India, Oct. 3 -- It was Socrates who essentially said: Put your own mask on first.

"Epimeleia heautou" or "care of the self" was central to his discourses on ways to tackle life's challenges, including parenting. A 4th-century-BCE book by his pupil, Plato, describes how two Athenian fathers sought Socrates out, looking for advice on how to best educate their sons.

Socrates redirected the conversation, Plato notes, to the critical philosophical question: How can we truly care for others without caring first for ourselves?

It seems like a simple enough idea. Yet, particularly given how it can intersect with aspects such as feminism, motherhood and race, the idea of self-care has always been a political one.

As recently as the 1960s, mot...