Here's to invisible work
The things no one wants to do
I’ve been primarily an at-home parent for the last seven years, and out of the formal, full-time workforce for a few more years than that. If I could choose one word to describe the way I’ve most often felt in that time, it would be invisible.
After years of being praised for accomplishments and achievements, both in school and career, it’s been weird to feel like no one even sees me. And although I think there are varying factors that have played into this (which I will address at some point), there’s one thing that I think has played the biggest role: invisible work.
For better or for worse, our work is a big part of our identities. Sometimes I hear people rag on this, like we should be asking “What lights you up?” or “What’s one of your best memories?” at social gatherings instead of “What do you do?” To me that’s overly idealistic—it’s just never going to happen, and it also makes sense that we ask this question because it’s just reality that work takes up most of our days. But it’s unfortunate that social conversation is so focused on our paid jobs and careers.
So what do I do? It’s hard to explain. You say you’re a “stay-at-home mom,” and unless someone has done it themselves, it seems like people genuinely don’t seem to know what you do all day. SAHM stereotypes aside, I think that’s because much of the work is invisible.
The definition of work is “effort toward a purpose or result.” I’m defining invisible work as work that goes under the radar, work that isn’t really seen or acknowledged by others—or by society in general—as work. It is sometimes actually invisible to others (like it takes place in homes or in our heads), and it almost always doesn’t have particularly tangible results.
My midwife told me about two new mothers she went to visit for post-birth follow ups. (This is a homebirth midwife, so she was visiting them at home.) As she walked up to the first house, she noticed the beautiful, perfectly manicured yard and then her very neat home. But as she met with her she saw her postpartum time was a mess: breastfeeding wasn’t going well, and she was struggling mentally and emotionally. The other mother had a disaster of a yard and home—my midwife said she was even a little concerned. But as she met with the mother she saw she was doing incredibly well. She was focusing on resting, getting to know her baby, healing from birth, and nourishing herself; everything else could wait.
This isn’t to promote an either/or vibe, but rather to paint a picture of visible versus invisible work. Some of the most important work isn’t work that others can easily see and appreciate.
Types of invisible work
I reflected on the last decade or so of my life and came up with what I think are the main categories of invisible work. There’s some overlap, but each type of work is common and important enough to stand on its own.
Adjusting to a new season. This is something we’re always doing at one time or another—figuring out new routines and rhythms for our new existence. Whether it’s adjusting to a career change, becoming a parent, moving, retiring: it’s work to figure out how life will look in a new season.
The work of the home. Cooking. Cleaning. Organizing. Laundry. All of these things are foundational for our lives to go on each day. And much of this work is unappreciated for what it actually takes. For example, getting meals on the table isn’t just cooking the food: it’s assessing the food that’s currently in the house, it’s considering the preferences/requirements of the family, it’s consulting the schedule so you know if it needs to be a crockpot day or if you’ll have time to cook, it’s deciding on the things you’ll make, it’s creating the list of groceries, it’s grocery shopping, it’s bringing that food home and putting it away. And the work of the home is not just cooking and cleaning and organizing and laundry—it’s setting up a home to function well for the people in it. It all takes constant, intentional effort.
Care work. Care work is tending to the basic needs of vulnerable humans, such as children, the elderly, the sick, the disabled. It’s feeding them, dressing them, cleaning them, tending to their mental and emotional well-being. Care work couldn’t be more important, yet it couldn’t be more invisible: there are no simple, concrete outcomes to point to when you’re working with something as complex as a human being.
Physical/mental health. Attempting to eat better. Moving our bodies. Figuring out what we need. Figuring out solutions to problems we’re having. Figuring out those problems at the root (which often takes personal research and/or the seeking out of specific health professionals). All of this takes time and energy.
Personal growth. Learning about and reflecting on yourself as a person and how you might level up is work. It involves things like reading, listening, mentorship, counseling, reflecting, trying new ways of being and failing, and reflecting again and again.
Personal healing. A bit different from growth, healing is looking back, often at your childhood, and bringing hidden pain to the surface. If you’re a parent of young children, this is very hard work: healing childhood wounds (that your children have probably helped you become aware of) as you simultaneously attempt to raise those children in a way that doesn’t pass that pain along. Whew. If you know you know.
