Speaker 1: What do you do in life doesn't go according to plan?
Speaker 1: That moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
Speaker 1: or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
Speaker 1: is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
Speaker 1: by people who lived them. Each week I sit down
Speaker 1: with a guest to talk about the times they were
Speaker 1: knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
Speaker 1: Some stories are funny, others are cut wrenching, but all
Speaker 1: are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
Speaker 1: every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
Speaker 1: answers one question. Now, what did you ever see that
Speaker 1: on job search? There was a person interviewing these potential
Speaker 1: prospects and they go through a list of what the
Speaker 1: job entails, and it's three and sixty five days work
Speaker 1: a year, no paid leave, no time off, no vacations.
Speaker 1: You have to clean up everything, fluids and your fluids,
Speaker 1: bodily fluids, etcetera. And and then you watch these people say, well, wait, wait, wait, wait, no,
Speaker 1: what what is the job? And then the person says motherhood?
Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah, yeah. My guest today is Angela Garbis.
Speaker 1: Angela is a writer, a thought leader, and the author
Speaker 1: of two books, including her bestseller Essential Labor, Mothering is
Speaker 1: Social Change. Reading it made me think more clearly about
Speaker 1: my own labor and the importance of care work, both
Speaker 1: inside and outside of the home. But that's not the
Speaker 1: only reason I wanted to talk to Angela. Her book
Speaker 1: also sets up what I feel is a very clear
Speaker 1: now what moment for our society. How do we shift
Speaker 1: our collective view of care work to mess dick work
Speaker 1: and parenting given all that we learned during the COVID pandemic.
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating conversation, and I'm so excited to bring
Speaker 1: Angela's voice and her important ideas to this show. So
Speaker 1: without further ado, here is Angela Garbash. First of all,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to do this.
Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed your book. I both listened to it
Speaker 1: and then did my little highlighting and underlining things. It
Speaker 1: really taught me a lot. I feel that also taught
Speaker 1: me how much more I have to learn. But in
Speaker 1: Essential Labor, you really challenge the reader to re examine
Speaker 1: how they look at their own labor, not just their
Speaker 1: own labor, but the work of those around them, and
Speaker 1: how to define it and how we value it. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about that, because I think
Speaker 1: that has gone through a lot of changes. But I'm
Speaker 1: interested in what you really think it's the most important
Speaker 1: about that concept. So I think that taking care of
Speaker 1: ourselves care work, domestic work. I'm thinking about all those
Speaker 1: things like getting up and taking a shower, changing the bedsheets,
Speaker 1: cooking some food, listening to your body, all of these
Speaker 1: things like that we really take for granted. And I
Speaker 1: was I grew up. You know, both of my parents
Speaker 1: worked full time. I had a pretty comfortable upbringing. I
Speaker 1: didn't consider how much work went into maintaining our family
Speaker 1: and raising us and keeping us loved and fed and
Speaker 1: clothed right. And when I became a parent, I found
Speaker 1: it really humbling. I started thinking, like, gosh, how did
Speaker 1: my mom do this right? Like, she worked full time,
Speaker 1: she had three children, she was a new person in
Speaker 1: this country, she was separated from her family and support system.
Speaker 1: I think in a lot of ways, I've been catching up,
Speaker 1: but I think I've been thinking about care work for
Speaker 1: most of my life. My mother also worked as a nurse.
Speaker 1: She was a hospice nurse who took care of people
Speaker 1: in their last stages of life, you know, intended to
Speaker 1: their families, and that sort of perspective that I gained
Speaker 1: becoming a mother and growing older, was beginning to see
Speaker 1: my mother as a person and all of the work
Speaker 1: she did, both professionally and personally caring for people well.
Speaker 1: And what you started off with is self care, which
Speaker 1: is the interpretation of self care not being an act
Speaker 1: of selfishness or ego, but actually preparing you to even
Speaker 1: be more essential and helpful to those around you. Did
Speaker 1: your mom see that differently? I grew up in a
Speaker 1: household where I think that love was demonstrated, and especially
Speaker 1: motherhood and mothering was sacrifice. You know. I think that
Speaker 1: my mother often um put her own needs last. You know,
Speaker 1: she still got herself at the door and was you know,
Speaker 1: put herself together. But that's what I mean. I think that, like,
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking about self care like you know, lighting
Speaker 1: a candle and taking a bath. I'm talking about just
Speaker 1: basic care that so many of us take for granted.
