in parenting/motherhood books, there is a LOT to gain from this one.
My one criticism is it ends kind of abruptly. I was listening--Garbes performs herself--and felt like it just stopped. I'd have listened even longer.
My one criticism is it ends kind of abruptly. I was listening--Garbes performs herself--and felt like it just stopped. I'd have listened even longer.
June 18, 2022
Terribly disappointing. The personal stories weren’t necessary and really didn’t add to the the of mothering in the book. Too much written with regards to covid. We get it….we all went through covid and realized that moms are an integral part of society. Nothing new or enlightening in this book. Wish I had skipped this one. Meh.
September 19, 2022
I wish this book was just a memoir. I did genuinely like the more personal parts, but the analysis felt so surface and under researched that I wondered why it was there. If you want that, just read Wages for Housework for yourself!
June 29, 2022
This book is a combination memoir of a 1st generation American of Filipino descent, history of Filiopinx people in the global caretaking industry, generalized complaints against mainstream American society for various social transgressions, and exploration of parenting, womanhood, and being a mother in the United States, which includes an analysis of the childcare policies and programs in the United States and a description of how the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the burden of unpaid or underpaid carework performed by primarily women in the United States.
Rather than marketing this book as an examination of "mothering" as "essential labor," which is how NPR and the book blurbs present it, it would be more accurate to describe this book as a memoir in which the author meditates upon the childcare crisis, motherhood, and womanhood from her unique point of view and personal history. Everything the author says is heavily filtered through a lens of autobiography. She attempts to generalize while being ultra-specific at the same time, which handicaps the discussion of the state of "mothering," caregiving, parenting, and the general female experience in the United States.
At its heart, this is a personal narrative. This book would be of interest to readers wanting to know more about caregiving and mothering from diverse points of view (the author is an upper middle-class, female-identifying woman of color who lives in an metropolitan West Coast area and works free-lance in the creative industries), but it is not particularly helpful for readers looking for ideas to bring about social change and increase the value of parenting, caregiving, and childrearing in contemporary American society.
For a neutral discussion of how domestic labor is undervalued and underpaid, see "Chapter 3: The Long Friday" in the book Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.
Rather than marketing this book as an examination of "mothering" as "essential labor," which is how NPR and the book blurbs present it, it would be more accurate to describe this book as a memoir in which the author meditates upon the childcare crisis, motherhood, and womanhood from her unique point of view and personal history. Everything the author says is heavily filtered through a lens of autobiography. She attempts to generalize while being ultra-specific at the same time, which handicaps the discussion of the state of "mothering," caregiving, parenting, and the general female experience in the United States.
At its heart, this is a personal narrative. This book would be of interest to readers wanting to know more about caregiving and mothering from diverse points of view (the author is an upper middle-class, female-identifying woman of color who lives in an metropolitan West Coast area and works free-lance in the creative industries), but it is not particularly helpful for readers looking for ideas to bring about social change and increase the value of parenting, caregiving, and childrearing in contemporary American society.
For a neutral discussion of how domestic labor is undervalued and underpaid, see "Chapter 3: The Long Friday" in the book Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.
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January 30, 2024I skimmed through this—I really liked some of the things she wrote about mothering as a social project and how counterintuitive it is for isolated families and mothers to undergo the project mostly alone. However, that was buried in a lot of other information that felt repetitive to me, hence the skim.
June 1, 2022
This booked moved me in so many ways. It is absolutely one of my favorite books and I know I will think of it often throughout my life. As a parent, as an educator, I found so many passages that I wanted to process and digest with my partner, my child, and my students. I have already talked with my students about the concept of "normal" as one of the most toxic ideas in our society. It changed my perception of the exhaustion I feel as a parent. Rather than getting caught up in the exhaustion, I have felt a shift to a feeling of joy and satisfaction in the connection that exhaustion carries with it. I notice how my body expresses love and care with my child. That there is always a next time. Most importantly, this book offered me hope in a time that has often felt hopeless. That the way I parent is, itself, an act of resistance, and seeing this is a gift. Garbes says that "The gifts of the natural world are inherently diverse, queer, adaptable, creative, and enough. And that means so are we." She reminds me that the world has space for me, and for everyone else.
April 16, 2023
This book is part contemporary political commentary, part memoir. I wasn’t expecting the memoir part. I wanted more theory, more history, and didn’t get as much as I wanted. But I do appreciate how she built her points around stories of her own life, and I appreciated learning more about Filipino/a history, including her analysis and perspective around care work from the lens of being a Filipinx American with a deep connection to her heritage.
Many of the initial chapters were told in the context of caregiving during COVID-19 lockdowns which was just too much for me. I was honestly resentful - a personal problem - because she had a couple families she “bubbled” with and a babysitter.
