Elissa Strauss has been writing about the politics and culture of parenting and caregiving for more than 15 years. Her work appears in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Glamour, ELLE, TheWeek.com, and elsewhere, and she is a former contributing writer at CNN.com and Slate. Her book When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others came out April 2024 from Gallery Books.
In her book, Elissa dives into the social power and transcendent might of parenting and caregiving and explores how exactly it was made invisible for so long. Through memoir and reporting, she attempts to untangle care from the patriarchy and envision a world in which we value care and women’s freedom and independence. Elissa lives in Oakland, California, with her husband and two sons.