Wrestling is Part of It: Finding a Philosophy of Care with Elissa Strauss
Andrea Hiott in conversation with journalist and essayist Elissa Strauss, author of When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others, framed by the host’s view of care as an embodied, orienting force and “minds as actions.” Strauss distinguishes “caring,” social-status “not caring,” collective/kumbaya care, and “dependency care,” which she calls a “Hotel California” relationship you can’t easily exit; she argues dependency care is fraught, messy, and misunderstood when treated as pure altruism. She describes moving from fast-paced feminist journalism and a policy lens on U.S. caregiving failures (including lack of federal paid leave) to a deeper account of motherhood’s embodied realities, attention, and moments of union and estrangement with children. The discussion links care ethics (
