Out tonight. My name is amalie and i am the Events Coordinator here at bookstore magic. So before we get started, i just have a few logistics to point out about how tonights gonna go first off. We do ask that you keep your mask on at all times while well at this event. We will be doing a hand raised audience q a towards the end of the event. So please start thinking of questions to ask after the talk tonight. Angela will be signing and personalizing books at the desk near the side door behind me. We also have additional books available to purchase at the front where you checked in. And of course if youre joining us virtually on the youtube live stream, we would love to encourage you to buy a copy of essential labor online using the link in the live stream description. All right. So with all that in mind we are so very excited to introduce angela garvis and gross who are here celebrating their the release of angelas newest book essential labor mothering as social change. In essential labor angela examines our society and the increasingly Important Role that caregivers play whether they are mothers healthcare workers or oftentimes both drawing from both personal contacts as a first generation filipinoamerican and global context as a woman dealing with motherhood during a global pandemic. Angela reminds us of the true irrefutable power of mothers and caregivers and explores the the radical nature of motherhood. Angela garbus is the author of essential labor and like a mother an npr best book of the year and finalist for the Washington State book award and nonfiction her work has appeared in the New York Times the cut new york bon appetit and featured on nprs fresh air. She also cohosts the double shift and acclaimed podcast challenging the status quo of motherhood in america. She lives with her family in seattle. And as i mentioned earlier, jessica, gross joins, angela and conversation tonight. Jessica is an opinion writer at the New York Times and writes a popular newsletter on parenting. She also writes about Womens Health culture politics and grizzly bears. She was named a glamor game changer in 2020 for her coverage of parenting in the pandemic. She is the author of the novel soulmates and sad desk salad. Her work has appeared in the New York Times the Washington Post business week el cosmop. And many other publications and she lives in brooklyn with her husband and daughters. So without any further delay, please join me in welcoming, angela and jessica. Hi, hi. Well, thank you all so much for being here. I do not take it for granted that i get to have a book launch on my publication day. I know so many people so many friends of mine and authors have not been able to do it. So its really i feel overwhelmed. Sorry with emotion. Sorry, i had a mic but i guess this is not thats not the mic for this. I see so many loved ones and its just wonderful to have you all here and i want to thank jess who is my editor and my friend for doing this with me because its my pub day and its my event and i spent a really long time losing my mind writing my book. Im im gonna read from the book. So im not gonna introduce it that much. So this the second half of that theres the first half is a you know history of caretaking in america a very personal version of that and the second half is more forward thinking about how the ways in which how do i want a mother my children and when you have to think about that you have to think about how you were mothered and also possibly how you need to mother yourself to kind of get your game together. So this is actually my if i had to pick id say this is my favorite chapter and im just gonna read a short selection from this which is called mothering as encouraging appetites. As a kid i patted into our yellow linoleum kitchen at all hours to take scoops of rice from the rice cooker that lived on the counter. Id fillable then poor petitese and lemon juice over it or soy sauce and lemon juice and eat it while sitting on the lore my brothers used to yell at me for what they considered my highest crime worse than being a tattletale. I beat them to a loaf of supermarket bakery french bread and dig out the squishy insides which i chase with a shot of pickle juice straight from the jar when they opened the paper bag. Theyd find only a long hollowed out crust. Myself to slices of Pepperidge Farm german chocolate cake, which my mom kept in its box in the freezer. I liked how after eating approximately half the slices the box had enough room to store the knife inside of it where it would get finger numbingly cold. My appetite has always felt outsized and ive only ever wanted to indulge it. Growing up. I noticed the food we ate was the product of a lot of work. Not only did it require ingredients that most people around me had never heard of but those ingredients took a long time to cook. I was a small town 80s kid growing up at a time when the ethnic aisle in the Grocery Store was stocked with little more than la choi brand soy sauce and canned water chestnuts. I could never imagine id live where i live now shopping at foolies seafood city via awajimaya 99 ranch and h mart. Many pantry staples fish sauce 50 pound bags of rice buggaong satan hong noodles cane vinegar. Were procured in chinatown when we visited my teacher in new york city. I remember my dad loading the hefty woven sacks of rice into the back of our van. When he arrived home, he would cut open the sap with a steak knife flip it over and pour its contents into our green rice dispenser a three foot tall item. I was oddly proud of us owning it dispensed rice in three cup increments with just the push of a button. We also ate a fair amount of canned corned beef in those days, but all the important food the food. My parents liked the most the food we ate on special occasions or the nights when my mom was home from work early was filipino. Panic bet mongo adobo dishes that required time to poach and shred chicken raise pork belly or chop a small mountain of vegetables. For bulalo and sinagong and katikati. We need an hours to raise pork neck bones and oxtails. When she made lumpia and ponce it typically for parties and gatherings. My mother would pull out gallon containers of wesson oil and two electric walks and turn what seemed like laundry baskets of noodles using all her arm strength. Instead of our usual white six cup rice cooker. Shed get out the fancy creamcolored 10 cover with the builtin lid and decorative pastel flowers. On these occasions, i often ate so much that i got a stomach ache. At age 44 its not so different. I always want another bite another serving another round. At my home now. Our oldest daughter loves chili the being and be filled won her father makes in the slow cooker suffusing the house with a scent of cumin. She has been known to house three consecutive bowls topped with shredded cheddar diced onions crushed Tortilla Chips and sour cream in one sitting. On more than one occasion. She has excused herself after one bull to run to the bathroom and poop ensuring she has room for another serving. I resist the urge