Honoring All of Your Labor
We live in a world with a distorted understanding of what constitutes work. If you’re paid to do it, it’s work. If you’re not paid, it doesn’t count. Our activities are assigned value or lack thereof based on a misguided notion of perceived productivity and the assessment of their worth is not always, or even often, congruent with what truly serves any or all.
Our limited perspective about work profoundly hinders our ability to think well about how we spend our time, how we earn and relate to money — the entire way we structure our lives and our societies. Because we collectively believe that activities are only of value if they are paid and if they are considered productive in the narrowest sense, it is those activities that we recognize and prioritize. We do so at the expense of so much that is critical to our individual and collective well-being.
There are huge and heavy oppressive structures and systems impacting us. There are financial needs and considerations. There are demands on our time. But it is the internalization of oppression — the small, rigid boxes we are trying to conform to and contort ourselves into that are as much, if not more, in the way of visioning and creating better lives for ourselves and for all.
Our narrow notions of work, rooted in histories and systems of oppression including sexism, classism and racism, erase and dishonor huge realms of labor. Some of the most critical labor that supports and sustains individuals and communities is not considered work and is often barely noticed at all. The erasure of labor is especially rampant for women, people of color, people outside the US, working class people and elders.
My heart breaks every time I hear a mother say that she is not working when she is doing the unpaid labor of raising a child. The role of parent is one of the most difficult that exists, requiring a wide array of complex skills with little to no training or support. The working conditions are harsh and isolating and the hours have no boundaries. Parents, especially mothers, are subject to constant, uncensored judgment and critique. To say this role is not work is absurd.
There are a multitude of other examples of erasure of all types of meaningful labor. Work that is relational, creative expression and the work of making art, work inside homes and work creating and fostering networks of connection are some of the unrecognized, disrespected, mostly unpaid forms of emotional, physical and intellectual labor that hold our world together. We would all benefit greatly by recognizing and resourcing this work and those who do it.
I worked with young people and their families in a community that was primarily low income, people of color for a decade and a half. My work there was one of the most meaningful, impactful and difficult roles I have ever inhabited. It was life changing for participants and staff alike. And as so much valuable work is, it was unbearably undervalued and underfunded. I and so many of us in my field internalize that judgment and to this day I have a hard time honoring the significance of this work that I poured my body, heart and soul into for years.
I worked for a few years counseling people to declutter. Almost no one takes this work seriously, including myself at the time I began it as a side endeavor. Decluttering is not thought of as important labor. It’s something most feel they don’t have time for. Yet the excess of unexamined material things that people are holding onto, especially in the United States where I live, is doing much harm and is very worth tending to. When people take time to face the physical manifestations of their life history and unprocessed emotions and then make change, the impact is profound. Through this work, people access greater creativity, productivity and peace, not to mention the relief to our planet of having a more intentional relationship to material things.
Those two jobs were part of my paid work history yet I’ve worked as many, and likely significantly more, hours of unpaid labor. I’ve served on boards, coordinated volunteers and played a host of other roles in various organizations. I’ve washed dishes for my exhausted friends with young children. I connect people with each other. I find and connect people with resources. This work is generally “behind the scenes,” conducted in what is considered “spare time,” mostly invisible, even to me.
As I have broadened my understanding of work, I’ve come to use more discerning language, such as “paid work” and “paid job,” which help us see all the work we and others do, regardless of financial compensation. That is not to say that much of the work that is currently unpaid should not be paid. So much of it absolutely should be. But the first step is to notice and recognize that it is work at all.
Walking in the woods has become one of the most important things in my life. By our societal standards, walking with trees is certainly not productive activity, yet I have found I am most generative, creative and inspired when I am with nature. My mind expands and flows as it does nowhere else. My motivation and ability to move into action increases dramatically. Recently I was feeling stuck in the writing of this piece and spent hours making myself sit in front of my computer. It was quite unpleasant and not very fruitful. It was not until I noticed and untangled from the pattern I was caught in that I took two consecutive walks in the woods and gained the clarity and confidence to come back and write with ease and flow. Yet I still often have a nagging feeling that I am doing something wrong when I take time to walk among trees.
What actions, thoughts, longings and knowings are you suppressing? What are you not allowing yourself to express? What have you decided is unacceptable, unallowable and impossible? What internalized judgments have disconnected you from your own thinking and agency?
The limiting framework we have understandably but wrongly accepted is hindering our ability and willingness to make change. By broadening and deepening our lens, we can see more clearly all of the work we are currently doing and more effectively discern what is right for us. We can allow ourselves to explore possibilities regardless of how unrealistic or wrong they feel. We can think and live more flexibly, creatively and boldly, creating new possibility for change in our lives and in our world.
