Care isn't just undervalued; it's barely on the map

Announcing the next One Tired Mother book club read!

Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash

One of the most popular posts I’ve written on this Substack is called “You cease to exist.” In it, I discuss a phenomenon I’ve experienced and witnessed over and over again—the marginalizing of caregivers of young children at social gatherings. To the point that they feel invisible. (And I have a friend to thank for the title—those are her words.)

If I had to choose one word to describe my life over the past decade as a (mostly) at-home parent, it would, hands-down, be invisible. Part of this is surely because the work happens in the private domain, the home. Part of it is American culture, the lack of vibrant in-person community in our neighborhoods and the way we glorify career and achievement as the best things to give our time and attention to.

But part of it too, I think, is something else: that people genuinely don’t understand care work. What it is, and what it takes to provide it.

I’d like to use the experience of “stay-at-home”¹ motherhood to illustrate this.

Aside from the idea that women are SAHMs because they’re unable to find a job, a surprisingly common sentiment, many people seem to think that the work of a “SAHM” is mostly housework. Cooking, cleaning, organizing. Of course, your kids are there too, but it’s mostly taking care of the house with the kids underfoot.²

If you’ve ever been in this role, you understand just how false this is. But it’s what many people seem to think.

I just saw it again a few days ago. I popped onto Instagram, as one does, and was reading some comments on a post by Neha Ruch, whose book I wrote about last week. In the video (reel? whatever), she was being interviewed by Drew Barrymore, who began by talking about how being home with kids is “the hardest job in the world.” One of the top comments came in with hot disagreement. Among other things, the commenter said:

“As a working mom, you have the exact same responsibilities, they just need to be completed after work hours. Plus the added stress of your career.”

I’ve seen this claim many times: that mothers who work outside the home have to do “all the same work” as a SAHM—they just have to squeeze it into nights and weekends.

To be fair, I can understand, generally, why people feel compelled to say this. Moms with young children who work full-time outside the home have way too much to do—especially if they don’t have partners willing to share the work at home. So it’s understandable that a mother in this position might come in with a comment about how much she does, because, um, she does do a lot. (I worked part-time as a teacher at a local school last year—two days a week—and that was enough of a taste of that life for me.)

But that aside, this type of comment conveys an ignorance of how a SAHM spends her days. SAHMs are not doing mainly housework—they are mainly caretaking. We spend most of our time and energy meeting the needs of small people. We do laundry and clean and organize on nights and weekends, too, because during the day we’re mostly taking care of our kids.

Which is work. Separate work from the housework. Which, obviously, a mom who works outside the home during the day is not doing during that time. Which is why someone else is paid to do it.

I don’t usually comment on social media, as I’ve learned it’s not a great place for productive dialogue. But I was happy to see someone address it:

“You don’t have the exact same responsibilities to be completed after work. While the kids are home with their mom they need to eat, play, learn, etc. They make messes you have to clean up, you have to make their food, change diapers, regulate your emotions and support theirs, etc. While you’re at work you’re not attending to children and the kids aren’t in the house making a mess. But yes, when you arrive home from work you have to cook, clean, etc. yes. But you’re not doing the work that a stay-at-home mom does while you’re at work.”

To be abundantly clear, in case you’re new here, I’m not saying anything about what motherhood/work scenario is harder (though I do think that mindset is common³ and I honestly just wish people would stop calling things the most/least/best/worst etc in general). I’m not defending “SAHMs” or dissing “working moms”—I just published an article about how the entire framework should be dismantled. There are no sides to be taken here.

I’m simply pointing out a wild truth that this idea—that working moms do everything a SAHM does, they just do it after work—illustrates, and that is that as a culture, we don’t really understand care (especially care of small children). It’s not just that we don’t value it; in my opinion, it’s a step worse: that unless we’ve engaged in it ourselves, we barely get what it even is.

The pandemic also illustrated this. Those years gave people a lesson in the reality of trying to accomplish things while also caring for children. Working from home and also being in charge of kids is not a thing, and that anyone thought it would be fine to do that to parents—or that parents thought they could do it, no problem—is another illustration of what I’m trying to say here: that care is so devalued we barely comprehend it.

Shared on March 19, 2020 by Motherwell magazine

Just now, as I try to finish up this post, my three-year-old—who is recently fully potty-trained—comes to me as I sit at the little desk I have tucked into the corner of my bedroom, trying to eke out this post.

“Can you come and see my poop?” she whispers excitedly.

(Can’t make this stuff up.)

And so away from this draft I go. To see the poop. To tell her “Good job, big girl.” To wipe her butt. To clean out the potty chair. To remind her to wash her hands and to reinforce how to do it properly. To say “Yes, you can have some chocolate chips.” (A remnant of the potty-training reward system I have yet to do away with.)

This is care.

I have a confession: I myself didn’t understand what it takes to “be home” with young children before I did it. I truly had no idea how hard it would be.⁴ How messy the house would get. How I’d be working my tail off and have nothing to show for it when my husband came home in the evening.

In short, just like women who say that “working moms do everything a SAHM does, just after work,” I had no idea what care actually entailed.

How could it be that we’re so ignorant of what it takes to care, when we’ve all had care (as children), and we’ll all need care (if we have the privilege to live many years)? I don’t know exactly, but since I was there myself, I think this helps me know how real the ignorance is.