to tease her about it because honestly i get it. For a long time i thought of my body is very inconvenient. Not necessarily fat, but definitely a little too much a little too brown a little too brown my calf muscles large skinny jeans tight around them decidedly in delicate. My mother commented that i was big boned compared to her delicate wrists, which i could loop my fingers around. My joints were thicker. Where did i come from . Since the moment legaia was born. This is my younger daughter whos four people have been telling me that she looks just like me your twin more than a few people have remarked to me. She looks like herself. Four years in i can finally concede that there is a strong resemblance between us. Why was i hesitant to admit it . As lagaya grows into her own person. I see that her face looks very much like mine, but also that her body shapes seems to echo mine. I dont think shell be tall, but she will be robust and sturdy her legs short and strong. Ive never wanted to give voice to the resemblance for fear that it will curse her to have the same baggage and body image issues ive struggled with. Selfconscious about her round stomach calves big i have curiosity too. Will she like me have uneven body hair her right armpit hairy and her left scattered with just a few thin whisps. Well her leg hair grow only to the middle of her shins as though shes wearing hairy midcath length socks. Well her lips stay plump and delicious and will she remain the same will she retain the same expressive face that makes it nearly impossible to hide her emotions. Everyone has their own innate understanding of how to be in their bodies including my daughters. I am trying my best to stay back to find the delicate place where my fears exist and where they become projections. I put on my children. I keep my eye out for that line, so i dont cross it. Im figuring out how to release control follow their lead. I want to get out of their singular life paths, but i want to get in the way of the dominant narrative box it out. How do you care and lead and recede at the same time . Can i inspire my girls to not care what their stomachs are shaped like to know that they are much more than their bodies. To pursue their appetites and in the words of Carmen Maria Machado manifest the audacity of space taking can i give them what majado calls . Fatness of the mind thanks. Am i going to keep talking into this or should i put it down . Oh, yeah. Keep talking to him. Okay, and you have okay. Its just confusing because them sea spans here. So we are also mike so it was a little bit. Yeah, i hope we vandalize cspan. Thats less. Thats our goal. That was really lovely. Im so happy to be here and i wanted to start with how the idea of this book came about because its your second that kind of circles around motherhood. Yeah, and how you manage to write it during the pandemic. Yeah. It was it was never guaranteed. Its not good. I never thought like it was like definitely going to happen. So i was actually under contract to write a second book. My first book came in 2018 and because i didnt know what i was doing and i had like no platform and no audience. I was like one night started to sell a little bit and when i was on fresh air, i was like, oh like i might they might let me publish another book, but i couldnt grew up always with this like scarcity mindset. So i was like, i better think of another book fast because in a year, they wont remember who i am and i was like, i just need to like grab it and i was also i should say like postpartum like four months postpartum and was just like, let me just empty myself until im a husk and like that seemed like the right thing to be doing and to see natural. So i like pitch this book. I mean relatable, right . So i that was kind of how it started and i was like, i dont want to my background is writing about food. I was like, i dont need i never thought that i would write a book about motherhood and i was like, i dont want to write another one not because its not interesting to me but because the market thinks its niche right like anything with like womens things like over here, and its just you know, and and i felt like i wanted to not be pigeonholed. So i was trying to write this book and it wasnt going well and then the pandemic happened. And then my children were just home with me for like four months straight and i was within 24 7 and i mean it only took a month for me to realize theres no way im going to meet my deadline of july 2020. So i like have a very understanding editor and she was like she said, yeah, i mean i was joking to my husband that im gonna have to quit my job because i cant do it all so we like pushed it back basically in the end by a year. And you know, one of the seeds was that i was like at the beginning of the pandemic. I was feeling frustrated because i couldnt write it all and i was like, im only a caretaker. Im not a creative person anymore. And you know, im watching the news and were talking about essential workers and healthcare workers sanitation workers transportation workers and im like, yes, they are totally essential. And i was like, what about moms . What about parents . Like what about caregivers . Like im i feel pretty essential right now and no one is talking about us. And i know you know this and so that was like that was always in my head and wrestling with that kind of stuff and then because im like lucky i had the chance to write a piece for new York Magazine in the cut and it was all about like all of my bad feelings last year and like how you know, we have two million less women in the professional workforce then we did from the start of the pandemic and so just like me processing my trauma of the last year and then but it was wildly a relatable. So it got it like did some loops Elizabeth Warren like tweeted it out and then i was like, huh . I think im on to something. Yeah, and so i talked to my agent and i like wrote a new proposal and then both my agent and my editor were like go where you feel inspired. Yeah, and thats how it happened. And then yeah, i wrote the book in seven months which like after like a year of not writing. Yeah. Um, and like i feel like talking a lot but think thats your night. Yeah, but there are two main ways that i got the book done. The first one is i have to really shout out my husband will who as soon as i signed my contract in april of 2021 like pulled up to my desk and said pull up your Google Calendar right now. You are never going to write this book if you dont get away from us and so for the next six months every three weeks. Youre gonna go away and youre gonna go away for a minimum of like three or four days, and im you can go away for up to a week and im telling you like i got it. Worry about it. And yeah, and so i was like, oh, thats so nice, but i think youre overreacting like i dont think we need to do that and he was like, no were doing it right now and and then i was like yes, daddy, whatever you say and so thats how i didnt so i like airbnb. I like stayed in hotels. I house that i like staying places