The essential labor of care work

On today’s “Post Reports,” a conversation with author Angela Garbes about her new book, “Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change.” 

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In 2020, author Angela Garbes found herself at home taking care of her two daughters, clinically depressed and unable to write. It was a time when people were told to stay home, unless you were an essential worker. 

“But I remember sitting there being like, ‘What about me?’ ” Garbes told “Post Reports” editor Lexie Diao. “What about parents? What about mothers? Like, what we are doing is nothing less than essential. … The pandemic has exposed that without care, we’re lost.”

Garbes’s new book is called “Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change.” The book examines the history of caregiving in America through the lens of the author’s own Filipinx identity, and makes the case that caregiving is an undervalued and overlooked labor that disproportionately relies on women of color.