The Labor and Life of Women

 I was thinking this morning as I was making breakfast about all the uncompensated labor of women that makes the world run.

I am an early riser and have been for all of my life, some of it ingrained from my stepmother who insisted that we all be up, washed, dressed, and ready for breakfast by the time she got home from her night shift at the hospital. My Dad had to be at work at 8am and of course, we had to walk to school, I so I get the o'dark'nine-ness of all my upbringing in the seventies.  

It carried over into my adult life.

Once-upon-a-time in another life in another city and another person sharing my dwelling space, I had to be the one who lugged laundry down three flights of stairs to the laundromat early in the morning to try to get a load in before catching the train to work. Why were women's lives less important? Less worthy of rest? I remember how this other air-breather would sleep in while I labored. Then I had to lug the stuff back up to the flat and get my son and drive to the babysitter and then get myself to the train for my corporate job downtown.

Did I mention all this had to be done and I had to be in my seat at 8:30am?

So I have always been a "get things done" kind of person, understood schedule and routine.

I was thinking about all that this morning as I was boiling eggs, buttering croissants, and pressing coffee.

We make the world turn.

We remember the doctor's appointments and the list of immunizations our kids need for school. We remember the teachers and the assignments and the schedule for after-school activities. We are often the ones remembering when it is trash and recycle day and yes, the ones doing that late night or early morning laundry so the house has clean underwear.

We make the world run.

In my musing while also unloading the dishwasher from the night before and cleaning up my breakfast dishes, I thought about what would happen if we stopped.  If we just sat down and didn't do it anymore.

I am fortunate, in some ways. 

My husband enjoys cooking and when he and I formed our family thirty years ago, we shared about our pet peeves and what we do and do not like doing.  

He is not much on cleaning up, but he will if pressed.

I'm not much on cooking anymore, but will if pressed. I do make a great brunch, though.

He takes his own clothes to the dry cleaners and Sunday afternoon is his laundry day.

I make sure the sheets and towels are clean and in the linen closet, I take care of the table linens.

Each of our kids were taught how to do their own laundry, each of them had a day, especially when my sons reached puberty - no mom should have to wash those sheets!

But I thought about all the women who juggle it all and still have to be at work on time and carry more of the mental and emotional work of space.

We are exhausted.

Honestly.

The lot of us.

So I see something shifting in 2026.

Perhaps it was after the hellscape of what the "men in charge" have done in 2025 and the literal barn burning happening in every sector of life.

Maybe it is just the exhaustion of trying to fit into a prepubescent image of what an ideal woman is that has caused many to gift up trying to fit Pilates or a waxing session into their already crowded life.

Whatever it is, I feel the shift.

Even as I am shifting with my youngest daughter about to enter her final semester of college. I'm not managing the life of anyone else anymore and after 23 years away from my high powered corporate life, I get to go back and focus on those things that utilize my gifting in ways being the. home manager did not,

Now, don't get me wrong.

I'm neither angry nor bitter over the 23 years (except for the lost high power income, the loss pension and what not). I was fortunate to have a supportive spouse who valued what I was doing in keeping our daughter alive (she was very very sickly as a child with monthly endoscopies and multiple doctor's appointments for her rare illness). Plus, ,he and I had made a decision early in our marriage that we would not upgrade our lives to match our income (when we got married, I made more money than he did and had the health, etc, but we lived on one income). This saved us from the time of calamity and loss. So, I deeply value how he has managed our financial structure, of course his high income position, and the ways that he has planned for our children's children. I am blessed in that regard, so I do not hold resentment in the years lost from moving up the corporate ladder of my brand and product marketing career.

I was able to shift and manage my life, career, writing, and ministry around my children's schedule.  The non-profit world became my focus that allowed me to manage the household and him to manage multiple universities.

It is perhaps from the perspective of my privilege that I do stop and think about all the women that make the world run and who helps them.

The coffee shop, for instance, where I used to always go after dropping the girls off at school, had a woman barista. This was always in the morning.

Even when I was in my residency and would have to try to grab a latte before being at the hospital for that 8am meeting, it was a woman who was making the world run.

And women deserve all the credit that they don't receive.

It has been in this past year, especially under this regime-of-spite-and-hate, that women's lives have been unraveling because of things outside their current control.

