Angela Garbes, author of “Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change.” (Elizabeth Rudge)

"When you see a book with a subtitle like “mothering as social change” — and you’re not a mother — you might think that this is not a book for you. You are wrong. This book is especially for you, because it invites all of us, whether we directly care for children in our daily lives or not, to think of ourselves as doing the truly essential work of caregiving, both for ourselves and for others. The more we see ourselves doing that labor, the more we understand that labor as part of what makes us human and life worth living, the more we can actually, genuinely value it: not just with our words, or with largely empty gestures like clapping for essential workers. 

"It’s about money, sure. But it’s really about priorities, and how we think about our responsibilities as humans to one another. Do we understand that caring for a child, or an elder, or someone who needs medical care as part of our responsibility as members of society? Of a community? Or will we continue to buy into the deeply atomized, individualistic norms of (white, patriarchal) American society that are, quite frankly, making even people with the most means and privilege pretty damn miserable?" - Anne Helen Petersen

Author Interview: "Raising Children is Not an Individual Responsibility. It is a Social One."