Mothering is a verb. It starts with labor, and what follows is more of the same. Most of that work is invisible — cook, clean, repeat.
Angela Garbes began her journalism career writing about food but shortly after she became a mom, she published an article about breast milk that catapulted her career in a new direction. She has since authored two books on motherhood — Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy and Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change.
Like a Mother started as a story for Seattle's The Stranger and became the paper's most-read article. She started her job there when her first daughter was eight weeks old, writing about restaurants and bringing her Filipino heritage and other cultures' perspectives into the conversation. "Breastfeeding was easily eight hours of my day," says Garbes. "Exploring breast milk felt like a natural extension of what I was doing."
"Like a Mother" started as a story for Seattle's "The Stranger." Photo courtesy of HarperCollins.