Mothering and more is an extension of my original documentation of invisible labor. I asked participants, women who are mothers, to document their own experiences with feeling invisible while completing tasks that often fall on the shoulders of women in differnt sex partnerships. Research consistently reveals that this coexistence follows the least egalitarian path. Each participant documented their invisible labor in Keyhole Markup Language per instructions which were then etched on acrylic. Mothering and more is simply a queering of the maternal — mother as verb. It is for all women-identifying caregivers, supporting research that partnerships of different sexes see the most significant disparity in domestic labor. Image documentation by Single File Studio.
I used to sign emails to my kids’ teachers with my name, and the title “<kid’s name>’s Personal Assistant.” Beyond the mental and physical load of raising humans, I also have to teach these humans how to, eventually, do this job for themselves. That act of passing on the skills, the wisdom, has become the most frustrating invisible labor for me. I am more than a task master, a good example, I am also carving out my own paths around the expectations and judgements of my mother; I’m living as an artist, a person with different opinions, politics and spiritual beliefs than those which she insisted would keep me safe, protected. The invisible labor of parsing out tradition, resistance, wisdom, growth, change, for myself and my children is a surprising, maddening but worthy burden.
Carpool
South Portland, ME