Creative work. Exercising your creativity—trying to bring to life, in one way or another, something that’s inside of you—is work. Though you can see the results of creative work to some extent (when something concrete is produced/published), there’s so much that goes into it that you don’t see: vision, craft, mindset, things that didn’t turn out or are unfinished, etc.
Relational work. This is the work of tending to our relationships. This is the work of communicating/relating, resolving conflict, staying in touch with one another with regard to what’s going on but also on a deeper level, arranging your life to spend quality time together, etc. Whether we’re talking about marriage/partnership or friendship or any other type of relationship, keeping and growing our relationships takes effort and intention.
Spiritual seeking/growth. Studying, reading, reflecting, praying, discerning—there’s so much that goes into developing and nurturing a spiritual life. Figuring out what you believe about the invisible world, and then tending to that in an ongoing way to stay spiritually healthy, is no small task. This work doesn’t only go unacknowledged; people are even sometimes shamed for the seeking part, made to feel that they should just believe what they were taught about the divine instead of spending their time thinking and asking questions.
Mental labor. I put this last, because this work is the most invisible of all. Mental labor is all the planning, strategizing, researching, delegating, decision-making, and management of life. Women—mothers in particular—are very familiar with this work, as it takes constant mental labor to run a household, especially one with children. The mental labor with regard to parenting is huge—there is so much thinking and remembering and planning and research that goes into providing well for growing children. “The mental load” (also sometimes called “emotional labor”) is something that’s gaining more and more awareness culturally, and I’m here for it.
Who, why, and what to do
As a society we tend to really only acknowledge and celebrate visible work and achievements, making all the above work even less appealing than it may inherently be.
Neha Ruch, founder of a movement called Mother Untitled, recently wrote:
Have you ever noticed it’s more societally acceptable to share professional wins than sharing well-earned victories in parenting or home? [Our culture] openly celebrates professional gain but rarely recognizes the work done in the home and family. We must be able to speak with equal pride about our work with our health, our marriage, our home, and our children so that immensely thoughtful, time-intensive work no longer remains behind the scenes.
Historically and still today, women do more invisible work than men, and women who are mothers even moreso. (Neha is leading a conversation to elevate the work of mothers, especially at-home mothers.) Nonetheless, the idea applies broadly. When work goes unacknowledged, it of course goes uncelebrated. How can we celebrate something we don’t even understand?
(Oooh, Mother’s Day vibes.)
There’s nothing wrong with work that produces tangible outcomes, of course. We need all types of work in the world. There is something wrong with a culture that wants to validate and honor only that type of work.
You may be thinking, but most of the work you listed doesn’t earn money! People need money to live. That’s why it’s invisible and unappreciated. And to that I would say, sure, but there are also deeper reasons for our obsession with more-visible work. As for women, third-wave feminism culturally devalued the work of home and children and elevated the work of career. As for all of us, we’re social creatures—we crave the approval and validation of others—so what’s elevated societally is what we tend to put our efforts toward. We naturally, though subconsciously, value work that is seen and celebrated by other people.
Culture is the water we swim in—we don’t really notice it, but it impacts us in every way. Neha is spot-on: we have to change the values on a macro level in order for things to improve. And we do that by starting in our own lives.
Invisible work matters
As someone who’s spent nearly a decade engaged almost exclusively in invisible work, I have a few things I want to tell you.
I want to encourage you to do it. Do this work. Your marriage, your friendships, your spiritual life, your home, your children, your health, yourself—efforts in all these areas are absolutely vital to a good life. It’s been the most beautiful and impactful work I’ve ever done. But it’s not easy. The hardest thing about this season of my life has been my work being unseen (and therefore unappreciated). The work is just that—work—yet you don’t have an outcome that can be easily observed, and most don’t even know the efforts you put in. It’s lonely. It’s counter-cultural.
And it’s totally, completely worth it.
To those of you already doing this work, I see you and I’m cheering for you. Maybe if enough of us do it and celebrate it, someday it won’t be as invisible. Maybe someday it’ll be just as normal to hear people talk about marriage breakthroughs and parenting wins and self-awareness leaps as it is to hear people talk about house remodels and job promotions.
What a world that would be.
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