where i was peeing in a bucket. I hope so id like and it was great. I just got to go and like be accountable to no one. Yeah to like get lost in the work and it was so great. And i found like sometimes i would come back early because i knew if i stayed a full week. I wouldnt want to come back to be honest like yeah, so that was like the one part of it was space and time. And then the other thing i did was i just let go of perfectionism which is very hard for me. I mean double virgo. Um, and i always like line edit as i write and i just was like i just need to vomit words because like if something is in my head, yeah, it can be brilliant, but i cant do anything with it. So i did that Jamie Attenberg 1000 words of summer which ive encourage people to use and i know a lot of people do and then i actually just kept going and i was like, im just gonna write i just need content and i didnt think about like what chapter would go and it was just ideas that i had and then i did that for like four or six weeks and then i had tens of thousands of words and then i just revised and that was never something. I believe that was a deeply part of my process like that. Yeah, so i sort of reimagined my whole Creative Process and i escaped from my family. Yeah two very good. I mean that is a good segway into the next question, which is how did you end up assigning to structure it the way that you did so, you know, most of you probably havent read it it arranged by shorter chapters each sort of around a theme and you the chapter you read was a great example of that. So i think actually that was when i mothering as encouraging appetites, so tell us more about how you ended up arranging it that way. Yeah, um, i would like to shout out editors and my own editor julie will who edited my first book i turned in a proposal. That was like la la im an essayist and like i just like jump around and im mixing in history and personal narrative and she was like, i love this book. I believe in it. She was like girl, you need a nap narrative arc. So she she like said like you should have like the first half of the book be a history of caretaking in america and kind of how we got to this place in the pandemic, you know, and where were in a child care crisis, which i mean weve been in a child care crisis for years and she was like and then the second half of the book can be more forward looking like that sort of like imagining like a future and what mothering can do moving forward. So that was really it was the structure that she gave me and then i sort of like rearranged in that way and then in terms of like the themes for the second half of the book like it was very i was thinking about like, what are the most basic things that i want to teach my kids and i mean to boil it down. I think its really about like interdependence which is that we need each other. And also about you know in believing in your own inherent worthiness and everything about that like mentally physically emotionally and so i would say those are kind of like the main themes. Yeah. I mean part of the book that touched me in particular and you get it a little bit and what you read was the parts about the deep history about your family the deep history of filipinos coming to the United States tell me about writing that i know that that was emotionally wrenching as writing about ones family often is ive done it. Its not the most fun although worth it. And so tell me about the sort of the decision to weave that story in and what it says about caretaking in america caretaking in the world. Yeah. Um, so ive done a couple interviews where ive told people and theyve all been like what because i said, like, i actually at the proposal had nothing about my Filipino American family, like i was not setting out to do that. I mean, i knew that i would write about like my life, but it wasnt i wasnt going to be like, lets dig deep into the 1965 immigration act, you know, like i wasnt thinking about colonial capitalism like that deeply. I mean, ive been thinking about it my whole life but not like in this book. Yeah. Um, i mean now its funny i can look back and be like, this is so clearly the book. Ive been wanting to write for so long. Its funny how that happens, but really like someone julie gave me my marking orders. I was like, all right here. I am going to write a history of caretaking in america and then i was like am i gonna write a history of hair taking in america . And and so i was like obviously like the number one thing. I think you have to reckon with if youre gonna do that is you have to talk about slavery, you know, we like built the wealth of this country by treating people like as property and deciding that they were not fully human and i was like, i i dont know when the best person to tell this story. Like i think i can be sensitive and really be rigorous in my research, but i was struggling. And then i saw the statistic and so as jess mentioned, my mom is a nurse who came over after the 1965 immigration act. Theres a whole way of the us lowered quotas and for highly skilled immigrants and because my parents because the philippines was an american colony for 50 years, which we dont really talk about they were educated. I mean the whole idea was americans were like we need to this is the white mans burden that Roger Kipling wrote about right. This is sanitizing little Brown Brothers people who are inherently backwards and diseased and dirty and so they gave him an American Education system where everyone was taught english and then they established medical schools and nursing schools, and it was a way of cleaning up the population and then when there was a nursing shortage in the United States after World War Two was very convenient to allow them to come in after they had not been allowed to come in. So thats sort of that history but the statistic. For me that like just everything got like just crystallized was that filipinox nurses are 4 of the workforce in the United States and theyre 34 of nursing covid deaths. Wow, and yeah, whoever said wow, yeah, i mean i still get real. I mean i get really emotional when i think about that because if i was like, this is my mom like this is um, this is so many people. I love this is this is my family and its just so clear. I mean we all came to understand it in different ways during the pandemic but like people of color we dont we think theyre dispensable and were like okay with them dying, you know in lives are not seen as important as white people and so thats when i was like, oh, this is the story that i want to tell and yeah, my family is not my ancestors are not enslaved you might ancestors are not latinx who really do the majority of like Domestic Work and House Cleaning and a lot of areas, but my family is touched by like american empire and colonialism and capitalism and White Supremacy and its all the same forces. And so that was really like i was like i can tell this story and its a story that too i think is underrepresented and the process of writing it though and we have talked about this. Yeah, because so i also i