Unacknowledged Labors
It’s only after becoming a parent myself that I realized all of the things that my parents - mostly my mom - needed to do for me, which I was blissfully unaware of.
It turns out that my ignorance was somewhat justified (if not actually excusable): up until a few decades ago, society en masse didn’t realize the extent and toll of this work (!!).
The idea of invisible work comes from this 1987 paper by sociologist Arlene Daniels, in the journal Social Problems. The main thesis is that much of the work borne by women (in heterosexual marriages with more traditional gender roles, primarily) is invisible - it is devalued, largely unnoticed, rarely appreciated and of course, unpaid. This unfair division of labor leads to all kinds of personal and societal ills. For the problem to be addressed, though, the work needs to be recognized as work, and it needs to be more evenly distributed at a personal level, with shifts in societal expectations and public policies to support it.
While the “invisible work” in some families may be more recognized by and balanced across partners, one thing’s for sure: if you’ve got kids, the ratio of your efforts to their appreciation of your efforts is asymptotically approaching undefined. So here’s a chance to tell your kids about all the stuff you do for them that they may not actually thank you for until 10 or 20 years down the road. If ever. I don’t recommend taking this in a guilt-trip-ridden direction - but feel free to go there if that’s your jam! - but instead, one of love and care.
Drop your kid a note about why it is that you secretly pick up their rooms after they’ve gone to bed, though you scold them during the day for keeping it a mess and demand they pick it up themselves. Or sign them up for interesting-sounding activities in remote corners of your town or city, knowing the work calendar trauma it will cause when it actually comes time to pick them up or drop them off. Or how you naively hunt for new recipes to try for dinner, stupidly thinking that this will finally be the tofu recipe that they don’t protest and proclaim their eternal hatred of tofu recipes!
I may projecting a bit here, but surely you’ve also got the things you do for them, with zero expectation of acknowledgement in the present, out of something more than just a sense of duty?