Speaker 1: But is the thing that makes all other work possible? Right,
Speaker 1: If we don't have food in our pantry, you know,
Speaker 1: if we don't have running water, if we don't have
Speaker 1: someone you know, waking us up, in the morning and
Speaker 1: getting us out the door. We can't do anything else,
Speaker 1: and so I want to kind of expand this idea
Speaker 1: of caring and mothering to call a lot of people
Speaker 1: in and to show that we do this work for ourselves,
Speaker 1: and we do this work for our children, We do
Speaker 1: this work for our elders and people who are sick,
Speaker 1: and people who just needed a little extra love. And
Speaker 1: part of the way that this book came about was
Speaker 1: that at the beginning of the pandemic, you know, I
Speaker 1: have two daughters, they are seven and four now, and
Speaker 1: our preschool shut down. So I was with my children
Speaker 1: twenty four seven for four straight months, and that was
Speaker 1: very intense. And as much as I knew that that
Speaker 1: was the most important work I could be doing, you know,
Speaker 1: keeping them safe, keeping my community safe and healthy, I
Speaker 1: felt really like, oh God, this is this is a
Speaker 1: lot of work. And this was a time in the
Speaker 1: pandemic when we were talking about essential workers, right, we
Speaker 1: were talking about health care workers, we were talking about
Speaker 1: sanitation workers and teachers, and I believe all of those
Speaker 1: people are essential workers. But I couldn't get around the idea.
Speaker 1: I just kept feeling like, what about me? What about parents,
Speaker 1: what about mothers, Like we are all working twenty four seven,
Speaker 1: We were working around the clock professionally taking care of
Speaker 1: our kids, and it feels pretty damn essential what we're doing,
Speaker 1: and why aren't we talking about us this way? You know,
Speaker 1: I had a single mom. I always thought that i'd
Speaker 1: be a single mom for some reason. And what's so
Speaker 1: strange is what I discovered during the pandemic was that
Speaker 1: I really thought that it was going to instantly be
Speaker 1: shared and equal. And the number of times that my
Speaker 1: husband would say to me, yeah, but you're the mom,
Speaker 1: and I feel like, what can we can we pause here?
Speaker 1: Can we unpack this? Like? Yeah? And it wasn't just
Speaker 1: the idea of things that I had to attend to
Speaker 1: or you know, I I we started trying to divide
Speaker 1: it and I said, okay, look, I'll do all the
Speaker 1: sheets and all the towels, but you each have to
Speaker 1: be responsible for your own laundry. And they didn't balk
Speaker 1: at it. It was sort of seamless. The one person
Speaker 1: who didn't do any of the laundry was my husband,
Speaker 1: which I didn't hold against him because he's a really
Speaker 1: good cook. Right, So it was all these different ways
Speaker 1: we navigated, but there was a sense of uselessness and
Speaker 1: depression that I felt because the work that was done
Speaker 1: never got finished, and there didn't seem like there was
Speaker 1: a lot of thanks. Yeah, but I think most people
Speaker 1: who are mothers and who go into it with eyes
Speaker 1: open in any way, no, Like you don't go into
Speaker 1: parenting to be celebrated every day like it's it's in
Speaker 1: some ways a thankless job. I wanted unconditional love. The
Speaker 1: things that are most rewarding about it are very private, right,
Speaker 1: like the like the way a child like holds your hand,
Speaker 1: or the way that you know that you comfort them
Speaker 1: like that only you can do. It's very satisfying, but
Speaker 1: it's extremely difficult to quantify. It has no monetary value,
Speaker 1: and if you try to describe it to anyone, it's weird.
