Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change by Angela Garbes

Book Review by Jenna Hollenstein

The day after I arrived in Sicily with my son—a 20-hour pilgrimage door to door—he was sick with nausea, stomach pains, and vomiting. In the middle of the night, after his nonno had examined him and confirmed it was nothing serious, there was exactly nothing I could do but be there – bodily, attuned, fully present.  “I need you,” he repeated automatically, understanding in his body that my proximity could be his only comfort in that moment. 

This is the sort of invisible and unpaid labor of mothers everywhere, playing out in countless varieties and scenarios. Easy to dismiss as “coming naturally” (to mothers) and yet so foundational to a child’s secure attachment and ability to feel safe and secure enough to become compassionate and unique adults. In Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change, Angela Garbes asserts that our culture’s shared delusion that the work of mothers sits at the bottom of our hierarchy of value demonstrates a collective confusion about what is truly valuable and generative, and emblematic of who we are as human beings. 

Garbes contends that it is what is considered most “base” – our bodies, pleasure, desire, eroticism, our need for and dependence on one another, an acceptance of the messiness and imperfection of real life – that is actually the glue that binds, supports, and provides a future for humanity. Not productivity, commercialism, and the scarcity mentality that drives an “us versus them” lifeview. 

Examining the life of mothers through a social justice lens and sharing vignettes from raising her own two very different daughters, Garbes asserts that mothers are indeed the stewards of what – despite our confusion – we value most: happiness, connection, hope.

Jenna Hollenstein is an author, nutrition therapist, and meditation teacher. She lives in the greater New York City area with her partner, son, and her cat, Lucy.