The Care We Carry: What Feminism Forgot About Motherhood
There’s a weight to the care we carry.
Not just physical… though our backs will testify.
Not just emotional… though our hearts often feel threadbare.
It’s structural. Political. And far too often, invisible.
If you’re here, you probably know this weight. The kind of care that doesn’t clock out, isn’t fairly shared, and isn’t valued by the systems around you - or sometimes even by the people closest to you. This isn’t the care found in greeting cards. It’s the care that holds a disabled or neurodivergent child’s life together. It’s invisible infrastructure. And it’s the kind of care even feminism often forgot.
“The care I give isn’t a lifestyle. It’s the invisible infrastructure that keeps my child, our family, and (quietly) our society from collapsing.”
The Feminist Omission
Feminism promised visibility, validation, and equality. Yet too much of the mainstream conversation wasn’t built with carers like us in mind. The familiar slogans - economic independence, reproductive choice, sexual liberation - matter deeply. But where did caregiving fit? Where did mothering fit? Where did disabled children and their families fit?
Many feminist spaces framed motherhood as a personal choice, a lifestyle decision. When you’re parenting a disabled or non-speaking child, that framing stings. It erases systemic failure and the way families are forced to absorb shortfalls in respite, therapies, and inclusive education. Our barrier isn’t just a glass ceiling… it’s the missing scaffolding under our feet.
“I didn’t need motherhood to be de-gendered… I needed care to be named, resourced, and protected.”
The Ethics and Politics of Care
When feminism leaves gaps, care theorists have been building a bridge. Care Feminism reframes care as the central political question.
Joan Tronto argues care is “everything we do to maintain, continue, and repair our world.” It’s the foundation, not an add-on.
Eva Feder Kittay names dependency work - the labour that sustains those who need support. Everyone is dependent at some point (infancy, illness, disability, ageing). If care sustains life, why is it unpaid and undervalued?
For carers, the “mental load” isn’t a meme… it’s project management under pressure: therapy schedules, communication tools, school meetings, sensory planning, follow-ups with teams, rebuilding after setbacks, regulating siblings, running a household, and holding the emotional weather of the whole family.
This is work. And calling it work is not selfish. It’s accurate.
What Care Looks Like (Up Close)
Care is concrete:
Packing PECS, reinforcers, snacks, noise protection, and water… before sunrise.
Prepping for a support-plan meeting like a court case: evidence, language, strategy.
Applying for help via forms that require you to list every deficit.
Being the bridge between love and bureaucracy, the glue between broken services, the translator between a child and a world that isn’t built for them.
Weekends alone with two kids. 5:30 a.m. starts. Appointments with both children because leaving one home isn’t safe. A thousand decisions you never asked to carry… made with care, precision, and love.
“No one else called it ‘care.’ But that’s exactly what it was: layered, constant, consuming.”
When Love Isn’t Enough
We do this because we love our children. But love can’t shorten waitlists, fund therapy, deliver respite, or end school exclusion. “He’s so lucky to have you” is kind, but it isn’t a system. When people frame our survival as heroism, it lets institutions off the hook.
“Love shouldn’t have to carry what policy refuses to hold.”
The Emotional Toll
When care is invisible, the cost becomes internal. Ambiguous loss creeps in - not just about what your child can or can’t do, but about the life you thought you’d have, the friendships that couldn’t hold your truth, the version of mothering you imagined.
Schools can be the tenderest wound. Being told your home tools (like a tablet for regulation) are the problem rather than part of the solution. Keeping calm to avoid being “that mum,” even as you hold the emotional architecture of your child’s entire day. The labour of buffering others, softening your sadness, performing positivity… while no one thinks to hold you.
Naming Your Labour Is Resistance
The most radical act can be calling what you do work. Not to strip it of love, but to make it legible. Legible work can be resourced, shared, and protected.
This isn’t a “me” problem… it’s a systems problem.
This is an economic model problem that depends on unpaid carers.
This is a gendered and ableist expectation problem.
Kittay talks about nested dependencies: children depend on us; we depend on the system. When the system fails carers, families collapse—and children fall with us. Calling that “burnout” is too small. It’s a failure of design.
“Naming care is a feminist act.”
Reimagining Care, Reimagining Feminism
What if feminism started with soft floors instead of glass ceilings?
Infrastructure, not platitudes: reliable respite, livable carer’s incomes, inclusive schools, functioning therapy services.
Care as leadership: mothering recognised as strategic, skilled, and socially essential.
Interdependence as strength: building networks where access needs are seen and met - what Mia Mingus calls access intimacy.
If systems truly valued care, carers would be paid a living wage not tied to a partner’s income, respite would be routine not a miracle, and disability teams would provide therapies rather than outsourcing the work to parents under the banner of “empowerment.”
Until then, we keep telling the truth.
Let’s end with a breath.
You are not “just a mum.” You are a lifeline, a strategist, a world-builder. Your care is love—and it’s labour. It deserves to be honoured, shared, and resourced.
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If this story resonates, you might find my free guide The First 30 Days especially grounding — a gentle companion for those early weeks after diagnosis. Download it here →
