The economics of care.
Dear Moms,
The work you do is valuable. Let me say that again, the work you do is valuable.
The work you do to provide care and support to others is valuable. The work you do to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks for your family is valuable. The wiping of noses, the appointment making, the listening and hand holding, the sandwich making and snack packing and the never ending to-do lists. ALL. VALUABLE.
While these things don’t measure how smart you are, or whether or not your degree in ‘this or that’ makes you better or worse in your unpaid caregiving and household work, or whether your personal goal-setting has been ignited or extinguished, what is important to know is that YOU are valuable.
But all that work, that invisible work, the emotional load, the putting everyone else in front of yourself is not only unsustainable in the way it is happening today, but also rarely rewarded. There are no promotions coming your way for the caregiving work you do. No pay raises. And, no membership to the “golden circle” rewarding you for a job well done with a week of island self-renewal (wow, sounds amazing, doesn’t it?!). No. Instead, you dig even deeper and hunker down and wonder if someone, somewhere, (anywhere?) might give you a nod of acknowledgment and appreciation for all the work you do. A pat on the back, maybe? But, it doesn’t come. So instead, you just look at your kids and, through them, believe in the value of the caring work you are doing.
But sometimes, that isn’t enough.
Sometimes you just need to be recognized for the giant role that you play in raising the next generation. Sometimes you need more than pat on the back, more than a single day of acknowledgment that comes in the form of ‘Mothers day’. Sometimes you wish the invisible would be visible for all the world to see and notice. Sometimes you pray that your work will stop being unfairly marginalized. Sometimes, you wish you could count up the hours of your unpaid care and household work in a lifetime and get reimbursed in real dollars in order to retire respectfully. Sometimes, you dream of what a true equal division of care and unpaid labor would really like look like if you could start fresh from the beginning. And, some days, you deserve that goddam golden circle membership!!
And why … some might ask? Because without caring and caregiving, none of us would be here. So, we all better believe it’s important and valuable and should be acknowledged and rewarded. You are important and valuable. We are important and valuable.
So then, what if we valued care differently?
What if our economy placed care at the center of our Gross Domestic Product? What if the stark absence of unpaid work in our country’s metrics of economic output suddenly became the most important metric? What if men played a truly equal part in unpaid care and household work? What if we shifted to a new economic system that respected all types of work and the earth? (After all, anthropologist Margaret Mead showed us in her research that the mere “act” of caring was in fact the foundation of human civilization). Yet, over and over again, the care work and family management that has fallen on women for centuries has been taken for granted by society and also, dare I say, taken for granted within our own homes.
There are several new and long-time crusaders that have been tackling these big ideas on the value of care and unpaid work for some time. We have people like Eve Rodsky, Harvard educated lawyer, turned mother, turned author, turned systems specialist, turned unequivocal expert on the problems associated with a gendered imbalance of unpaid work and why it matters. We also have Dr. Riane Eisler who, since the early 1980’s, has been proposing a new approach to economics that gives visibility and value to the essential human work of caring for people and the planet. And then we have economists like Nancy Folbre whose research validates that economics should recognize that unpaid care work provides economically valuable services that contribute both to living standards and to the Gross Domestic Product. She explains that the “provision of care has been completely marginalized in economic theory and policy yet it remains basic to the well-being of current and future generations.”
Throughout history and continuing through to this day, both the research and lived reality of households, shows that the burden of unpaid work and childcare is placed on women — even those women who concurrently have full time paid work alongside their working partners. So, I implore everyone to look closely and pay attention. Who is holding a greater load in your home? Whose time is more valuable and then ask yourself, why? As Rodsky states in her book Fair Play, all time is a finite resource yet “society views women’s time as infinite, like sand, and it views men’s time as finite, like diamonds”. Our society has historically and consistently viewed men’s time as being more valuable. So, only when both men and women believe that time should be measured equally will there be possibility to achieve more equity in our relationships, more equity in the division of unpaid work and childcare, and more equity in pay. So, let’s try this again, whose time is more valuable?
Unless we assign caring and caregiving greater value and see men and women participating equally in unpaid work and childcare, it will be impossible to solve our current caregiving crisis, to achieve gender equality, or even advance our personal, economic, and global development. Giving greater value to caring and caregiving and breaking down the gendered division of labor and care within our homes to be more equitable is not only essential but a global imperative.
It’s a fact. Your time is valuable. What you do is valuable. You are valuable.
So, on this Mother’s Day, I infinitely acknowledge you.
Originally published on www.kristirible.com on May 5th, 2021