But I learned; boy did I learn. I learned the effort it takes, along with its deep human value. And yet, it’s wild how the vibes of the culture stayed with me, even as I grew in my understanding of the work and my confidence that it was important. Back when I was trying to say things on Instagram, this is one of the first non-personal life posts I made⁵:

Why yes I did make this with just a marker and a piece of scrap paper. I was never meant to be an social media influencer

I wrote in the caption:

I often hear friends who are at home with young kids part or all of the time say, “I hardly got anything done today” or “I wasn’t very productive today.” I know what they mean, and I say it too. Some days we can sneak in other tasks in addition to caring for small humans, and those days are awesome.

My salty response though is always some version of “You got nothing done, except for the most important, sacred work there is. You didn’t accomplish anything, except holding space for thoughts and feelings, modeling how to communicate well, meeting physical needs...nothing much, just lovingly and thoughtfully TENDING TO OTHER HUMAN BEINGS.”

You’re right, they say. I know, I know.

Our culture says anything that doesn’t produce a tangible outcome and/or make money isn’t work. Isn’t difficult, isn’t valuable. And as an at-home parent it’s easy to get frustrated when little ones interrupt whatever it is you may be trying to do. But this is the truth we need to remember: caring for and tending to children is—in and of itself—valid + important work.

When I remind my friends of what’s true, I’m of course reminding myself just as much. Yesterday was tough. The few concrete tasks I tried to complete were interrupted constantly and ultimately left unfinished. I once again had the feeling that I “didn’t do anything all day.”

Someone (C.S. Lewis? Some pediatrician? The Internet isn’t sure) said, “Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” I’ve had this quote on my fridge whiteboard for over a year now, because it’s the message I need in this season of my life. As a driven woman living in a culture obsessed with productivity, I’m 100% inclined to feel shitty when my day is mostly taken up by the mundane, invisible tasks of care work. Even with an intellectual knowledge of what is true, my habits of thinking and my cultural conditioning still scream otherwise.

Today, I’ve adjusted my attitude once again. I’m reminding myself of the truth, that even on days where I feel like I “wasn’t very productive,” I’ve done work and work that matters.

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

Seeing and valuing caregiving

The only place we see care work remotely acknowledged and therefore valued is the church—at least in theory. Christian culture has been disappointing re: valuing care in actuality, in my experience.

I’ve seen first-hand, over and over, how church-going folks are quick to say that mothers are doing “the most important job in the world” but offer no practical support or even dignity to caregivers. I’ve heard many sermons preached that glorify motherhood with sentimental cliches only, never any depth (even though there’s plenty there), and usually just on Mother’s Day. I’ve seen “Christian” husbands absolutely take for granted the work their at-home wives do, from not stepping in when they’re overwhelmed to leaving them to do bedtime alone several nights a week (after being with the kids all day!) because there’s a board meeting or another church commitment that requires their Very Important presence.

(So much work to do!)

I’m excited to see care being increasingly discussed in secular, intellectual culture. There’s a lot to be brought to light, remedied, and explored, and after all, care is something that affects everyone, no matter your religious identity.

One of the best resources I’ve come across is the 2024 book When You Care by

Elissa Strauss

. I first heard of it in

Jim Dalrymple II

’s publication, where he linked to his talk with Elissa for a piece at IFS. Weirdly, not much later, Elissa messaged me on Instagram to connect over our shared interest in and advocacy for care. It’s been on my to-do list to read her book ever since, but since there’s too many books/too little time, I haven’t gotten to it.

Enter, book club.

When You Care will be our next One Tired Mother book club read!

The OTM book club keeps me accountable to reading things I’d like to read, and offers others the opportunity to read along with me and dialogue about the book. This will be the fourth one I’ve done, and I’m still experimenting with the best format, as many OTM readers are very busy caretaking! One thing I know: this time, we’ll be taking the book really slowly, I’m thinking one chapter a month. This will leave ample time for both reading and discussion, which I think this book will spark a lot of!

If you’re into thinking about motherhood and feminism, if you care about care (ha), I invite you to order Elissa’s book and join us. When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others—275 pages of personal story, cultural commentary, research, and analysis. Get it from:

• Your local bookstore

• Barnes and Noble (50% off for a few more days in their annual non-fiction book sale!)

• Amazon (same price as sale at B&N, for now at least!)

• Your local library (if they don’t have it, you can request that they order it!)

We’ll start in a month or so—schedule to come. Meanwhile, here’s a snippet:

Caregiving isn’t really interesting, I told myself. I was too sentimental. A good girl. A victim of the patriarchy. […]

But in my moments of clarity, I saw things differently. I realized that while we used to diminish care with shallow, sentimental praise, we are now diminishing it with ceaseless complaint. Where is the acknowledgement of caregiving’s complexity, or caregiving’s might? […] I wanted to talk about it, unpack it, examine it, to take it apart and put it back together all with the goal of better understanding how care can change us and the world around us, and why it’s been ignored.

-When You Care

Caretaking is work, work that deeply matters. I’d love for you to join Elissa and me in conversation about care this year. Comment or DM and let us know if you’re in!

1. Using the quotes here to remind the reader I don’t buy in to this label, but for the rest of the time I’ll just use the term for ease of understanding

2. Or worse, they don’t even understand the effort of housework, as seen in genuine inquiries along the lines of “What do you do all day?”

3. The original comment had a final line of “being a working mom is 10x harder”

4. I think my ignorance stemmed from a few things, but one big one was my immersion in the culture of mainstream feminism, which has routinely denigrated work related to the home and children. I thought it must be easy work, since I was obviously—as a feminist—above it. Oof. I have a pending essay on this topic!

5. Almost three years ago to the day!