The last two chapters were the best and I’m glad I stuck with it. The second to last was about mothering and pleasure. The last was about mothering and nature. We do need more books like this so I am grateful to her for writing it. There’s a strong disability lens, fat positivity lens, and sex positivity lens throughout.
Many of the initial chapters were told in the context of caregiving during COVID-19 lockdowns which was just too much for me. I was honestly resentful - a personal problem - because she had a couple families she “bubbled” with and a babysitter.
The last two chapters were the best and I’m glad I stuck with it. The second to last was about mothering and pleasure. The last was about mothering and nature. We do need more books like this so I am grateful to her for writing it. There’s a strong disability lens, fat positivity lens, and sex positivity lens throughout.
June 21, 2022
Not as good as her first book. Maybe it’s because I’ve read a lot of the source material she quotes/similar authors, but there wasn’t much in here that felt new or exciting to me except chapter 3 (the beauty and physicality of human maintenance work). It’s a lot of surface area without deep dives, great as a hook for someone new to these topics who will go on to read more in depth. I did appreciate the personal writing and came away feeling valued as a mother and wanting to pass that on to others. Worthwhile but not groundbreaking
February 7, 2023
3.5/5 stars. I wanted to enjoy this much more than I did. The title is so promising and while written well, I felt like it could have gone so much farther. This book isn’t what it advertises and while interesting and important, it lacked the depth I was looking for. It was forgettable. I am interested in reading the authors memoir though- I enjoyed reading about her thoughts and experiences of motherhood.
December 2, 2022
Oof, this book. Don't let the title mislead you. Part autobiography, part non-white centered views on growing up in the US. Even if you're not a parent, this book could be read as a guide to parent yourself. It's short, tense, and full of cutting onion moments.
September 29, 2025
I’m very much aligned with Garbes’ central thesis: to expand the definitions of mothering, to value it in society, and to reward mothering with pay, praise, and recognition. Our world runs on the unpaid labor of (mostly cis women) caregiving in all its forms.
The strongest parts were Garbes’ memoir about her life as the American-born daughter of Filipino immigrants, who were both in the healthcare industry. Her cultural connections, her family history, and her experiences during the COVID 2020 pandemic start where she became the primary everything for her two small children fits the narrative nicely. Even if she and her husband agreed on an arrangement and it's clear she considers him a good husband and father, it does not surprise me that she calculates $300k in unpaid labor and feels under-appreciated. Then, she reflects on how unappreciative she has been to other caregivers, including her own mother.
Where Garbes’ book becomes weak is that, like Oluo’s Mediocre (another recent read), it could have been 1,000 pages. However, Garbes is lighter on intersectionality, failing to address the ways people of different marginalizations have created other types of supportive caregiving and familial structures because white supremacist capitalist society has forced them out. There are only the briefest references to queerness. But perhaps most startling was her chapter on disability and comparing letting her hair turn its naturally aged gray, which was super off-putting.
Garbes writing about living in my Seattle neighborhood was pretty fun. While I do not know her personally, after I looked up her photo, I’ve definitely seen her around.
The strongest parts were Garbes’ memoir about her life as the American-born daughter of Filipino immigrants, who were both in the healthcare industry. Her cultural connections, her family history, and her experiences during the COVID 2020 pandemic start where she became the primary everything for her two small children fits the narrative nicely. Even if she and her husband agreed on an arrangement and it's clear she considers him a good husband and father, it does not surprise me that she calculates $300k in unpaid labor and feels under-appreciated. Then, she reflects on how unappreciative she has been to other caregivers, including her own mother.
Where Garbes’ book becomes weak is that, like Oluo’s Mediocre (another recent read), it could have been 1,000 pages. However, Garbes is lighter on intersectionality, failing to address the ways people of different marginalizations have created other types of supportive caregiving and familial structures because white supremacist capitalist society has forced them out. There are only the briefest references to queerness. But perhaps most startling was her chapter on disability and comparing letting her hair turn its naturally aged gray, which was super off-putting.
Garbes writing about living in my Seattle neighborhood was pretty fun. While I do not know her personally, after I looked up her photo, I’ve definitely seen her around.
May 14, 2024
3.5 stars, rounded up!
Listened to this as an audiobook as I scooted around VA over the weekend, and I enjoyed it! I think I’ll go through the notes of the physical copy at some point as there were some solid recs, but otherwise the audiobook was a great route. If you are interested in a somewhat lighter-toned, motivational look at what mothering/caring for others can do to drive social change, I would check this out!
