The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Garbes, Angela. Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change. HarperCollins Publishers, 2022.

Angela Garbes's nonfiction text Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change is written from Garbes's first person point of view and employs both the past and present tenses. The text is organized into an introduction and two parts containing nine titled chapters. The following summary relies upon the present tense and follows Garbes's overarching organizational structure.

In the introduction, Garbes considers what it means to be a mother by describing her mother's lifelong work as a nurse, mother, and caretaker. She goes on to describe how raising her two daughters has changed how she once defined mothering. She explains her inspirations behind the text and her hopes of reinventing stereotypically feminine roles in the home and family.

In Part I, "A Personal History of Mothering in America," Chapter 1, "Mothering as Survival," Garbes describes the ways in which the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic disrupted family lives throughout the world. She describes how the lockdown particularly changed her family life. The pandemic not only altered how families had to relate to one another, but exposed the ways in which historical nuclear family structures no longer work for contemporary American families.

In Chapter 2, "Mothering as Valuable Labor," Garbes considers the relationship between mothering and giving life. Without women and the roles they play in caring for children, society would not survive. This is just one of the reasons Garbes believes society should place more value on mothering and caretaking.

In Chapter 3, "Mothering as Erotic Labor," Garbes references writers Ocean Vuong's and Audre Lorde's writings about loving and caretaking in order to argue that mothering is innately sensual. She speaks about the body as a vehicle for caring for others.

In Chapter 4, "Mothering as Human Interdependence," Garbes describes her childhood holidays spent with her extended family. Whereas these experiences were vibrant and vivid, her life with her brothers and parents felt isolated and absent of community. She wonders how American families might seek more collective and communal forms of caretaking in order to rediscover the innate joys of family life.

In Part II, "Exploring Mothering as Social Change," Chapter 5, "Mothering Insists on Worthiness," Garbes considers how caretakers might teach children about the worth and value of all bodies. She considers disabled and aging bodies by way of example.

In Chapter 6, "Mothering as Encouraging Appetites," Garbes recalls her voracious childhood appetite. Although she did not always like or understand her body, she decided to let herself expand both physically and mentally in order to discover her true self. She argues that all caretakers should similarly encourage children to embrace their desires and cravings.

In Chapter 7, "Mothering Toward Movement," after years of experimenting with different forms of physical exercise, Garbes found Dance Church, an improvisational dance class. The course has helped her to embrace movement as a form of expression and communication. She holds that caretakers should teach their children to be in tune with their bodies.

In Chapter 8, "Mothering for Pleasure," Garbes recalls her earliest sexual experiences. She interrogates dangerous modes of educating children about sex, arguing that sex should be about pleasure for all. She describes her evolved sex life with her husband in order to argue in the name of sex as creativity, liberation, and play.

In Chapter 9, "Mothering as Natural Interdependence," Garbes argues that reconnecting with the natural world might teach the caretaker how to better interact with her children. Connecting with nature, she holds, encourages the individual to embrace quietness and thoughtfulness, both of which are necessities in the care and cultivation of children.