Every Mother is a Working Mother is a machine that exposes the deep economic inequalities parents face in the US, that devalue and underpay care work.
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The project compares a restaurant-cook to a parent-cook, letting guests observe how one is recognized as real paid work, while the other remains an unpaid labor of love.

Cooking serves as a proxy for work that goes unpaid when parents do it - similar to laundry and cleaning staff, Uber drivers, nannies, event organizers, and more.

01. Insert coins -> Coins are distributed based on financial compensation in reality.
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02. Turn Handle -> Activates system of gears to makes figures cook while moving coins across table.

Result -> Over time, the restaurant cook’s storage tubes fill with coins, while the care workers remain nearly empty.

This illustrates the lifelong economic disadvantages of care workers - most often women - that reinforce the global gender wealth gap.

Read more about my research and process in my thesis paper below, or download the paper here.

Care work is often physically demanding, thus well suited to be represented through a mechanical system that has to be physically powered by users with a lever for example. Inspired by automaton machines, I built several prototypes of moving figures.

Inspired by BlakeFall-Conroy’s ‘Minimum Wage Machine’, I decided to make both figures move coins across the table into containers. The unpaid care worker - the mother - would receive less coins while doing the same work, thus visualizing income inequality.

Automatons rely on accuracy, sturdiness, and durability to work. This influenced my fabrication methods. All components were 3D modeled in Rhino.

The base of ‘Every Mother is a Working Mother’ is fabricated from steel. The material is associated with industrial labor and emphasizes the project’s discussion of what is seen as ‘real’ labor, and what is not.

The mechanism inside my project uses a system of gears to turn rotation of a crank into movement within the project. Rotation is translated across the piece through resin printed gears.

To achieve a high degree of accuracy for the gear encasings, I CNC cut the wooden and aluminum encasings. Each of them consist of multiple pockets—areas where material is removed along specific tool paths, and drill holes for secure installation.

I had the wonderful opportunity to exhibit Every Mother is a Working Mother at our thesis show at Parsons. Check out our thesis website!