mean i have to kind of overcome this idea that it wouldnt be that interesting to people and thats like internalized whiteness obviously, but but it was also in the process and i was like, oh this is really hard. Its really emotionally wrenching and im interviewing my parents and its really like, im not sure theyre getting what im trying to do and theres so much miscommunication. But im glad that i did it and i was also really it was amazing the amount of filipinoamerican scholarship that was out there that i did not realize existed. And so i was really beautiful to be welcomed into that and to find myself in this really rich landscape of research and writing. Yeah, but what surprised me so you read a really early version of it . And you told me that thats a resonated the most with you and you were like i i dont wondered if you could talk about like why did that because it was it was a complete surprise to me and it was also like incredibly powerful. So i really identified with it. Just sort of as a family story because i think many of us were, you know, im grandchildren of immigrants who came to this country not necessarily because they wanted to but because the whole hitler thing which we know not great, and im also the child of many generations of doctors and so hmm. I think theres way in which i mean, you know is a cliche United States is a nation of immigrants. I think that theres echoes of sort of that weight of history that you might not even articulate to yourself because i dont think about it every single day. I had been thinking about it and i still havent been able to write about it a lot last summer because myself and my daughters applied for austrian citizenship because austria just passed a law that said any direct descendants of Holocaust Survivors could get dual citizenship without stepping foot in the country and we decided to do it we did it. But i still cant explain to myself or to my children what it means to willingly go become citizens of a country that murdered a lot of your family. Yeah, and its not its not funny. I laugh because im uncomfortable. Yeah like and so like, you know, i think theres so many i would guess the majority of people in the United States have some sort of Family History that while not identical to the struggles of your family is something that lingers in the back of their heads and is so intimately wrapped up in who they are what position they, you know take in their own families that sort of stretching back of generations, and i dont know if its you know, we both have two daughters you think of your daughters as potentially mothers someday. Its just very sticky. Yeah, and so i found the way that you spoke about it. Um, you know again another cliche thats sometimes really specific individual stories can be the most universal because those are feelings and thoughts about your own personal history and how we got here or wherever we are in the world that i think just are so incredibly universal and you told them so well, so i i was incredibly moved. Thanks. Yeah, and i mean i was when you reach out to me, this is all like on instagram dm. Yeah, and i was like that. I was like i didnt it didnt occur to me because i know logically like as a writer like the more specific you get the more universal it gets and then but then when youre like, but i have to write about me like i have to write about my mom like i have to dig into that and its i dont know, but i think its a really great point about in america like like, you know even people who are like quote unquote white, you know what i mean . The definition of white was like it did not include italian people right . It did not include the irish people at some point. Yeah, and so theres all of that like, weve all been touched by that sort of like empire and the colonialism and all of those kinds of things are all White Supremacy like i think its a its powerful to think about it that way and when you said that to me, i felt really like it was like this exhale because it was not it wasnt something i anticipated and then coming from you and then when you shared your family story, i was like this it meant so much to me and then it was also like okay it was also worth it, you know, so like all of this like cause it wasnt easy to write, you know, it was really and to like to say, you know, because its dealing with like all of the opportunities in my life including sitting here and talking about like White Supremacy and how we have to undo capitalism the colonial mentality like i get to do this because my parents like submitted to these four cents to a certain extent, you know, who they like gave up something and so thats like a really like try talking about that with your family. You know, its like i think its harder than talking to your racist uncle. Oh thanksgiving. Yeah, whatever. Were all supposed to be doing. Yeah, but i do think that theres like a fantasy that we have that were supposed to resolve it, you know, like our feelings forever about these very deep and complicated and difficult things are not just like well i talked about it that one time and now its done right and put in a box and its over like its like that life, you know, just gonna keep talking about and talking about remember when i was working on the book and i was talking to my therapist and you know, so i like logins is on zoom and am i ever gonna be able to not care like what my mom thinks and if she gets what im trying to do and she just goes i dont know are you and i was and i was like, okay. Thats like i guess were done here. I feel like i just have to can there i cant walk away. Yeah, you know what i mean and like a drink though like real you got strong. I know i was like, all right. Well, ive just been read completely and hard own by my therapist. Okay, like yeah, and thats the thing is like i just keep coming back. I keep coming back to these terrible conversations. Its worth it. I feel like this is the work of like my life. Yeah, but it is um, and its not always hard, but it leaves you raw. Yeah, it does feel i dont know. I just i have to keep trying i like so thats in an interview recently and its really true. Like i honestly i think im a writer because im just desperately trying to explain myself to my parents and just to be like legible to them like because i think were just theres this big Cultural Divide where we love me unconditionally, but like they dont really know they dont really get what i do in some ways and i think like theyre so supportive but i feel like we just remain slightly illegible to each other and so im just like im just i just cant stop trying i just love them. Well in addition to that set of revelations. Was there anything else that in the research or the reporting that really surprised you in a good way . In a good way. Yeah. Yeah positive way. Um, yeah, i mean, so i the wonderful thing that i knew about like i was familiar with black feminism right in intersectional feminism, which is i mean can really crunch i gave us that term but like intersectional feminism is what like women of color and Indigenous People