Speaker 1: It's very ephemeral. But yeah, I definitely felt like in
Speaker 1: my household, like my husband and I have more conversations
Speaker 1: than I would like about logistics, like how do we
Speaker 1: divide things as equitably as possible? And I just know,
Speaker 1: like I think ahead about things in a way that
Speaker 1: he does not, Like if I know I'm making dinner,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it like the day ahead or like
Speaker 1: in the morning, like what's in our fridge And he's
Speaker 1: like opening the refrigerator at five thirty being like what
Speaker 1: do we got? And I I don't understand that at all, Right,
Speaker 1: but so I think, you know, it's partly the way
Speaker 1: we are conditioned and the way we are brought up.
Speaker 1: And even like great men, right, um, feminist men are
Speaker 1: they have massive blind spots that they're not often aware of.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like you're the CEO of a company.
Speaker 1: You know, you're running a production company. You know, it
Speaker 1: happens to have these different characters, these different actors that
Speaker 1: are playing different roles in their lives, and you know
Speaker 1: when they're very needy, as many actors can be. But
Speaker 1: you talk about raising children as a social responsibility, yeah,
Speaker 1: one that requires robust community support. But in America that
Speaker 1: is not necessarily the way we're taught or the way
Speaker 1: we are organized as a society. Can you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about that. Yeah, So the primary way that
Speaker 1: we organize family and can in America is the nuclear family.
Speaker 1: We hear about this, right, it's like a mom and
Speaker 1: a dad and like two point four kids or something, right, like,
Speaker 1: based on the data and it's a very distinct American
Speaker 1: modern way, Like the nuclear family has not been around
Speaker 1: really for that long. It's been maybe around for like
Speaker 1: a century, maybe less than that. And if you were
Speaker 1: to sort of like zoom out, the way people have
Speaker 1: lived all around the world for centuries is more communally.
Speaker 1: I mean, even the the original nuclear family in America
Speaker 1: was like a man goes out to work and a
Speaker 1: wife stays home, which is why school gets out at
Speaker 1: two thirty. But modern America now women both want to
Speaker 1: work out of the home, and also life is so
Speaker 1: expensive that most households need to parents working. And because
Speaker 1: in the United States, we don't guarantee basic human rights
Speaker 1: right healthcare is tied to working. We don't guarantee housing,
Speaker 1: we don't guarantee family leave, um, we don't guarantee education.
Speaker 1: So we all have to work and we're all left
Speaker 1: feeling like these are my individual problems to solve. Where
Speaker 1: I believe that you know, you and I are here
Speaker 1: not because one person raised us. We're here because a
Speaker 1: group of people raised us, right, Like there were babysitters,
Speaker 1: there were nanny's, there were teachers, there were mentors. Right
Speaker 1: the future of our existence as people and the continuation
Speaker 1: of America relies on on having a next generation of
Speaker 1: both you know, consumers and workers and just people. I'm
Speaker 1: really curious because if this why is why is this
Speaker 1: the right time for our society to start rethinking the
Speaker 1: definitinition of labor as essential and how do we kind
Speaker 1: of how do we go about attaining that and redefining it.
Speaker 1: So the care crisis as UM, we've all seen it.
Speaker 1: So when when schools and daycares and preschools shut down,
Speaker 1: we were lost, right, Like, there are two million less
Speaker 1: women in the professional workforce right now than there were
Speaker 1: at the start of the pandemic. What do we lose?
Speaker 1: Do you think when women disappear? I mean, I think
Speaker 1: every parent is a working parent, whether they work outside
Speaker 1: of the home or not. But women's participation in the
Speaker 1: professional workforce outside of the home directly impacts our involvement
Speaker 1: in public life. It makes me sad to think about
Speaker 1: what we've lost. We've lost their art, we've lost their
Speaker 1: policy ideas, we've lost UM their research contributions. Right, we've
Speaker 1: lost just women engaging um in discourse about what we
Speaker 1: need to be doing. And and those are the things
Speaker 1: that we're missing. The reason why we don't have you know,
Speaker 1: childcare and family leave is because the majority of people
Speaker 1: who represent us in government are old white men. Right,
Speaker 1: And so I think about how we've never had a
Speaker 1: president who knows why it's important to have like a
Speaker 1: maternity leave policy or a family leave policy. Well, it
Speaker 1: used to be frowned upon. It was like, oh, are
Speaker 1: you going to be able to do your job if
Speaker 1: you have a baby, if you become a mother, It's
Speaker 1: that going to ruin everything that you are as a
Speaker 1: business person. Yeah, and we've seen now that it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that some women are able to have both of
Speaker 1: those things, or I mean, I don't think it's possible
Speaker 1: to have it all. If you're I mean at all,
Speaker 1: it means you're you're figuring out how to do it all.
