Who tends to my toddler

On caregiving as a mode of rebellion

Me and Bo, my toddler

I wouldn’t be able to start this newsletter without the help of my toddler Bo’s many caregivers. So, before I dive into all things Buddhism, I want to take a moment to recognize those who’ve looked after him over the past three years—it’s because of them that I’m able to write to you.

As I write, it’s just before Bo’s 8:45 p.m. bedtime. I move between hiding places—the basement of my parents’ house, my bedroom, and his playroom (where my desk is)—to squeeze in some writing. My partner does his best to distract Bo, but most of the time, he comes storming in, asking for mommy.

I often struggle to find uninterrupted time to write. Is this just a hallmark of early parenthood? After three years of graduate school, sneaking away from my son to finish weekly assignments, you'd think I’d be used to it.

But more often than not, while in the middle of a paper, his cries would become so long, so intense, that I’d drop everything, crawl out from under my laptop, and scoop him up to nurse. Both of our eyes would be wet—me wondering if it was all truly worth it.

Bo, our dog, and my partner, Dylan

When Bo was born in 2022, I took eight months off from my studies. Given the lack of paid parental leave in the U.S., it felt like both a curse and a blessing. To finish my degree, we enrolled him in daycare for $1,700 a month. I worked full-time while also maintaining a full course load to keep my scholarship. My partner dropped him off each morning, and I rushed home from Manhattan to pick him up by 5:30 p.m.; I often arrived to find his voice hoarse from crying.

Eventually, I left the full-time job and pulled Bo out of daycare. We hired a part-time college student who had recently immigrated from Colombia—the only person who would accept $20 per hour.

Once I graduated, I realized I wanted to use my master’s degree to do something meaningful. But to make a livelihood from independent teaching and writing, I needed more affordable childcare.

This brought us to the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, where my parents had retired. Bo now attends daycare four days a week for 15 hours. We pay $700 a month for an unlimited number of hours, though we don't yet take advantage of them. My parents help watch him for a few hours in the afternoon, and having four adults to manage cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, and laundry has made a huge difference.

All in all, I now get about 20 hours a week to work after showering, meditating, therapy, exercise, and life admin. This may seem wild, but having this amount of time for research and writing feels almost decadent.

For the first time in years, I’ve had time to think about... well, anything. And I’m finally processing the gnawing feeling that something is fundamentally wrong with motherhood and America’s failing childcare system.

For the past two years, I’ve been haunted by Jia Tolentino’s essay on motherhood as a mode of rebellion. Tolentino reflects on her experience with her first child and how the demands of caring for an infant almost decimated her. She writes that she recently hired a nanny three days a week to care for her baby, explaining she could afford to do so because "a person can get paid more to sit in front of her computer and send a bunch of emails than to do a job so crucial and difficult that it seems objectively holy: to clean excrement off a body, to hold a person while they are crying, to cherish them because of and not despite their vulnerability."

She continues: "About a third of the childcare workers in the United States live in or close to poverty; the average annual pay for such workers is less than $26,000.” I reflect on how I’ve relied on underpaid women—who can’t afford daycare or nannies for their own children—just so I could survive, get through graduate school, and now write this newsletter.

I think of my 66-year-old mother, watching my son while cooking our meals, helping me pursue my dream of teaching Buddhism. Then, I think of her own dreams—what she sacrificed to raise me and my two siblings.

I wonder about all the mothers and parents whose voices and stories we haven’t heard, because they lack the resources or family support that have made my path even remotely possible.

Bo decorating our Christmas tree this week with my parents

Tolentino’s piece is sparked by

Angela Garbes

’s book Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change, which explores the notion that raising children should be recognized as a public, universal, social responsibility. Garbes writes about the necessity of community support, highlighting how raising children shouldn’t fall exclusively on mothers, parents, daycares, or nannies.

Paraphrasing Garbes, Tolentino writes: “It requires seeking alternative visions of security and opportunity for your children; it requires surrendering advantages and becoming more dependent on others, not less.”

Garbes points to mutual-aid-based childcare, babysitting co-ops, and practices that reintroduce the "village" concept—collective support systems that used to be the norm but have long since eroded. She acknowledges that "meal trains, playdates, and hand-me-downs are not proper substitutes for a society that provides affordable childcare, adequate wages, and time for leisure, but these patchwork solutions are precisely how so many of us survive. We will always find a way to take care of one another. When we lean into this natural, unstoppable, and very human urge, the results are expansive.”

I wonder if moving in with my parents to a town of 4,500 overwhelmingly white and conservative residents could be considered my own version of what Garbes is suggesting? After all, it’s not just meal trains that have allowed me to return to work, but consistent, reliable childcare.

While some people might be put off by the idea of living with their parents, we genuinely enjoy it. My mom jokes that the house no longer feels like a mausoleum, thanks to Bo’s giggles, tantrums, and small footsteps echoing through the halls at all hours. At the same time, I feel a deep unease knowing that my mother, who dedicated her entire midlife to raising kids and caring for my grandmother with dementia, is now taking on the responsibility of caring for my child as she enters her late sixties.

Desiree Cooper writes about JD Vance’s suggestion that "the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female is to help raise grandchildren," calling it a violation of his grandmother’s memory. Cooper shares how she left her job to work part-time when she had her two children and spent the past five years in her sixties caring for her aging parents while becoming the full-time guardian of her three grandchildren. She considers herself lucky to be in a position to care for her family, but she also notes the immense personal cost.

Courtesy of Desiree Cooper via MSNBC

According to the Center for American Progress, "A woman who is 26 (the average age of first-time mothers in the U.S.) and earns $44,000 annually will lose a cumulative $707,000 over her career if she stays out of the workforce for five years." This doesn’t account for the financial toll on women who become caregivers for aging parents. Cooper points out that if a middle-aged woman leaves the workforce to care for aging parents, the financial loss—through lost wages and Social Security benefits—can amount to $324,044.

This doesn’t even begin to capture the mental, emotional, and physical toll of simultaneously caring for young children and aging parents.

What does a system of childcare look like that resists JD Vance’s sexist and ageist vision of caregiving roles? One that’s truly anti-capitalist and accessible? Mutual-aid-based childcare and co-op models need to become mainstream, not just niche solutions. The reality is, for most of us, these networks are still small, scattered, and informal. Parents are then left to suffer until their children are old enough for public schooling.

I wonder if my decision to move in with my parents could be seen as a form of “surrendering advantages” and becoming more dependent on others. Or, is it just another way I’m reinforcing a culture that ultimately doesn't serve me, my mother, or future generations?

It seems that, with most things in our society, I shouldn’t bear the weight of this impossible decision alone. Instead, we must work together to build community-based childcare systems, even in small towns like the one I now live in. We must continue pushing—against overwhelming odds—for a universal childcare system that doesn't force individuals to sacrifice their health, careers, and futures.

If we keep relying on the individual sacrifices of parents—especially mothers—and the unpaid labor of grandparents, we will only continue patching things together. As we already know, the revolution that must come is not one of individual efforts, but of collective action. It’s about reimagining a future where the care of children is not a solitary burden but an essential, shared responsibility.

So yes, I will continue to lean on the support of my family. But I also know we must invest in community resources and organize models of care that are already working elsewhere.

We must cultivate a culture that values the work of raising children, not as an afterthought, but as a foundation. Only through these collective actions can caregiving become a true form of rebellion.