Alison Pugh

That's my father's background.

But he had no idea that my great-grandmother was a contract bride from Southern Italy.

She was not literate.

And he saw this external self and not this part that is actually a big part of my identity.

So that was a misread, I would say.

Yeah, I mean, it was a kind of jarring moment, but I did still know he was a nice guy.

There was nothing pernicious about it.

But

there was, it did make us a little more distant, you know, or it did make me see, it helped me understand how little he knew who he was talking to.

So connective labor is the work of seeing the other person and having the other person feel seen.

And it's all the work that that requires, from reflective listening to kind of adjusting what you're saying, given how they're responding.

It's an interactive dance, and the interactive part is very important.

Yes, exactly.

They underlie so many occupations from therapy, you know,

teaching, primary care, but also your hairdresser, your real estate agent, your soccer coach, the lawyer, there's the manager for sure, high-end sales.

There's many, many people who use this kind of connective labor to achieve the outcomes for which they're getting paid.

Exactly.

I mean, those are really great examples.

You know,

The fact that we associate this kind of work with only very particular, very kind of feeling professions mean we're really underestimating its prevalence and its importance.