12. How to Value and Shift your Emotional Labour

The Good Enough Mother · Dec 2, 2019 · 30m

You acquire certain skills when you mother children, and ‘maternal thinking’ is one of them. I describe this concept to you as a way of re-valuing the work of motherhood, and relate it to the weight of responsibility mothers carry in caring for children and running a household. This weight can be talked about in terms of ‘emotional labour’ and the ‘mental load’, and also relates to ingrained and ongoing sexism. I draw on research to explain the critical yet invisible burden of these responsibilities that is largely carried by mothers. In doing so I delve into a discussion of ‘maternal…