What about the work you don’t see me do?
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What about the work you don’t see me do?
Tillie Olsen wrote: “In the twenty years I bore and reared my children . . . the simplest circumstances for creation did not exist.” It was a physical problem, a time problem; it was also a question of selfhood. “The obligation to be physically attractive and patient and nurturing and docile and sensitive and deferential . . . contradicts and must
... See moreJulie Phillips • The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem
I felt increasingly compelled to figure out the reasons for the continuing lack of authentic respect and support for the invisible work of pregnancy, birthing children and caregiving. Not least because I was finding out first-hand how harmful it could be.