Why I Reclaimed Emotional Labor As A Personal Act Of Rebellion
We often frame care work as a burden, but what if we thought of it as an act of resistance instead?
Simona Segi | Unsplash When I stepped out on my porch earlier this week to savor the uncharacteristic warmth, I found my neighbor sweeping the sidewalk and street in front of my house. He’s an older man who has very different politics, and though we’re friendly, I’m generally hesitant to get too deep into conversation with him.
I said, “Oh, you don’t have to do that.” He said, “It’s no trouble, I was sweeping anyway. I remember when I was a single parent, it was so hard to get everything done.”
I almost burst into tears. An unexpected moment of connection, an uncomplicated act of generosity. It doesn’t take much, but these days, moments like that seem to be so few and far between.
It made me think of my own recent efforts to be more intentional about emotional labor and being of service.
Not to an institution, but merely to the people in my life, even those on the periphery. To offer rides when I can — to sports practices or to the airport. To send a meal to a friend whose husband is facing a health scare. To write a letter to my mother for her birthday (and to actually put it in the mail.)
These are the small acts of care that (mostly) women have been doing for centuries, the gestures that build networks and knit communities. For so long, depleted by the relentless demands of family and paid labor, I only engaged in these acts sporadically. I approached each day with tunnel vision, intent on getting through each day with the house and my sanity at least somewhat intact.
I don’t blame any caregiver, my younger self included, who can’t muster up the energy to extend even more care, particularly when no one seems to be mustering the energy to extend care to her.
In my efforts to be more intentional, I’ve learned that small acts of care have a way of paying themselves forward.
Onjira Leibe / Shutterstock
I’m not offering rides out of pure selflessness; rather, I’m offering rides because I’m often the one asking for rides, and I’m thrilled when I have an opportunity to return the favor. I’m not always returning the favor to the person who gave it to me.
Care work and emotional labor are not transactional; no one is keeping score.
I just know that when someone extends care to me, I’m inspired to extend care to someone, and the more of us who do this, the more we’ll all feel taken care of. During these dark and uncertain times, there are so many of us, myself included, who feel paralyzed by the ever-unfurling injustices and tragedies, their sheer vastness and persistence. We all worry that we’re not doing enough, or that we’re too distracted and disheartened to do anything at all.
But I would argue that building localized, real-life networks of care is just about the most important thing any of us can be doing. And ironically, it’s something that progressives have become very bad at. As we reject the churches and other social institutions that have controlled, excluded, and oppressed us, we’ve become wrapped up in our journeys of liberation.
I’m on such a journey now, and it’s an important one, to be sure. But we seem to be mostly embarking on these journeys alone, perhaps alongside a loose online network of people who can offer us validation, but without much in the way of real-life networks of care.
This is about giving care, but also asking for it.
Josep Suria / Shutterstock
Asking for care is harder for me than extending it, but as a newly single parent, I’m getting better by necessity. I’ve found that most people, men and women, are hungry to be of service. Upon learning that my car needs a new engine that will cost three times as much as my car is worth, my next door neighbor has taken it upon himself to research used cars for sale.
As we speak, my daughter’s basketball coach is strapping a spare hoop he has to the top of his car and driving it across town so she can practice after school and on the weekends. My friends and my kids’ parents have watched my kids while I’ve traveled for work events, helped me pick up Craigslist furniture, assisted in supervising their birthday parties, and come by my house bearing ice cream and wine.
Sometimes I catch myself feeling guilty. Am I receiving too much and giving too little? But I do what I can. If we’ve learned anything from the last tumultuous months and years, it’s that no one is coming to save us. And we can only save ourselves by taking care of one another.
Kerala Taylor is an award-winning writer and co-owner of a worker-owned marketing agency. Her weekly stories are dedicated to interrupting notions of what it means to be a mother, woman, worker, and wife. She writes on Medium and has recently launched a Substack publication, Mom, Interrupted.
