But the truth is I love product testing generally and freelancing for Reviewed, in particular. The answer is: Yes! Look, I’m as surprised as anyone. This apparent contradiction has inspired more than one friend to ask, with a confused, kindly tone: What gives? Do you like doing them? I’ve also churned out five product reviews in the last year or so. While media outlets such as the New York Times and the Washington.Field testing strollers (this is the City Mini GT2) with Baby A.Ĭonfession: Shopping stresses me out. Throughout the text, she pulls at these competing strands to offer both a harsh critique of contemporary patterns of caregiving and a refreshing template for how caregiving could and should operate differently.

Reflecting on the challenges of this moment, she writes, 'Over the last two years, as I've done an unprecedented amount of caregiving, I've spent an equal amount of time considering care work: how it is seen as low-wage labor, rather than highly skilled work that is essential, creative, and influential' (pp. Positioning the pandemic and her own Filipino American family as a backdrop, Garbes walks her readers through the changed rhythms families faced as schools shut down, remote work schedules began, and parents tentatively waded into the complicated dynamics of pods and new networks of support. The term 'mothering' operates inclusively here to encompass all forms of caring and caregiving but with a focus on the deeply gendered and raced implications of care work. Garbes grapples with the rewards and challenges of mothering in refreshingly stark and honest fashion. Published when families were still knee-deep in the realities of pandemic parenting, Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change offers an unflinching view into the trenches of care work and the ways mothering gained new salience and urgency as the pandemic shifted attention toward caregiving and care work in new ways. It's no surprise that the latest book from Angela Garbes (who gave us Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy in 2018) is on NPR's 2022 'Books We Love' list and has made waves as a national bestseller.

Mothering through and beyond the Pandemic Angela Garbes, Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change.

Essential labor angela garbes review