have been doing for a really long time. And so, you know, i was schooled in like feminism in america is like betty for dan is like burning your bras. Like, you know, its its white mainstream feminism and it was really such a pleasure to like spend time in the history of like the National Welfare rights organizing project people like Johnny Tillman and wages for housework like selma james and Sylvia Federici and these very like i mean people i cant believe we havent taken these ideas. Yeah, like 60 years ago. People were like so capitalism is bad right and like if we were to take that out like we solve a lot of problems and also whats good for everyone like these are people who are like poor and oppressed in america and the solution they came up with was like give everybody an income like they were always reaching for the collective and whats best for everyone is whats best for this country and we just we dont hear that feminism. We dont we are not taught that i think like i mean i had to like seek it out. And so it was it was wonderful. I was infuriating in some ways right, but it was really wonderful to spend time in the company of these organizers and thinkers and that sort of generosity and community. Yeah, it sounds lovely and so one thing that i think a lot about and that i think your book deals with really well is motherhood as an identity and being a mother is is one of the most important ways. I feel like i identify myself and yet i absolutely bristle it. Basically every way that mom is constructed in American Culture and i think thats a theme that both books share. So i love to hear you. Talk a bit more about how motherhood is a part of who you are and how that sort of pushes against. How is pushed on you if you understand like this is one of those questions of where im like well just get ready because i actually think i think you might have more interesting things than me to say about this i think about it a lot. I really yeah, i mean, i feel like i love your work because i think this is what you were wrestling with. Yeah, and i feel like youre doing it in a way that is like engaging and youre doing on a regular basis, you know, two regularly good baby. My main thing is that i we talk about motherhood really as like we talk about it in lifestyle terms. Yeah, right like as though the carrier or the pouch of food that you buy somehow gonna like lead to like significant cultural advantages or like who your child is, right . And so we spend all of this time talking about like what you can buy and the things that you can consume and like the choices that you can make right when really i dont like its an issue of resources, and its just a distraction to me from like motherhood is not a lifestyle. Its its life. Right and its not its and its actually not just life. And this is why im also moving towards mothering as a verb because motherhood is in noun is like static and like mothering is a verb like gets to the repetitive the infinitely repetitive tasks in the millions of small actions that like make up a day that make up a year. They makeable life and to me its like im just like a body in action. And so i want to talk about mothering as living, you know as like what were doing every day. And so its all the sort of stuff like i get asked questions about like momfluencers and im like i got nothing guys, like dont have that, you know and like mother just then the other thing thats interesting is like like mother is such a limited term. I got a lot of really interesting feedback after my first book and i took it to heart where people were like your books really important to me, but i feel like you really rely on gender terms and i dont feel included in that. And i was like fair, you know like i feel like im still learning and so this is also my attempt to like also raising children is a social responsibility. Its not like just like an individual family. So im trying to like i dont know like i mother is an important part of my identity, but i dont want to like what it is to me is personal and so i dont need to like that to me is not like the i dont im trying to center that in a cultural conversation. Yeah, if that makes no that makes sense that i mean, i do think that thats something that is often lost is the intimacy of it and to me i think of it mostly as the dynamics between the four human beings who live in my household and theyre just smaller people and bigger people right and the smaller people have less control over what goes on . Yeah, but they still have their own sort of specific personalities and and sort of interacting with them every single day and making sure they have what they need. Yeah, like thats the important part of it to me and all the rest is just noise. Yeah, but theres just so much noise. Yeah, so your job requires you though to be like, okay. I think this is not something thats maybe that interesting or like right . Well not interested. I mean everything can be interesting right if you find the right way into it, but like your job like forces you to like deal in the things that you bristle against. Yeah, so i wondered can you tell can you talk about that . I mean, im just like enraged 40 i think for me. Its just being observant being observant commenting on the culture that we marinate in and that seems to be not like not worthy of comment or just accepted as oh, thats just how it is or someone is just this way or this is just how we are supposed to be and to sort of just hold it up and say it doesnt have to be this way or why is it this way . I think its a lot of explaining why things are the way they are historically and culturally which i think you do a great job. Thats what we havent. Yeah, and i think it is time to open it up to questions in the audience. So just anyone dont be shy. Feel like dont need my its for the its first see its been yeah, how do you not stay angry all the time . And i think part of like i read your first book, you know this in a couple nights. Yeah my phone with a one month old on my body and it like i just was like, this like this. Yeah. Yeah, and it was beautiful and it resonated and you know that but how do you not stay angry all the time . I think these structures are not set up for our success right . Like its impossible to do this. Well, somehow it feels yeah, but yet we have to yeah, did everyone hear the question . So as someone who has struggled her whole life with anger issues. I have to say that i you know, ive its its hard. Its been hard. Its been happen for me like a few years ago, and i think it was like being destroyed by two children right and having very Little Energy and but truly like anger so much energy. And i only have like a certain amount of energy and i cant say this word like theres a number of that i have in one day and sometimes theyre gone like 10 am and i dont have like that. Energy like that the anger really like drains me and so ive had to try to figure out like its like, you know energy can never be can never die it gets like transformed into other things. So this is like i think about this and i think ive thought