Listened to this as an audiobook as I scooted around VA over the weekend, and I enjoyed it! I think I’ll go through the notes of the physical copy at some point as there were some solid recs, but otherwise the audiobook was a great route. If you are interested in a somewhat lighter-toned, motivational look at what mothering/caring for others can do to drive social change, I would check this out!
December 30, 2022
Both intimate and wide-ranging, a call to gentleness and fierce action. And I loved that the audiobook was read by the author. Her voice is so warm and inviting, and it made especially the most personal stories in this book feel even more generous. One of my favorite reads of the year!
March 13, 2025
Definitely a must read for any Mom feeling overwhelmed and still wishing they could do more these days.
July 9, 2022
Mothering, families, bodies, care, aging, social change… these are a few of my favorite things 🎶
Garbes is a treasure, and so eloquently puts into words many of my own feelings, experiences, hopes, struggles of mothering.
Garbes is a treasure, and so eloquently puts into words many of my own feelings, experiences, hopes, struggles of mothering.
August 24, 2023
This book resonated with me on many levels. First, I was pleasantly surprised to discover the author is also 1st-generation Fil-Am, and many of her stories were familiar to me. Second, I like how she ties the issue of mothering with other issues such as disability justice. Finally, the first part does a very good job highlighting the issues of care that the pandemic brought to the fore. This part feels a little dated, however, as the urgency of those issues sadly seems to have been largely forgotten.
January 17, 2024
Essential reading for anyone who cares for, or has been cared for by, another person!
May 10, 2023
A lovely blend of memoir and call to action for a more just and caring world, full of intersectional thoughts about immigration, colonialism, care work, motherhood, aging, disability, and more.
May 26, 2022
Pandemic inspired reflections on the revolutionary power of care work. Grounded in her personal narrative, social science and theory, Garbes suggests approaching a just world not from a rights framework, but rather a kind of world building that centers difference as a source of wonder, creativity and possibility. She’s written something that points us to a collective path towards not just a more equitable world built on care, but a more pleasurable, beautiful one too. I felt something like hope…
December 4, 2022
It felt like a stream of consciousness without direction. I did not feel the synopsis matched the book.
I did appreciate her statements re: the importance of intergenerational relationships, as well as the under appreciated/under-paid domestic workers.
I did appreciate her statements re: the importance of intergenerational relationships, as well as the under appreciated/under-paid domestic workers.
July 26, 2022
I was excited about this book at first, but it really didn’t come together for me. The biggest problem I had was this glaring thread of moral superiority. She seemed to be saying that if we, as parents, just raise our children with certain principles, we’re making the world a better place. She ignores the fact that children are not just clay to be shaped- they have their own ideas. What happens if as they grow, her girls have little regard for the politics of their mother? There was something missing here, about the agency of children and the adults they become.
I, too, often feel claustrophobic in the role of mother, and like my potential to “make a difference” in the world beyond my household is limited given the amount of time I’m currently spending on childcare. But I don’t think that means those of us who mother have to put our hopes and dreams of leaving the world a better place on our children’s shoulders. That’s a lot of pressure, and doesn’t give them enough respect as individuals to carve their own way life.
The whole book paradoxically ends up justifying mothering as worthy insofar as it has an impact outside of the home, outside of the domestic sphere, as a force for social change. What if it didn’t? What if it was just valuable for what it was? What if nurturing and interdependence and responsibility and care didn’t need broader social and political effects to be considered worthwhile?
There’s a ton of great academic literature that extrapolates these “mothering” values and applies them as a “Feminist Ethics of Care” to political problems. What the author tries to do here is similar at first, but then with each topic she ties it back to vague mothering lessons or practices based on her own experience. By doing so, she kind of undercuts the power of thinking of mothering as bigger than motherhood itself. It all gets very muddled.
I, too, often feel claustrophobic in the role of mother, and like my potential to “make a difference” in the world beyond my household is limited given the amount of time I’m currently spending on childcare. But I don’t think that means those of us who mother have to put our hopes and dreams of leaving the world a better place on our children’s shoulders. That’s a lot of pressure, and doesn’t give them enough respect as individuals to carve their own way life.
The whole book paradoxically ends up justifying mothering as worthy insofar as it has an impact outside of the home, outside of the domestic sphere, as a force for social change. What if it didn’t? What if it was just valuable for what it was? What if nurturing and interdependence and responsibility and care didn’t need broader social and political effects to be considered worthwhile?
There’s a ton of great academic literature that extrapolates these “mothering” values and applies them as a “Feminist Ethics of Care” to political problems. What the author tries to do here is similar at first, but then with each topic she ties it back to vague mothering lessons or practices based on her own experience. By doing so, she kind of undercuts the power of thinking of mothering as bigger than motherhood itself. It all gets very muddled.
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