Speaker 1: And this is one thing that was exposed in the pandemic. Right,
Speaker 1: So even people and I am luckily enough to count
Speaker 1: myself among them, I can outsource some of my childcare
Speaker 1: right to preschool teachers or to a babysitter. Right. The
Speaker 1: care crisis existed before the pandemic. It's just that some
Speaker 1: of us felt it more than others in the pandemic. When,
Speaker 1: as I said, all of these mothers were dropping out
Speaker 1: of the workforce because they could not do professional work
Speaker 1: and domestic work and also you know, manage online school.
Speaker 1: We saw like there was a wave of articles where
Speaker 1: people are like, women are not okay. You know, America
Speaker 1: doesn't have a social safety net. It has mothers, and
Speaker 1: even mothers who like you know, say are like the
Speaker 1: CEO of a company when they're like nannies could't show up,
Speaker 1: but their babysitters couldn't show with their house cleaners couldn't
Speaker 1: show up. They were all like, wait a second, I've
Speaker 1: done everything, I've leaned in and yet it all comes
Speaker 1: down to me. And I think this is the opportunity
Speaker 1: to see that we need we hide this work, this
Speaker 1: domestic labor, right, and we don't pay people very well.
Speaker 1: People who do domestic labor are three times as likely
Speaker 1: to live in poverty as people who do any other job.
Speaker 1: But now is the time to say I saw this
Speaker 1: like this was exposed the sort of um, the way
Speaker 1: we've struck your American life is not actually sustainable. Well,
Speaker 1: and like you said before, I mean this show is
Speaker 1: about pivotal moments, and are now what moments? And I
Speaker 1: think that this is a very very strong moment. But
Speaker 1: I also think that there's something that you touch upon,
Speaker 1: but I'd love to hear a little bit more about
Speaker 1: it is the guilt around not being a stay at
Speaker 1: home mom. I remember getting really depressed right after I
Speaker 1: had my first child, and part of it was because
Speaker 1: why I wanted to have a child so so terribly
Speaker 1: and it was difficult for me. But then I felt
Speaker 1: flattened because was I only supposed to be a mother
Speaker 1: at that point and that was never I I wasn't
Speaker 1: prepared for that, because I wasn't all of who I
Speaker 1: am in that moment, and it took it really took
Speaker 1: a long time to find a version of balance, which
Speaker 1: I don't ever really think it feels balanced. I think
Speaker 1: of it more as like you're juggling right and on
Speaker 1: a good day you've you've got three or four balls
Speaker 1: in the air, but inevitably something gets dropped right. It's
Speaker 1: just like it's just the way it is, and you
Speaker 1: kind of have to be like, well, that's what happened today,
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna keep going. But I also think
Speaker 1: it's our social responsibility to as we are being re
Speaker 1: educated and how we look at this really having those
Speaker 1: conversations with your children too, because we're raising this next
Speaker 1: generation of hopefully conscious of the different levels of what
Speaker 1: it means and how it's never just one thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up, because the sort of
Speaker 1: piggyback off that idea of you know, we both felt flattened,
Speaker 1: like we were losing our minds a little bit doing
Speaker 1: all of this care work. Part of the reason why
Speaker 1: I wrote this book is to remind im myself that yes,
Speaker 1: like parenting oftentimes is drudgery, it's repetitive work, and um,
Speaker 1: it's hard, it's a real slog day in and day out,
Speaker 1: but it does have tremendous power and meaning. You know,
Speaker 1: this is where we get to impart the values that
Speaker 1: are important to us, like to our children. This is
Speaker 1: where we get to speak to our children and say yes,
Speaker 1: like I love you so much and I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: stop taking care of you, but you should say thank
Speaker 1: you because getting dinner on the table is work, right,
Speaker 1: and like, yes, I love you and I want to
Speaker 1: spend time with you. But if if Mama doesn't have
Speaker 1: time to go work, like to perform to you know,
Speaker 1: like be on set or for me like to sit
Speaker 1: in front of my computer and think and write. Then
Speaker 1: I don't feel like my whole self and I can't
Speaker 1: show up for you. And those are conversations that my
Speaker 1: parents didn't have with me, right, And I think women
Speaker 1: of previous generations we're not able to be their whole
Speaker 1: selves in the way that we are, And it's still
Speaker 1: work to do it. Like I sort of fight to
Speaker 1: take up space and say that I'm allowed to have
Speaker 1: all of these things. But this is a real opportunity
Speaker 1: so that our daughters and our children it's a little
Speaker 1: less hard for them. Maybe it won't be less hard,
Speaker 1: but but they'll have an understanding, and they're that understanding
Speaker 1: will give them a certain power because they will they
Speaker 1: will have seen it, they will have seen it in action,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think that's important. But say, for
Speaker 1: people who do struggle financially, right, what can we do
Speaker 1: to sort of compensate, Because you talk about compensating domestic workers.