about how to like and what is it like transmute it right or like sublimated into Something Else and i have to say that one of the things that happened at the beginning of the pandemic is that i read minor feelings by kathy park hong which is like i mean it is just like a monument to anger right in the best way, but i felt like heres someone who has taken her anger and accepted it as part of like her perspective and just sharpened it into like this tool. Thats just like eviscerating systems and every idea that we have and i was like i want to do that and like im not saying that im doing what shes doing, but ive just found a way like, i dont i dont try im angry a lot, but i dont i dont try to suppress it. I try to like turn it into something that feels productive that feels like healthy for me. You know, and because its not great for my kids to see me angry either, you know, and then the other thing is like i think also in the pandemic. Im just like i need to get my life right . I cannot like ive been cooped up. I have not been able to touch anyone i felt so like so like and this is a big part of the book is like its really like about pleasure and like this is our birthright as human beings and like i will not let anger and a system that forces me into this position like rob me of like the like richness of life and like being like a very like sensate like feeling person like and who gets to get to like have fun, you know, like i just refuse and so thats mine. Thats what i do. It doesnt work. Im wondering if you have any like ideas or strategies for like. Turning your caretaking mom brain of mush into thinking creatively and actually putting like fingers to keyboard or pen to paper and especially when you might not have a partner who will like block out your google account for you. And but thats what we all deserve by the way. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah agreed, but the maybe we dont know. Yeah. No. No, im just saying though like i think i mean, i think its no, i mean thats honestly like thats the question like i dont like i dont this was a very specific circumstance. You know what i mean in like i think things were kind of chill on his like work end for a while like we couldnt have done that at the beginning of the year. Like it wouldnt have worked. So i think its sort of knowing when the capacity is there. I think theres also like part of writing and being creative is living and its okay, like honestly to have like fallow periods, right because youre i mean your brain feels like mush, but youre still you and youre still thinking about stuff and so i guess in some level id be like whatever you can do to get a thought down whatever you can do to get an idea down if its like a voice memo to yourself, right or i dont know. I just feel like its maybe its Something Like touching that part of you thats creative like touching it like just like for like a minute a day like nurturing that because you cant just like force it, you know like but its like its a coaxing it back and like letting it come into your life. In a pace that feels right. I think its really hard when you put the pressure on ourselves to be like now, im gonna now im gonna write like now im gonna move into my life. Im gonna start crafting right and i feel like if we make it like that we make it another goal, but it should be something thats like you know, theres this poet yani. I dont know if you guys know yanni, but i subscribe to their his newsletter and well, i dont pay sorry, but there was one that came out. I will one day again, but i have a young quote on my wall that its like in a world that expects like well now im going to mess it up, but its basically like let your creativity and your art and your practice be like a garden that you expect nothing from but that you just nurture. You know, and then i think if you release yourself from expectation, maybe maybe that helps. I have one practical bit of advice which is just like i am contractually obligated every to write twice a week. So whether its good or not coming out to you whenever im blocked i start writing in an email as if to a friend. Hmm because then the stakes are extremely low you are just trying to explain it in plain language that someone who loves you is going to read. So thats like a very important part because i think and you have talked about this too. You know, its just you can really get in your head and be editing as youre writing and i think that theres something at least for me that is very freeing about just like im just gonna write this in an email to a friend who cares like so thats one way that i kind of like. Yeah. The last thing any of us need is another obligation exactly. Questions i am hi. Im so happy for you. What i also love about your writing and with the first book you did this too, but you talk about and you mentioned, you know collectivism, right . And how theres so many amazing social Justice Movements that actually integrate motherhood as a part of you know. I just keep thinking about how motherhood is weaponized by politicians and so a lot of Justice Movements now have to you know reweaponize it or sort of reverse weaponize it or kind of negated or take take gravity out of it, but are you finding it . Did you find any research any particular movements or some new ways of approaching it that are maybe just you know treating with a little more. You know just treating it with the respect, but it because i do find that. In a lot of the justice writers, sometimes its like you know. Like a polish the family is a hero. All right. So like how do you think of that sort of . Yeah. Did everyone hear that question . Okay. I i mean i love this question because its like how do we get past this idea of like violence right of like force being the thing that is like best right . Like i sometimes i find ive even said like mothers are on the front lines like of what and i i mean i thought that to myself for other day, but i found was theres a great. Um, i cant remember the name of the paper the article, but its by Patricia Hill collins. And so this is black feminism and but she cites Barbara Christian and theyre talking about so mother like its really just getting back to like how we lived for thousands of years around the world. Right . Globally. Its like that collectivity and but so Barbara Christian writes Something Like about how in africa right like shes saying that we should really just abandon capitalism in the nuclear family, but how you know, the the home was not ever like it was villaging like the home was never the province of women and men were not expected to be solely financially responsible for supporting a family like everything was done in this. In the shared way and the quote is Something Like theres no doubt that for like many African Women that motherhood is a site of creativity and continuity and im messing it up a little bit. But to me, its really just getting back in touch with that like you know you were talking about like your creative brain feels dead, right . But also like your brain feels like much but like when