Last Updated on April 10, 2022
I think about this a lot. Leading a team takes a lot of hidden emotional labor. Having a family takes a lot of emotional labor. I’m glad to find a term to describe this work.
Emotional labor, as I define it, is emotion management and life management combined. It is the unpaid, invisible work we do to keep those around us comfortable and happy.
It envelops many other terms associated with the type of care-based labor I described in my article: emotion work, the mental load, mental burden, domestic management, clerical labor, invisible labor
Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward
I wanted to write this for to my newsletter Mental Models Weekly, but I’m not sure if my audience will appreciate this one as much, so I’m just going to leave it here for now.