Speaker 1: If we don't have a lot of money ourselves, the
Speaker 1: standard for the industry is low for what we pay people.
Speaker 1: That is not our individual problem to solve, like this
Speaker 1: is a societal and structural one, right, I think we
Speaker 1: should pay people as much as we can, and to
Speaker 1: see this work is just as valuable as as the
Speaker 1: work we are going to go do, Like we hire
Speaker 1: someone to take care of our kids so we can
Speaker 1: do something like they're equal. All work is good work.
Speaker 1: You know, childcare is not less skilled than anything else.
Speaker 1: Like we're really kind of fooling ourselves if we think that.
Speaker 1: And I think the way we begin to value that,
Speaker 1: well want it's to You know, a lot of these
Speaker 1: workers are mothers themselves, so I always wonder, like, who's
Speaker 1: taking care of their children? And you know, we had
Speaker 1: a nanny share my husband and I an two families
Speaker 1: that we're still friends with. Um when are little ones.
Speaker 1: This is almost ten years ago. She was always allowed
Speaker 1: to bring her son, Bruce was his name, and he
Speaker 1: was three, and I was like, this is great because
Speaker 1: the children have another child to interact with, she doesn't
Speaker 1: have to worry, she doesn't have to pay for childcare.
Speaker 1: So I think there's there's we can just be creative, right,
Speaker 1: we can find out the people who we hired to
Speaker 1: do this work, what's going on in their life. Bruce
Speaker 1: sounds like a year old, by the way, That's why
Speaker 1: I mentioned his name. He was Bruce you're Angela, Yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: he was. He was three and he had a wonderful
Speaker 1: bowl cut, and it would just be like, hey, he
Speaker 1: came into came to your house in a little suit. Um.
Speaker 1: You've talked a lot about the phrase of skilled versus unskilled. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why do you think care work isn't seen as skilled
Speaker 1: labor though? Because we don't define it as that because
Speaker 1: women do it, because we expect women to do it,
Speaker 1: and because it's in the home, because it's not like
Speaker 1: outside in professional world. I think it's very sexist and
Speaker 1: it's racist too, because we have in America work that
Speaker 1: happens in the home, which is domestic labor and care work.
Speaker 1: It's because of slavery. The home has always been a
Speaker 1: site of work for black women in America, and we're
Speaker 1: comfortable paying people lower wages because in America we've come
Speaker 1: of age with this idea that people of color work
Speaker 1: in the home, right, and we're okay paying liber wages.
Speaker 1: That's a legacy of slavery. You and I just talked
Speaker 1: about how doing just care work for several months made
Speaker 1: us want to like die, right, like because it's hard work,
Speaker 1: Like it is not easy. Well, you call it highly
Speaker 1: skilled labor. It's highly skilled, like you said, CEO, management
Speaker 1: of a household, right, multitasking, keeping tracked, to keep a
Speaker 1: human being alive. Yes, yes, all of it, and to
Speaker 1: tend to their emotional and psychological needs, which is some
Speaker 1: of the hardest stuff and some of the most exhausting.
