STONIER-NEWMAN – Let’s salute those who do the hard work of mothering

 

By LYNNE STONIER-NEWMAN
Contributor, ArmchairMayor.ca

KUDOS TO YOU, you’re right, it is those who mother.

It’s Labour Day again and I was musing about saluting a group for their beneficial work. That took me to the question, what is work?

In our era, defining work is rapidly changing. The traditional eight hour-work days are gone for many of us and the lines between work or non-work are blurry. Is work happening when I sit in front of my laptop not finding the words to put on its blank screen? Am I working when I muse about who to salute this Labour Day? Is someone ‘on call’ working?

And aren’t the consequences of the shortage of workers increasing? Most of us are experiencing those shortages in trying to access both services and products. And around the growing demand, the value of a willing and capable worker is increasing. And, sometimes, becoming more expensive and valued to we users.

For me, that made the choice of who to salute difficult. There are so many people doing essential work. Doing tough jobs in increasingly harder circumstances – some because that’s the work they choose, trained for and want to do. Others because they’re exchanging time for money to provide for their roofs and food.

Who to salute in 2026 certainly encompasses our wildfire fighters and our harried nurses and doctors … and I send many, many thanks to each one this Labour Day.

Then I asked myself, what labouring is the most essential and the most unrecognized? And deduced it is
mothering. It tops the essential workers’ list because not only does mothering perpetrate Canada’s core asset, workers and replacements, aren’t those who mother the most indispensable, hardest to replace workers?

Has their work as a group been quantified as part of Canada’s gross national wealth? And, realistically, how could the value of mothering be calculated? To do an economic study on what is the monetary cost to replace the mothering of a one-year-old and a seven-year-old for one week, 24/7, would be more than complex.

Sure, there are many non-monetary benefits to mothering but as I think back to the hardest and most enjoyable work I’ve done in my long lifetime, it remains my mothering. And, although unpaid in monetary benefits, it’s the most challenging, satisfying, frustrating and, yes, sometimes, repetitively boring work I’ve done.

Is my work that produced many intangible ongoing benefits for me and for Canada, somewhere added into our national worth?

Caring for my babies as each was an infant, a toddler, preschooler, elementary student, high school, trade training or university was, from my perspective now, the most beneficial and all-encompassing hard work I’ve done during my lifetime. And my mothering has given me ongoing satisfying personal benefits; two greying-haired adults whom I exchange special relationships with and whom I’m proud of
and respect.

Let’s analyze and value of the skills I utilized – and I’ve not included the category of birthing as that doesn’t fit all who mother. In that total, I’m including the work of the families’ in-house mothering temporary replacements like fathers and grandparents.

We’re who wipes faces and bums for free. Who figures what food fits in the budget, prepares it and – sometimes, even supervises and/or shovels it into a reluctant little mouth.

What’s the value of ensuring a toothbrush is used, that the lunch box has food in it, and is actually carried out the door?

Not only does mothering include tucking someone into bed, it necessitates ensuring there being the warmth of sheets, blankets, clean diapers, sleepers, jammies, nighties … and, as the infant becomes an adult, moves on to gifting classy PJ’s or far-out t-shirts.

Those skills and use of tools portray some of the complexity of the unpaid work of mothering. And although I’ve summarized some of those below, recognize it’s a very brief and incomplete summary.

Qualifications mothering requires:
1. A human able to provide younger humans with warmth,
patience, compassion, protection and care
2. An individual to be on-call 24/7, able to provide physical
and mental energy for indeterminate hours.
3. A person good at repetitive training with patience and an
excellent sense of humour.
4. Able to function within a system where the relief person
taking over for a shift can change without notice. Note: no
overtime bonuses are available when that occurs.

Perhaps suggesting how we can quantify the necessary and intangible talents and abilities required in monetary values while supporting a young growing person’s needs as well as his or her wants and aptitudes is pie in the sky?

Yet … I’m curious.

What would that end total be of monentarizing the hours spent nurturing, protecting, teaching of how to honour and respect, how to be clean, safe, to enjoy play and becoming a worker?

There are many estimates available around the costs involved in to fund raising a baby to adulthood. But is the many years of work necessary adequately valued in our Canadian workplace?

Perhaps long-term mothering is impossible to evaluate and calculate within the current economy – and needs to remain mainly unpaid – but the benefits of mothering deserves more recognition.

So this Labour Day, let’s salute those who do their valuable work of mothering.

Lynne Stonier-Newman is a resident of Kamloops. She’s a social marketing and communication consultant, and a B.C. historian and author.