youre figuring out things like with children like thats like create your youre like putting creativity into practice. And so i i thats the thing that makes me think of is like its just challenging ourselves to see this as like, yeah, like we all feel like were prepared for battle because weve all been living like you know because our government feels like its okay for us to die right like so were all like in this heightened state but like cultivating that creativity being part of like a lineage being part of like thats human history. Thats what mothering is right like it is not. I dont know its hard when you feel like youre under attack in many ways, but there is ill send it to you. But yeah, but he really struck me because i was like, its part of like its like ingenuity. Its just freed me up from thinking like just opened my eyes to like this as a totally different framing and its how many people regarded it for centuries. Like thats i mean violence has always been here, but like but i dont know theres this it felt like the opposite of that. Look at what youre talking about. We can talk about it over a drink later. So you talk about going away for several days at a time over an extended period of time your home with your family. Youre going away to write home with your family going away to write. Im curious if in that kind of whiplashy mode there was any there were any moments of reckoning for you where you came home with a like weve got a talk or weve got a change because of something you discovered in your research or in your thinking that then you had to bring home and practice. Yeah. Thats a great question and i love it because its true. Its like um, you know, my husband, hes everything good and he did do the Google Calendar thing, but but you know, i honestly i have to say like ever since the election of when after donald trump was elected president. They were just like there was some stuff. That was like it was like a earthquake and stuff started coming out of the ground. Like my husbands white and like i mean, hes a labor organizer, right . So hes very progressive and hes like, you know the last person in the room to want to take up space like but and so i always was like, oh we have like that in common, but then i was like you didnt like the day after donald trump was elected. I was like should we get a gun . I mean i was like, this is scary. But like do we need to get a gun . And then i also was like so uh, my i only had one child at the time and i was like so my noli could pass for white so i was like if it comes down to it, you will take noli and you will live his white people and like i will find like, you know, and i mean, it sounds i mean it sounds really dramatic and thats was his reaction. But like i can feel this in my body and its surprised me but like thats where my mind went and he was like i think youre overreacting and i was like i dont think you understand the extent to which i wish i wasnt right and so thats been sort of like this. Im doing of like who he is in the world in the space. He occupies and like how i see the world and i think a lot of that research and that sort of stuff just was like, reinforcing that for me where i was like we need to be having some more and i was like you need to be talking to your children about whiteness. You know, i was like, im always like begging big upping the third filipina right, but i was like you need to be having some like conversations with them. I was like, i need you to do more work right and you know to be fair like this guy is like compared to a lot of people hes doing so much work. But even then i was like its not enough like its not enough in our home like you need to direct i feel like he has a lot of care energy that he puts out into the world and i was like you need to actually be putting some more of that like back into our home. And so i will say that thats like a thats a thing that were still working on and we have talked we talk about it all the time. Through my work. I work a lot with new moms and something that comes up a lot is mom guilt, and im just wondering um, how you think about mom guilt and how you deal feeling that way at times . I would love to hear your answer on this read about the answer, but i want to hear jess. Okay . Well, i think it um i think it depends on the like variety of guilt. I i have never felt guilty about working. I dont know why i dont have that in me. Is it because my mom always worked she went back to work when i was three weeks old and was like, whatever just that variety of 80s mom like god bless her like dont had no idea. I was three weeks old. I turned out fine. So i never i always expected that i would work. My husband always expected. I like didnt have that. So like i cant speak to that i think. As i have gone on in my motherhood journey my older daughter. My older daughter is now 10 and the biggest thing that i do that helps is every time i feel a twinge of guilt, i think. Is this because i actually feel guilty and like this is something i want to work on or is it because its some sort of outside pressure. That is something i dont really care about a sort of mundane example of this is like i forgot to buy a white tshirt for some special event that she had its like every week. It is like some other thing that is buried at the bottom of an email that has 47 bullet points, and i only read the first 46 and she was hissed and i thought bad because i had disappointed her. That is a human emotion. You feel bad when you disappoint someone but then i was like, is it reasonable to really feel that bad . Im doing my best. I read the i even read that email. It just was so far down. I cant retain all that information. So its like that sort of stuff is happening every single day and so like every person is gonna have their their values, right . So its like at the end of the day, its remembering. Its like what are your values not what are their values out there about what they think mother should be like, what is the thing that you think you should be and thats not easy to determine again. Im so much better at it. Now that ive been a mom for almost 10 years then i was when i had a one year old because youre still sort of figuring out what kind of you know what your values are. I mean and that is the essential important task i think for us to do and yeah as parents not just moms. Its like what are our values and how do we want to transmit them to our children . So that seems like a very, you know, very very, you know vaunted response to that question, but that sort of like ultimately when it comes down to yeah, i mean thats yeah, i love where it just landed because thats also i mean honestly, thats like what this book is this is i mean, its me doing anything like what do i value . What do i think what do i want and realizing like i thought i knew its like i had to really its like pushing myself to think deeper and like thats its like the work of being a person right like it you get to a place and you think youre like feeling good and then youre like, oh i have to do this every day. I have to like, you