MJ Benson
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