But I noticed a shift.

The women who said they were not just going to be a trad wife so some ChadBradConner type could get all the glory in an office and then go booze-it-up with his buddies after work to come home to a steak-and-potatoes in the immaculate kitchen with the 2.5 kids already in bed so he wouldn't have to deal with them, and oh, that wife better have dropped all her baby weight and got tucked or nipped so she still looks like the prepubescent waif he pined for. The women decided to stop.

Back in the 70s, it was The Global Women's Strike and an entire country of women from sex workers to teachers to wives all sat down. Literally, sat down. They didn't cook, didn't clean, didn't give up the good, they did nothing until women were equally compensated for their time and energy. Dr. Selma James was the lead of this and I had the privilege of meeting her in my activist days back in 2014. 

What if women did that now?

We are more than half the population and at least for my race and ethnicity, we are the most educated.

We are smart enough to run it.

We understand logistics and operations.

We know how to get things done.

We get negations and contracts.

We could definitely turn it right-side-up-again.

What will it take?

Probably the ones who don't look like me to realize they have more in solidarity with their sisters than with the tikitorchkhakipantsmaskwearingthugs who are wrecking lives and stealing possibilities.

The world exists from the unpaid labor of women - globally.

Our lives are more than what some man determines and I just hope we collectively realize that.

Maybe it will take us teaching and telling our daughters.

That is what I have tried to do in the years they have been alive (they are 24 and 22, respectively).

Yes, they watched me manage it all and at the same time, watched me go back-to-school for my second master's degree, watched me pivot to my interests, watched me preach, teach, speak, organize, and mentor. I was honest with them about my life (well, you don't have to tell your children every single solitary detail, but enough for them to understand choices). I shared my unmet dreams and where I was at their stage of life.  I also reminded them that they had a strong foundation and were not raised to just be someone's anything but their own everything.

My daughters are everything I hope and in them, I do see the possibility of what it would look like if women chose themselves.

One is in a committed relationship with her college beau, but she was not pining for a MRS with her B.A. She is in grad school in an entirely different state, pursuing her own interests, and yes, her own investments. Even when she finishes and they intend to live in the same city, she wants to have her own for a few years before they decide they want to dwell in the same place. They travel and make their own lives a priority as well as their relationship. That makes me smile in so many ways. 

My other one has dated and has had the fortitude to kick a dude to the curb if he bothered her peace or sensibilities. She is the one about to graduate college and has a vision for her life that does not wrap itself around being booed-up by the time she gets her B.A.

That is something I am thankful for the generation before me (I came up in the power suit 80s when women were juggling it all - remember Diane Keaton in that movie? That was me racing to my corporate job in the big city in the 90s). determined that they had gifts and talents far beyond just being someone's anything. 

I am also thankful for the season when Black women were Mocha Moms and decided that they could have it all, but not all at once. Being a Mocha Mom when my daughters were little was a godsend for me. It was actually the first time in my life when I was an at-home mom. My sons all had the mom who dropped them off at daycare or school before zipping off to my career.

Former First Lady, Michelle Obama, has been a great inspiration of what it means to have it, put it aside, feel al the feels about that, and then, pick up what and who she wants. Her podcast and her honest conversations with women in shifting times of their lives, has been amazing to hear. Yes, we can have it all, but not all at once, and yes, there are times when we can resent the ones we share space with who get to just go on and build careers without worrying about the playdate or doctor's visits.

What I have learned and what I believe I see women realizing is that we do get to center ourselves and we don't owe anyone anything.

We are the smart ones, the dude are not always the ones that know much.

We can be inventive.

We must protect our peace.

And we do make the world go round.

So why not make it go round for ourselves and speak what we want?

For me, that is part of my transition coming up.

My family supported me when I said this was what I was going to do and they had to make adjustments, even with this next and hopefully final move, they are the ones who have to manage the packing and unpacking. I will be in another state, sitting with people contemplating the meaning of life as they reach the challenges of life.

I guess my morning musing over a brown sugar latte, boiled egg, and croissant is that this world can be better, it was not made just for women to be the unpaid, unrecognized, uncompensated lap dogs so everyone else can shine.

We make it happen.

So watch us do that in 2026.

©2026. Watching the world wake up somewhere in Connecticut looking forward to Vermont.