Janelle E. Wells, Ph.D., and Doreen MacAulay, Ph.D.
Our (In)visible Work
Summer is the main season for moving. Boxes have been bought, taped, and loaded, and the physical reality of moving is all bubble-wrapped and tightly stuffed. Some people ask friends to help carry couches in exchange for pizza, while others gasped at the price and then paid the movers for full service. Even though everyone has estimated time and measured doorways, somehow miscalculations occur.
Long before the first roll of tape is unraveled and long after the last box is unpacked, there is an entire layer of unnoticed labor involved: the invisible work of moving. And until you are in the thick of it, you have no idea, or have forgotten, how heavy the workload is. From the endless administrative paperwork to the waves of emotions, the work compounds.
The Labyrinth of Moving Paperwork
Moving becomes a full-time administrative position, just with higher stakes. More than just signatures, the paperwork demands your timeliness and hypervigilance. You are a forensic accountant digging up bank statements or tax returns, proving where a gift transfer came from, and deciphering the foreign language of insurance. You may find yourself signing disclosures for a water line you’ve never even seen, reviewing Docusigns at midnight, or learning how to do a wire transfer for the first time.
When you are moving with children, this administrative footprint quadruples. You aren’t just transferring a life; you are transferring an ecosystem—requesting official school records, booking pediatrician appointments, filling out dozens of emergency contact forms, researching who accepts your updated insurance plan, and finding out if they are accepting new patients.
Separately, each form, whether for you or your family, is a small, mundane task, but stacked together, they form a mountain of cognitive overload. Every pending email or unsent record can become a micro-stressor quietly humming in the background of your mind while you try to remember your next task or where you packed the coffee maker.
Fresh Starts Still May Have Grieving Hearts
The true unseen burden of moving is not the physical effort of lifting boxes or the mental load of administrative paperwork; it is the emotional toll required to dismantle one’s life and reconstruct another. Typically, moving is surrounded by forward momentum language like “new beginnings” and “exciting chapters,” but what about those visible height marks on the pantry door or that familiar squeak on the third step of your stairwell? It is the grief of saying goodbye to the places and people that shaped you, buried beneath the urgency of closing dates and utility setups. It is the mental load of keeping track of a hundred moving parts while maintaining a calm exterior for you, your coworkers, and/or your children. It is the silent work of making a strange new space feel like home, one small, intentional step at a time.
Those with dependents, particularly parents, become a shock absorber. You also become a full-time teacher of transition as you find yourself explaining abstract concepts like “keeping in touch” and “long distance.” Research published in the Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare and the Journal of Happiness Studies notes that moving creates acute stress for developing minds as children process transitions through a lens of powerlessness. Overnight, their environment, their routine, and their social circles may change. When a child throws a tantrum over a mislaid toy during the move, you know it isn’t about the toy. It is about the loss of control. So, you absorb the outburst, set aside your own exhaustion, and hold space for their anxiousness or anger. This emotional labor has no paper trail, yet it demands more energy than packing or unpacking an entire kitchen.