Speaker 1: You talk about it women as being characterized as in servitude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is what you're talking about, right, I'm thinking about it. Yes,
Speaker 1: doing care work and like mothers are expected to do
Speaker 1: this for free. Let's go back to the CEO, the
Speaker 1: female CEO that I was talking about, who has had
Speaker 1: a housekeeper and a nanny and you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of support, and then the pandemic, they all went away
Speaker 1: because she couldn't have someone coming to her home and
Speaker 1: do those things. And then she felt like what am
Speaker 1: I doing? Like I'm still somehow in charge of everything
Speaker 1: here in my home. Because no matter how successful you
Speaker 1: are in relationship to the male world in America, which
Speaker 1: is you know, patriarchy, all women are in a condition
Speaker 1: of servitude. And this is I think what's hard for
Speaker 1: a lot of people is that we are not so
Speaker 1: different from the people we hire to do this work.
Speaker 1: And I really believe like we need to see ourselves
Speaker 1: as being in solidarity with that, because if we can
Speaker 1: win workers rights and a living wage for the people
Speaker 1: who we hire to do this work, actually parents, you know,
Speaker 1: we're one step closer to being able to say this
Speaker 1: work is valuable and and parents should be paid for
Speaker 1: this work, and parents should be compensated. H Do you
Speaker 1: see some changes happening where there's paid leave that's longer,
Speaker 1: or paid leave for the not just the father or
Speaker 1: the mother. Yeah, I mean I think now we don't
Speaker 1: think of it as just maternity leave. We talk about
Speaker 1: it as family right and that father should take that,
Speaker 1: and we also talk about it in terms of it's
Speaker 1: not just about someone giving birth to a child. It's
Speaker 1: like if you're adopting, if you're welcoming a foster child
Speaker 1: into your home, if your mother gets sick and you
Speaker 1: need to take care of them as elder care. I mean,
Speaker 1: at some point in your life, everyone you know, including yourself,
Speaker 1: is going to need care and time to do that.
Speaker 1: And so I see those changes happening in policies. Yes,
Speaker 1: I also see you know, the pandemic, it's terrible and
Speaker 1: it's still going on and it's terrible. But there's something
Speaker 1: that gives me hope, which is that, you know, I
Speaker 1: formed a pod with another family. We heard about mutual aid,
Speaker 1: We heard about community kitchens and community of refrigerators and
Speaker 1: little free libraries. And to me, all of that was
Speaker 1: people saying I can't do this by myself. I need help,
Speaker 1: and people stepping in and saying I can't do this
Speaker 1: by myself either, and I want to help you. How
Speaker 1: can we help each other? And so what I see
Speaker 1: all around me or people have been doing that for
Speaker 1: the last two years, and I don't want that to
Speaker 1: go away. As you said, like, this is a pivotal moment.
Speaker 1: It's a once in a generation moment, if you If
Speaker 1: I absolutely believe that, yes, and it's time to invest
Speaker 1: in the people who mother, not who are mothers of children,
Speaker 1: but who mother, who caretake And my mom, you know,
Speaker 1: she used to say to me, she'd say, don't kid yourself.
Speaker 1: She said blood is not thicker than water. And I
Speaker 1: used to think, like, well, that's terrible, and how do
Speaker 1: you And yet we relied so much on her friends.
Speaker 1: And we have that a lot in our family with
Speaker 1: our girls, and I watch their different relationships with these
Speaker 1: people in our lives. I watched the different relationships with
Speaker 1: other friends mothers, and instead of getting jealous and said, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you talk to me about that stuff? I'm
Speaker 1: your mother, I realized that there are some of their
Speaker 1: children that come to me and confide in me, and
Speaker 1: I it's not a problem, like I don't run back
Speaker 1: to the mom and you know, but I watch myself
Speaker 1: be a different voice in their life, a non judgmental
Speaker 1: voice that wants to help them. And doesn't that feel great?
Speaker 1: Doesn't that feel great to do that for other people? Well?