know what . I mean . I do and i think its also your kids change so much you change so much because youre growing older and becoming more seasoned, but its also they change so much. I mean like my 10 year old is like a real person man, and like im having to answer questions where im like, im not prepared to answer this question and im 40, so its just like its constant evolution and i think leaving space for that too. Yeah, like youre not gonna know everything and i think yeah as far as guilt goes like i think its always gonna come, you know, like we can do our best to like banish that like voice but like we live in this culture where its gonna come and so its a little its not exactly like the same as the anger issue but like im like guilt comes and like i try to like that happened and i try to gently push it away. Do you mean like i i want to reject it, but sometimes it doesnt work to just be like, im just pretending its not there forcely pushing it away, but its like okay, i feel guilty about that. What would happen if i just let it if i tried to let it go like maybe sometimes im actually able to do that. Yeah, but i think its also worth like sometimes i feel guilty because i should like sometimes like really irritable with my kids and like its not great. I would love to work on that like am i in im gonna still be irritable with them sometimes but i be less irritable. Yeah. I mean also, i think its not like a its not zero some game. Its like i do a lot of i read somewhere that youre not supposed to apologize to your kids and then i was like, no i was like, i dont think thats right. I was like that doesnt seem right to me. Like i apologize to them all the time. That isnt like please forgive me. Heres a bowl of ice cream, but like its like yeah. Sorry. I yelled at you. I was like thinking about Something Else you had nothing to do with you. Like i feel like the other thing that we can do is like to just be the imperfect humans that we are and like talk to them about it and how because thats also what theyre doing when theyre screaming at you right . Like were actually not that different. I deeply empathize like my younger daughter. Whos five come home every day and just like takes her pants off. She just like comes through the door. She takes her pants off and like shes sometimes she is just like super tired and hungry and she just like loses her much. She take her pants off and lose their mind. Im like, yeah, i do that. I am very much empathize word. Im just not five so i can hold it together. Yeah, not all the time. One more question i have a question. Thats kind of about hope sometimes i feel sort of despondent about systemic change which both girls work as so tied to and i wonder if either of you have a sense of sort of a longer vision or gold or this is where were going you have that sense of momentum and continuity with you know, feminism and people were making change or if its just more existential for yall and youre just like, this is my work. This is whats meaningful to me. Im living in the moment and this is what i do. Ill answer first, but you also have to answer. Yeah, okay, so i it depends on what day you catch me. I believe i do think. By the time that i shuffle off this mortal coil many things will have moved forward. Im very hopeful about that what exactly they are . I dont know. Well the whole system, you know. Even become you know, norway or whatever, you know skin and avian country where worshiping today like, no, i dont think i dont think the United States is gonna do that in my lifetime. Although you know, it would be nice if we had a bunch of those things i think sort of on a daytoday basis like without sounding to saccharin just having conversations as a reporter and as a human being with other people just about their actual lives you sort of disconnected from politics and policy which can just be so sold deadening and just a bummer, but like every time i have a legitimate Human Connection around these issues but also around a bunch of other things even with people who i dont agree with there is something sort of profound about that kind of connection and empathy that you can have on a sort of daytoday basis and feel like you know within a community the other people who are also working on the project of raising children and caring very deeply about that again sort of disconnect like i today just today im starting to work on a story about a poll about the congressional races this fall and when youre looking at statistics like that. National statistics it is just so bloodless. And im sure all the people that they asked again even who i deeply disagree with like remembering at the end of the day that most of them just want what is best for their children desperately. I really do try to come back to that. I mean, you know, some people are just horrible jerks like they exist for sure, but i dont find despair to be productive. And so i try not to um, i get it like its its very hard to maintain. Hope i always think about theres a writer and abolitionist named marion cabo. And so she says that hope is a discipline and thats the thing that i always tell myself. I think were living through a very specific hellscape right now. You know, its its bad, but people have been living through very terrible conditions for like master of human kind right so like i think about i think about my ancestors, you know, i think about people who are living through much harder things and the reason why were here is because they managed to stay alive and to not give up and so i feel like if they didnt do that then like, how could i and thats really what if its in its a practice. You know what i mean . I think it is like its not yeah, its putting it in perspective and i read a lot of history. I mean, were not out here dying of diphtheria. Like i feel and we have my running water. You know, im not i mean not everyone in the United States has running clean water. Yeah, we have that you dont mean so i think that theres just to put it in perspective right . Like i cant be paralyzed. I cant afford like i cant afford to give up hope and its also like i think about i just like just like identify so much with like i i know the things that i want i for this. Country are not going to happen while im alive not all of it. Like they might happen while my daughters are alive and my daughters might be part of making that happen. And so i think that thats kind of just realizing like for me like hope is that i dont know like everything we do is like it what to go back to the beginning it like reverberates through generations, like what we do matters, right . It really does like someone might dig up our stories and what we were like right and some of my care to do that. And so i want to like be like we were here and we we did these things right like all of that stuff. All of that stuff counts and if were not working to like make things a little bit better just even a little bit better for a couple of people like i dont i dont know why were here. Mythology say, thank you
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