A lovely day
Hi friends,
I trust you are finding your way today. Could I ask a favor? Based on what I hear from you all, more people might like to read this newsletter. Could you take a minute to think about who that might be, and forward this to them? I’d appreciate it.
I also want to thank you all for reading these notes through these past few weeks - I haven’t had as much time to devote to this space, but I’m still trying to bring you some nice sentences on Fridays regardless. :) Ok - on to said sentences…
Hi. When I launched Care & Feeding this past September, I’d been thinking a lot about how the idea of care was an undervalued one in our culture:
In a world that assigns value based on what we do for work and how productive we are, care - whether it’s part of your job or woven into your life - is often marginalized or devalued... But it’s also a central part of what makes us human.
If caring is central to our humanity, then we’re all super-humans right now. We’re staying home because we care about others getting sick. At home, there’s work-work if we’re lucky, with an extra dose of care work on top. Making sure we’re on an even keel (are you? I hope you are) so we have energy to cook the meals, do the emotional tending-to, check in on the grandparents and the school work, watch for when the kids turn glassy eyed and squirrelly from too much screen time, keep the place somewhat clean, maybe even obsessively tackle the garage and the linen closet and the yard and the stack of art projects and the -
It’s a good time to ask: what was slipping through the cracks before the days became epochal? I wasn’t doing all of this care work in the pre-covid era. But as we’re doing it now at home, I see its value more clearly.
I see it because this catastrophe forces us to think about the inequities of the systems we rely on to get the care work done. We outsource a lot of it - often to women of color (cleaning, childcare) who are poorly paid and have very little job security, or to high-growth startups (grocery delivery, food delivery) with the same low pay and low security for workers.
And I see the value because all of this care work has replaced racing from activity to event to appointment. The days and weeks that usually pass by instantly have slowed way down, and in that slowness is more awareness of the present - which can make life pretty sweet. Even when it doesn’t feel that way in the big picture - and I know for many of you, there’s more uncertainty than ever.
But I’m wondering - when this is over, will we value care more? Will we make space do do more of it ourselves, and will we add our voices to change the way care workers are treated, compensated, and protected in this culture?
The way we value this work has to change - and we do, too.
How can we change, as individuals and as a society? Among other things, we can stop obsessing over productivity and growth, like I started thinking about in last week’s note. On the personal level, I love this sentiment from the book, How To Do Nothing. Author Jenny Odell suggests:
I’m suggesting we protect our space and our time for non-instrumental, noncommercial activity and thought, for maintenance, for care, for conviviality.”
Cheers to that. When this lifts, it’s gonna be all noncommercial conviviality all the time. It’s going to be a lovely day.
Thank you Bill Withers - I’ve been listening to his music a lot these past weeks. RIP. Anyway - time to check in on a crying, squirrelly child. Onward!
XO
Leigh