The Emotional Labor of Mothers
The Emotional Labor of Mothers  
Podcast: The Brian Lehrer Show
Published On: Fri May 08 2026
Description: Author Alva Gotby's book They Call it Love: The Politics of Emotional Life (Verso Books, 2023), coined the term emotional reproduction to describe the unseen and unappreciated labor involved in maintaining relationships that tends to fall on women in heterosexual pairings. For this Mother's Day, listeners call in to share how this concept appears in their lives and appreciate the emotional reproduction of the mothers in their lives. Photo: A woman gives a child a hug. (Credit: Myles Grant/Wikimedia Commons BY CC 2.0) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.