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Chris La Tray's avatar

I love this interview so much. I keep wanting to quote parts of it but it is fantastic in every word. But the last paragraph especially ... oof. Thank you AHP for this, and thanks to Angela as well for writing. It DOES matter; it absolutely does.

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Seo Yun Yang's avatar

Raising children is a social responsibility -- this, to me, is EVERYTHING. The one thing that made the most positive impact on me as a first-time mom was a neighbor (who was not a mother) giving me words of encouragement and gratitude. The moment I realized I was doing the important work of raising the next generation of citizens, on behalf of our whole society, is the moment I discovered my power as a woman and a mother. This noble work is impossible to fully "hire out" to someone else. So instead of continuing on the nearly impossible path of mothering and staying in my field, I chose mothering.

AHP -- to your question of what is "enough". The framing of that question is itself fraught with all the failings of capitalism. Because there is so far down we can fall, because there is no safety net, we are grappling for individual definitions of what is "enough" instead of having our society collectively agreeing to a minimum level of care and welfare. If that existed, we could focus on defining "enough" in ascent, in striving upwards.

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