'Care' is not a four-letter word

Elissa Strauss' 'When You Care' celebrates the richness of caregiving and urges us to recognize its value

Elissa Strauss’ “When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others” blew my mind in the best possible way. I texted at least three people I know after reading the first 25 pages, and instead of questions to ask Elissa, I found myself just jotting down notes from the epiphanies that were popping off inside my brain like flashbulbs. I was so profoundly grateful to have the chance to speak with Elissa, who has been writing about the intersections of feminism and motherhood and care and culture for the past 15 years. 

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Tell me a little bit about yourself, and about this book: 

I’m a writer, and I’ve spent a long time writing about why we don’t have paid leave and universal and affordable child care and why too many women die during childbirth, and I began to feel like something deeper is going on here; that it isn’t only a policy problem. That, along with a few other epiphanies, led me to writing this book. 

I live in Oakland. I moved here 7 years ago from New York City with my two sons, who are now 11 and 7, so I’m not wiping butts or giving people baths anymore. It’s kind of the sweet spot of dependency because they're not cranky teenagers yet, but they don’t need me for as many basic human functions. 

I’ve run into some conversations online recently about the risks or the harm of talking publicly about the hard parts of parenting, and I’m curious to get your thoughts on this. 

I think this is incredibly challenging and something all of us are stumbling to figure on in this moment. This is not easy and I don’t have an easy answer. I wrote an essay for Slate about why it’s so hard to talk about the good parts of motherhood, and I ended it by saying that we need a whole new vision. It’s not just a matter of stopping complaining or going back to the way we used to talk about motherhood. 

I think we went from the fairy-tale version of motherhood, where it was just ease and joy, to the nightmare version, where it’s all burden and self-sacrifice. What I want for us is to be able to acknowledge the full messy middle of it. I think motherhood can easily be diminished by both the nightmare and fairy-tale narratives. 

Even though I think the nightmare was a really important correction, I think it was maybe an overcorrection. However, I don’t want to put that on any individual, and I try to be really clear about that. And I would never say, just look on the bright side. But I also really find great joy in motherhood. 

For me, my kids are like my safe world outside of the difficulties of my more public life. When I’m snuggling with them at bedtime, that is when I feel ease, I feel right in the world, I feel rooted. 

Can I say that and still be intellectually serious? Or does that make me somehow a victim of the patriarchy? I’d like to think it’s OK, but I think we’re still in this place where speaking of the joys of motherhood or suggesting that we like care is also suggesting that we like the patriarchy. 

We’re still trying to figure out what it means to detangle care from the patriarchy and appreciate it on its own terms. But I do feel authentically, in my life, the joy I can feel has nothing to do with the patriarchy 

Right, if there was no joy at all in raising children, why would we do it? 

Yeah, evolution wasn’t a dummy about it. We have these instincts that are most familiar when you see a puppy or something – that kind of gushy, awwww, cute factor. But there’s also the helper’s high. We are really wired, quite cleverly so, to feel good when we do for others. One of the known ways to cure depression is to volunteer. 

Children can and often are such fun, innocent, beautiful, wonderful, joyous, free creatures that can bring us into a different way of thinking. But it’s clearly so hard for so many of us to access the kind of richness and expansiveness of childhood through our children. 

I wonder to what extent some of this has to do with the sort of intensive parenting approach that has become really more widespread among parents today. If we’re turning it into work, then have we taken some of the joy out of it?  

So much of parenting has become something you do your homework about, there’s a right and wrong answer, and if only you were a good enough mom, you would seek it out, and yet there’s the added pressure of not wanting to appear like you’re trying that hard. It’s become much more transactional.

This is such a deeply no-win situation ,to have to view the relationship in almost bureaucratic, productivity terms.  

You dug into this topic deeply and really explored a lot of the history of how our political and cultural landscapes have shaped our understanding of care work. What surprised you or stood out to you among the things you discovered? 

The first one that really surprised me was the feminism that included care in their vision, which was mostly Black feminism. I really was not taught that in women’s studies classes in college. Now that I look back, I don’t think the word “care” was mentioned once. But there were these feminisms that were bound up in the idea that women should be part of the electorate because of their caregiving experience, because they have this vision of the world that is deeply rooted in care. 

Municipal housekeepers believed the home is everywhere and we can bring our care ethic and our sense of improving the world by way of care into the public sphere, and they did it. They made it so there were public parks and clean drinking water. They were momming everywhere. And like them, I don’t want to diminish the fact that my experience as a caregiver has definitely shaped my sense of right and wrong. 

And for a lot of low-income women, work wasn’t the magic prize. Being able to not work sometimes, or to rest. To not always be working. In the case of the welfare rights movement, to be able to care – that was something you fight for. And I wish these narratives could have coexisted with the other feminist narratives I grew up with.

I love pants, credit cards, premarital sex – all fantastic. And I also would like to see a vision of women’s liberation that includes the right to care and the ability to care well.

When you’re working, where are your kids?

At school! Beautiful school! And then they are in after-care, so it’s a full day. It’s kind of everything. It’s a whole source of financial stability. Part of our decision to decide to send our kids to private school was that public school had no after school. It made private school not that expensive because we had to pay for after care either way. It just shows you how messed up the economy of parenting is. Having a nice supportive place for your kids to be for a full work day is like a miracle. 

Have you chosen to do anything differently as a parent, compared to your own family of origin? 

I love a lot of what my family of origin got right. It was a warm, honest household. We would argue, people would say what they thought. I always knew where I stood. There was a lot of humor and laughter. So I carry on that. 

The stuff that I’m doing differently is probably based on the fact that I, as a child, craved a bit more structure. There was unlimited TV access when I was a kid, and not that much accountability from my parents, which can be a blessing and a curse. I never felt that my achievements were the most important things to them, but at the same time I feel like I could have used just a little more involvement in what was going on. So I do a little more of that with my kids. There should be some structure and accountability 

Finally, tell me something wonderful about your kids. 

Levi has a deeply generous heart — he’s the 7-year-old. He’s so good at saying sorry. He’s better at saying sorry than anyone else. No one is as good at owning their shit as my 7-year-old. 

Augie is this deeply calm presence. He is a bookworm, and there’s something about him where the blood pressure goes down when you're with him. He inherited my optimism, but he has a pure version of it because he’s a child. And just inhabits the world from kind of a gentle place. It’s a pleasure to just be in his presence. 

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You can read more about Elissa on her website, or follow her on Instagram at @elissavery.