“It is draining, tedious, repetitive, but the work keeps us close to one another,” she writes. This is what makes the labor so essential. In fact, a major takeaway of Garbes’ book is that care work is simply not ever going to be efficient. But Garbes told me that while efficiency in parenting is for her sometimes “pragmatic and practical,” it’s not something she’s striving for as a parent. They can feel like quick fixes: easy to implement in the hectic grind culture of America in 2022. Parenting scripts and tricks remain attractive in this isolated environment because they are legible, and also easily digestible. “It isn’t just colonized people who were coerced into adopting an isolated way of life,” Garbes writes in a chapter on human interdependence, “it’s all Americans.” She explores how many beliefs about parenting, such as the idea that two adults (or just one woman) are enough to shoulder the work of caring for children, are hangovers from colonialism. In turn, Garbes’ book shows the growing irrelevance and absurdity of treating parenting as a meritocracy, but also the problems with viewing parenting as an individualistic pursuit.
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