Speaker 1: It is. It's interesting, is because I used to be
Speaker 1: really hung up on the fact that I was sort
Speaker 1: of bohemian and you know, I don't have a meal
Speaker 1: on the table, and you know, and then when I
Speaker 1: thought I couldn't have children, I thought, what am I?
Speaker 1: Who am I? That's all I ever wanted to be
Speaker 1: in this sort of identity that was tied into being
Speaker 1: able to provide a child to the world appropriation, you know.
Speaker 1: And I realized, after having two children and seeing other
Speaker 1: people's children, that there were so many other ways that
Speaker 1: I could contribute that I didn't have a little apron
Speaker 1: on and have a perfect meal or a big gorgeous
Speaker 1: cookies or whatever, because those were all the things I
Speaker 1: grew up thinking we're valuable when I couldn't have been farther.
Speaker 1: It's just not reality, and especially now, like we look different,
Speaker 1: our lives look different, society has changed, right, and we
Speaker 1: need like I love this. I want my daughters to
Speaker 1: have someone like you, like who I can't be everything
Speaker 1: to them, And that again goes back to that social responsibility,
Speaker 1: you know, like one parent is not enough, two parents
Speaker 1: is not enough, right, Like I need we need like
Speaker 1: in laws, aunties, like I said that chosen family, Like
Speaker 1: you don't have to have a desire for children. You
Speaker 1: don't have to particularly like children. I think it's great
Speaker 1: if you know you don't. I don't. I don't like
Speaker 1: a lot of other people's children because I don't always
Speaker 1: like mine. But it's so nice to be able to
Speaker 1: you can still have meaningful relationships right with younger people,
Speaker 1: with older people, right with your peers. Like that's just
Speaker 1: being human and that's just the that care. I'm curious
Speaker 1: to see what your mother thinks of these sort of
Speaker 1: new new ideas, just because that was an interesting piece
Speaker 1: in the way your mother grew up and the rules
Speaker 1: that she had with regards to being the mother in
Speaker 1: the household. Yeah, I mean my mother grew up in
Speaker 1: the Philippines and it's a very different culture. You know,
Speaker 1: she felt, um, women are expected to you know, really
Speaker 1: run the household and to I mean, it's almost like
Speaker 1: you serve at the pleasure of your husband kind of
Speaker 1: a thing. Um. And a lot of what she was
Speaker 1: taught was about sacrifice and being making herself small and
Speaker 1: her own desires like took a back seat to everyone else's. UM.
Speaker 1: And there's a huge obligation to family in Filipino culture.
Speaker 1: I think like that sort of wide family of like
Speaker 1: being close to lots of people, having extended family is
Speaker 1: something that I want more of in my life. And
Speaker 1: when my mother moved here to America, she just didn't
Speaker 1: have that kind of community, and my parents kind of
Speaker 1: really doubled down into um, you know, like an isolated life.
Speaker 1: But also my mother grew up with maids. You know,
Speaker 1: in the Philippines, having domestic help is normal. You don't
Speaker 1: have to be rich to have a made It's just
Speaker 1: kind of you know, in a country that is poor
Speaker 1: and that still has a developing economy, it is really
Speaker 1: like there's somebody always poorer than you, and so domestic
Speaker 1: work is very, very common, and I have mixed feelings
Speaker 1: about that, and so does my mother. You know. I
Speaker 1: think when we would go back to the Philippines, I
Speaker 1: could tell she was uncomfortable with having people, um, you know,
Speaker 1: like weight on us, do our laundry, clear the table.
