The infrastructure of mothering
Mothering, parenting, caregiving of all kinds, is a primary function of society. Without it, the economy would topple.
Dear friends: We come to a day set aside to honor mothers. A year-plus into the pandemic, we have a new lens to view the contributions mothers make. (See sources after the photo.)
There are all kinds of parents, of course. For today, we focus on mothers in acknowledgement of the reality that still, in the United States, mothers bear most of the unpaid work of child and home care.
Mothers relinquished paid employment at record rates, in part due to economic constriction and in part due to the need to supervise young children suddenly participating in remote school from home. Moms who could work from home discovered that often means twelve or fourteen hour days, squeezing work in between periods of childcare, or letting the kids use the computer for school. And supervising remote school isn’t sitting back and making sure your child is logged in to Zoom; it’s following up on assignments, answering questions about content, trying to fill the void of social learning opportunities, and stepping into the teacher-student dynamic that neither parent or child finds comfortable.
While we can measure job loss and income loss, we lack agreed-upon ways to measure the contributions of all kinds of unpaid work. Most parenting falls into this category, which is completely omitted from many economic frameworks. For the gross domestic product, for example, time spent preparing meals, doing laundry, even pregnancy and infant care is considered “unproductive.” Why? Because it does not involve a market exchange: payment for the time spent.
The implications of placing the unpaid labor of caregiving, including parenting, outside of most standard economic measurements are vast. One example: child tax credits are considered by many to be a “handout,” while corporate tax breaks are considered an economic boon. But this is a relic of what we measure, not what we value. Most of us agree that parenting, nurturing children to be healthy, compassionate, and thoughtful participants in our society, is of the highest social value. And yet, we structure our economy to make full-time parenting nearly impossible, while rewarding the amassing of capital - profits - and stashing them away.
Mothering, parenting, caregiving of all kinds, is a primary function of society. Our ability to care for one another has allowed us to foster democracy and technology. We thrive when we invest in people. On Mother’s Day, consider what would happen if, suddenly, the labor of mothers stopped. Everything would come to a screeching halt. There would be no economy, no profit, no wealth. It is all made possible by the foundational labor of caring.
As always, I am grateful for your company on this journey.
On the unemployment and re-employment of mothers during the pandemic: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/04/upshot/mothers-jobs-pandemic.html?searchResultPosition=5
On the exclusion of unpaid work from economic measures: https://www.ted.com/talks/marilyn_waring_the_unpaid_work_that_gdp_ignores_and_why_it_really_counts/transcript?language=en
On the proposed increase in the child tax credit:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/how-the-biden-child-tax-credit-works/2021/02/18/f8f93c9f-e413-4042-b957-693b0a60a41f_video.html