Who Enjoys The Labor, And Who Does The Labor
one side of the block enjoying, one side producing. the noise came from the centre. the work came from the margins.
Last week in Petaluma, I watched something I can’t unsee.
On one side of the block: families with money, kids running freely, food being tossed without a thought, a singer hired to keep the energy light, parents drinking to soften the overload, and children so dysregulated they were bossing their own parents.
On the other side: immigrant women working a grill, hands moving fast over tortillas and tacos, feeding the community with skill, quietly carrying the labor that keeps events like this running.
Two worlds in one block. One enjoying. One producing.
The people relaxing weren’t bad people. The workers weren’t victims. But the contrast was impossible to ignore.
Joy and leisure weren’t shared. Responsibility and labor weren’t shared. And the emotional load, the real work, was uneven too.
The children who had everything were the least regulated. The mothers who had the least were the calmest.
The noise came from the center. The work came from the margins.
It made me ask the simplest question with the hardest answer: who gets to enjoy the world without thinking about who built it? And who is holding it together, quietly and without applause?
This isn’t about guilt. Because every community event, every festival, every block party from Healdsburg to Petaluma to SF is built on a pattern we rarely name: some people get ease. Some people provide it.
And until we see that division, we can’t change it.