Women’s Work: 3 Generations, Mama Works At The Store

My daughter tells people, very confidently, that “mama works at the store,” doing women’s work in her young mind. She’s not wrong, but that sentence holds more than she realizes. A reflection on women’s work, sewing, and the shift from obligation to choice across generations.

With International Women’s Day this week, I’ve been thinking about women’s work. I mean the kind that gets named, and the kind that doesn’t.

My daughter tells people, very confidently, that “mama works at the store.”

I always smile when she says it.

One day she’ll understand that sentence differently than she does now.

To a stranger, that could mean a lot of things. It suggests shifts and schedules. A name tag, maybe. It does not suggest leases or purchase orders or freight invoices. It does not suggest that the store is something I built. It carries my name on the incorporation papers and my signature on the line where it matters.

But she’s not wrong.

I do work at the store. I sweep. I unpack. I answer emails. I stand behind the counter. I sew the pillows we sell.

Lately, when I’m at the sewing machine, she sits at my feet rummaging through my grandmother’s antique sewing box. It’s heavy, wooden, full of zippers and thread and small metal tools that feel like they belong to another era.

The moment I get up, she slides into my chair as quickly as she can. Her hands land on the table, like she’s been waiting for it.

Three women.

One machine.

One box.

Child sits at a sewing machine, embodying the essence of women’s work and crafting creativity in a cozy, homey workshop.

Her, in my seat, and my grandmother's sewing box.

My grandmother sewed because she had to. It was practical. Necessary. Not branded or marketed or photographed in good light. It was simply work, the kind that kept a household running and was rarely called economic.

There was a time when sewing, weaving, mending — when women shaping domestic space — wasn’t described as industry. It wasn’t priced according to margin or freight or overhead. It was expected. It was absorbed.

Now I source linen by the yard. I calculate cost per piece. I consider labour, packaging, tax. I sew, and then I attach a price. I sew, and then I collect payment. The same act, different framework.

The difference between craft and commerce is often just who gets paid.

When she says I work at the store, she’s describing the part she can see. She sees the fabric, the machine, the stack of finished pillows. She doesn’t see the spreadsheets open on my computer. She doesn’t see the risk folded quietly into every decision.

And she doesn’t need to yet.

One day, though, I hope she understands something the women before her didn’t always have the luxury of knowing.

So maybe this part is for you.

You don’t need to inherit the store.

You don’t need to love linen or sewing machines.

What I hope, one day, is simply this:

That you grow up knowing you have choices the women before you didn’t always have.

That making things counts.

That care has value.

That the work women have always done can be named, priced, and built into something that sustains.

Your great-grandmother’s sewing box.

My machine.