Speaker 1: I grew up being told my mother used to say,
Speaker 1: I'm not your maid, so like you need to do
Speaker 1: the dishes and do all of these things. But um,
Speaker 1: over time, I've seen her really she she just respects
Speaker 1: the domestic workers and the maids authority and lets them
Speaker 1: do their job. And she has like I've seen this
Speaker 1: over like the last few decades where she says to me,
Speaker 1: who am I to say that I can do their
Speaker 1: job better than them? I can't. I loved that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think it's really when I go to the Philippines,
Speaker 1: it is like, I know people are not making a
Speaker 1: lot of money, but like a job is a job
Speaker 1: and work is work, and I see them as occupying
Speaker 1: a place that's it's they're very integral to the families
Speaker 1: and it's it's complicated and I don't have like a
Speaker 1: one answer like, oh, it's it's good or it's bad, right,
Speaker 1: But one thing that I've been struck by is how
Speaker 1: it feels very honest. You know, the maids are not hidden,
Speaker 1: the people who do the laundry, They're part of the household.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows them. And I think about how in America
Speaker 1: we hide that work away. So you're wanting to bring
Speaker 1: it more to the forefront in opening the discussion about empowering. Yeah,
Speaker 1: domestic workers are important and there's no shame, Like if
Speaker 1: you are fortunate enough to be able to afford, you know,
Speaker 1: someone in your home to help, I don't want to
Speaker 1: take that away from you. I think that's great. I
Speaker 1: think that's fantastic because people can't do it all right.
Speaker 1: But I think the more of that domestic workers feel valued,
Speaker 1: I think there would be less shame, resentment, a division,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's not this less than type of
Speaker 1: of a regard, but really trying to uphold that. And
Speaker 1: I think that that message comes through very clearly in
Speaker 1: your book. And I think it's important because you grew
Speaker 1: up with two very different distinct approaches to it. So
Speaker 1: if you were to look back at your life and
Speaker 1: just your whole journey which is continuing on. Yes, hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll continue for years now. Yes, absolutely. What have you
Speaker 1: learned and what do you think is the through line?
Speaker 1: You know, I became a writer because growing up I
Speaker 1: was again like, I'm a woman of color. I grew
Speaker 1: up in a mostly white town. I saw how I
Speaker 1: just always felt like I was on the outside of things,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of saw things for the outside.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, the world is not meant for me.
Speaker 1: My food is different from whatever normal food is. And
Speaker 1: I think this idea of normal is something that I've
Speaker 1: always butted up against and and felt like why am
Speaker 1: I not included in that? Like why why is my
Speaker 1: family who is so wonderful and we're great? And I
Speaker 1: love our food more than like pizza, I'd rather eat
Speaker 1: Filipino food. And I've always been sort of wrestling with this,
Speaker 1: like why is it that I know we are important
Speaker 1: and we matter, but I'm I feel like to the
Speaker 1: outside world, outside of our home, we don't. And I
Speaker 1: think I became a writer in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: to right myself into the story. And so a lot
Speaker 1: of my work, like from a young age, and what
Speaker 1: I do now is to insist that everyone's story matters, right,
Speaker 1: and there's a place for everyone, and everyone is valuable
Speaker 1: and we are equal. We have more in common than
Speaker 1: we do not. I also think that what you sort
Speaker 1: of you encapsulate is this idea that when you say
Speaker 1: you're writing yourself into the story, you are making yourself visible,
Speaker 1: and you're making yourself not necessarily loud in an angry way,
Speaker 1: but heard, heard and seen, and that with books like your,
Speaker 1: I think the dialogue and the rhetoric around it, and
Speaker 1: the narrative itself is changing for the good. It may
Speaker 1: take a while, but again, like we started, we're works
Speaker 1: in progress. Yes, no, I love that, Thank you. I
Speaker 1: feel really hopeful too, And I think about how you know,
Speaker 1: change is slow, sometimes frustratingly so right, and that's growth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I feel like it's ah, we're just on that journey.
Speaker 1: And but I share that same hope and I sense
Speaker 1: that I know it from talking to people, and I'm
Speaker 1: so happy to be I feel really honored to be
Speaker 1: part of moving that conversational law that was the wise
Speaker 1: and wonderful Angela Garbas. If you want to hear more
Speaker 1: from her, pick up a copy of her book, Essential
Speaker 1: Labor Mothering as Social change. You'll be happy you did.
Speaker 1: That is all for us today. Talk to you next
Speaker 1: week now. What is produced by the wonderful Julie A.
Speaker 1: Weaver with help from Darby Masters. Our executive producer is
Speaker 1: Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Bahid Fraser and
Speaker 1: Christian Bowman. A special thanks to nicky Etre and Will Pearson.
Speaker 1: If you liked this episode, please subscribe to the show
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your shows.