Emotional Labor, Elastigirl, & Me by Kay Bee

Last year, I turned 40 and started grad school while working part time at the public library as the Children’s Services Manager, living in a cohousing community, volunteering with my Sisterhood, and raising three teenagers. I’m between semesters at the moment and I’ve had a chance to do some reading by choice instead of reading by syllabus. One of the titles I picked up during this semester break was Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward by Gemma Hartley.

I’ve also had the chance to curl up with my family and watch a few movies. In addition to our epic Marvel chronology review project, we decided to snag the library’s copy of Incredibles 2 (2018) for family movie night. Despite the fact that the original movie released when our eldest child was only a year old, my teenagers have always been fans of Baby Jack-Jack and were excited to see this sequel fourteen years in the making.

I was about halfway through Hartley’s book when we sat down to watch the Parr family pick up right where they left off at the end of The Incredibles (2004). And less than a quarter of the way through the film when Fed Up and Incredibles 2 collided spectacularly inside my head. I spent the rest of the film thinking about emotional labor, parenting, and midlife career change. Continue reading “Emotional Labor, Elastigirl, & Me by Kay Bee”