Last RT's: there's a universal understanding that knowledge that a transaction exists takes away innocence, and perhaps that's why people work so hard to not let children know that the work of caring for them is paid?

The boundaries of care workers are expected to be porous for there to be "authenticity".
Everyone, children and adults both, want care labourers to WANT to and be HAPPY about caring for them, not to only be there because they are being paid.
Mother roots.
Problems abound.

People want an authentic performance of care, that does not remind them how hard caring is and that it is actual work. Kids read it as someone coming over to play with them, not manage their moods, feed them, help with homework, cajole them into chores, comfort and cuddle them.

I'm reminded of the romanticisation/valorisation of mother-work on mother's day.
The same with nurses in hospital contexts. People want nurses to care "more". Stay over their shift time. Be available on demand. They feel robbed when someone they know isn't on duty when they come

I'm also reminded of the irrational anger clients have when sex workers remind them that their erotic immersion is a paid experience.
And when people call wives who take a moment for themselves alone "selfish".
The root of all these things is the same.

If children are not clear from the jump how money and service work, there's a LOT of confusion and possibilities for disrespect. Or if it is explained poorly, you get the other side of the spectrum. The "you're paid by my mum, so you have to do what I want."

No surprises that clients of sex workers also say things like "I've paid for an hour, I can do what I want."
Same roots. Of this odd binary that at once wants "authentic" performance to erase value, but is also entitled to full extraction of said invisible value.
Whew.

This thing is gendered (not just women, femme folk. I read a brilliant thread about the deeply devalued mother-work trans femmes do in queer movements); classed (poorer folk); sexualitied (cis het women gay-besty'ing queer men); raced (magical negro trope); abled, etc.

The root is one. The people doing most of the caring work harder and their care is expected to look effortless and be rooted in virtue. The person being cared for believes they deserve the service, and desires to remain 'innocent' re. its actual cost/value.
Mother-roots.

We should interrogate this desire to maintain that particular ignorance, esp re. kids.
I know we want to keep them innocent as long as we can, but to what end is that fantasy?
Isn't a gentle explanation better as an expansive teachable moment than a rude shock?

Why do we work so hard to hide capitalism from the same kids who already know how rich or not each home is from playground conversations and loud discussions about which toys people have at home, and from being told no re. all they want to buy?
What glass closet is that?

Why do parents want to pay a nanny, but seemingly prefer their kids believe the nanny just randomly likes them enough to come play and hang out every day?
I mean it may be cute to some and all, and power to everyone who wants happy children, but what is the cost of that belief?

Why is this the nanny's job at all, to explain that they are paid to care, to children that do not belong to them?
When so many nannies already have to explain to their own kids that they have to leave in the morning to go to another home and hang out with other children?
Yoh.

Invisible transactions erase labour and give the burden of performance to the care worker: the nurse, sex worker, domestic worker, mother, server.
No accident how gendered the dynamic is: who the works, and the performance to invisibilise their costs and values, fall to.

Thinking about all the servers who have to perform perkiness and ignore sexual harassment and inappropriate customers in restaurants and bars to earn tips.
My friend is a personal trainer and she is STELLAR at her work.
She had to stop taking male clients because. !?!?

Personal trainers of all genders and sexes have multiple versions of this story, of the inappropriate clients you have to fend off in such a way that they don't realise they are being fended off, in a way that they don't hurt the client's feelings or provoke their egos.
Yoh.

Hospitals, hotels, salons. ALL service industry workers.
Folks want to be mothered, loved on, forgiven, pampered and given allowances for free, even and ESPECIALLY when they are unkind, cruel, extractive, flat out wrong and disrespectful.
Mother-roots.

And when you look at the stats. The maps of gender roles and the maps of which parent takes the most shit for the least amount of recognition and functional, tangible appreciation, getting faulted for bad parenting when they are the one who stayed, all roads lead to the mother.

Look at independence movements with women erased once victory was won. See male politicians with women shaping every facet of any hint of progressiveness. See churches priding themselves in the unpaid work of catering, Sunday school and choir volunteers, mostly women.
All roads.

All roads lead to the mother.
All roads lead to whoever is doing the mothering, which is the hard service. The one who has to pretend that the work is easy, that it brings them joy, that they want to and are happy to do it, in order to protect everyone else's egos but their own.

Off to sunshine, and Sunday thoughts about soft things and sugar.
/Zagadat

PS. Here is @maidensblade's excellent thread re. queer communities and their trans mothers. The thought I am referring to is below, but the whole thread is brilliant, detailed, insightful and reflective. https://twitter.com/maidensblade/status/1304604644837150721?s=20