 Welcome, everyone. And thank you so much for joining us and the New America National Fellows program on this webinar and discussion of Jill's Philippa, Philippa, which is book. Okay, boomer. Let's talk. So I'm Bridget Schulte. I'm a former fellow myself. I'm the now I'm now the director of the Better Life Lab, the work family justice and gender equity program at New America. And I'm so pleased to welcome Jill, as well as 2020 fellow Josie Duffy Rice for this conversation. So before we get started, please note that copies of okay boomer. Let's talk here. It looks backward on the webinar. They're available for purchase through our book selling partner solid state books. So please find the link to buy directly on the New America events page. So let me give brief introductions and then we're going to dive right into this really exciting conversation. As you've heard before we, we do want to open this up to questions. So we're going to first talk with Josie and Joe, and then open it up to your questions at about 1230 so please be putting your thoughts your comments any questions that you have into the chat and we'll get to them about midway through the conversation we're really hoping to make it very interactive. And Jill, as I mentioned, she's a national fellow with New America. She's a journalist based in Nairobi in New York City she's the author of the H pot, the feminist pursuit of happiness. She's also a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. She's a journalist for cosmopolitan and CNN. She is an editor at NYU's NYU Laws Journal of Law and social change a contributor to the Yale Journal of Law and feminism, and the anthology. Yes means yes visions of female sexual power and a world without rape, which is named one of the best books of the year by publishers weekly. There's a number of other accolades as well. Josie Duffy Rice, she's the Eric and Wendy Schmidt fellow she's president of the appeal, a news publication that publishes original journalism about the criminal justice system. She's focused primarily on prosecutors and prisons and other criminal justice issues, her writing's been featured in the New York Times New Yorker Atlantic Slate and others. She's working on a book about the fundamental impulses and instinctive emotions that drive mass incarceration, and she also co host the podcast justice in America. So, welcome Jill, welcome Josie. So let's let's dive right in. Jill, you know, let's kind of just set the table you talk about this is about okay boomer and I noticed that when we were putting out social media telling this webinar, and you were talking about how, you know, millennials are really the canary in the coal mine. You know that there is a lot that millennials are experiencing, you know, young people throughout history have certainly been at, I guess, a disadvantage if you will when you look compared to older folks. And yet there's something very particular very, very, you know, the deck is really stacked against this, this generation. And yet, I did see on my Twitter feed, somebody just said, yeah millennials wait your turn. You know, and so I'm wondering if you can talk about the, you know, not only the, you know, kind of this, the unique situation that millennials are in, but also that kind of, oh, you're impatient wait your turn, you know, you're just young. Talk about how this generation of young people is different from other young generations. Sure. It's a great question because it's something I hear all the time to write when you're writing a book that has a slightly provocative title. The pushback often is, well, we had it tough when we were young to no one has it easy. Everyone got hit by the recession. Everyone is being hurt by coronavirus shutdowns. Which is true. Nobody has it easy when they're young. But millennials have faced a really discreet set of circumstances and challenges. And I think when you compare how boomers fared when they were our age to how millennials fared now, you can really see those differences coming to start relief. So for example, millennials are now the largest adult generation in the United States. We make up about 22% of Americans. And yet we hold only 3% of our country's wealth. When boomers were our age, they held closer to 20% of the country's wealth. So they didn't hold quite as much as their generation actually accounted for population wise. But it was trending in that direction. That simply hasn't happened for millennials. You look at political representation. 80% of the U.S. Senate is over the age of 55. And most of those folks are boomers. Some of them are members of the silent generation. Yeah, I used to cover Strom Thurman. I mean, I covered his 90th birthday. I mean, that's insane. I mean, I don't even know if he was, you know, cognizant. And he was being rolled onto the floor to vote. Yeah, it's crazy. So there are no millennial senators under the age of 40. So there are no millennial senators. And that wasn't true for boomers. I would need to go into the exact count, but eight or nine different baby boomer senators who took their seats when they were in their 30s and certainly more who took their seats when they were in their early 40s. Millennials today are between the ages of 24 and 40. And the idea that we should have to now wait our turn to take our fair share of political power to get our fair share of the vast wealth and benefits that this country has provided to baby boomers is frankly insulting. It's silly and and it's a historical. So, you know, Josie, let me bring you into this conversation. Why is it like this? Why, you know, can you talk a little bit like from what you've seen in some of the work that you've done and some of the reporting that you've done. You know, one of the things Jill that you talk about in your book is how millennials are also much more diverse than baby boomers. I think they're a racial component to this racial and ethnic component that really kind of stacks the deck against against this young generation that's different from previous young generations. Josie, can you can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean, I think there probably is a racial component. There's also stuff you see like none of my friends have pensions right now. Nobody here. I don't know a single person in my generation was a pension. You know, none of us belong to unions. None of us have sort of these like fundamental kind of structural protections that were put into place. You know, in the past century, half a half a century to century to kind of protect people and their futures. And I think that kind of goes along with the emotional like social component of being a millennial where like, you know, that the perception is that we're very sensitive and that like we need to have, you know, the things the way we need to have them without really acknowledging kind of the economic uphill battle that we face that I think really does present kind of a true existential problem for my entire generation. Right. And it sort of felt like, like I graduated from college in December 2008 literally finished and was like watching the market just explode in front of my face. And it has defined my entire career. It has defined like what I've gotten to do, what I decided to do for grad school, whether or not taking bones out for grad school made sense, whether I tried anything else and it will define the rest of my like in that way it also defines my kids life, right, because like what I'm able to provide him, or like can I send him to good daycare or whatever it is and it really like, I hear all the time like Joe was saying, you know, we just need to sort of suck it up. But really, they think the thing about like being a millennial today is that like the cliff feels right there. Like there doesn't feel like there's any space, you know, to lose your job for a few months, or to have a medical emergency or anything because there's no societal protections that have existed for other generations, and we're so much bigger. Right, like, and there are so many, frankly, just many more of us than, than, you know, than other generations. So, so I mean, I think, I think, yes, there's like a racial component to this, there's probably a gender component to this, there's probably an education component to this but there's also just a fundamental what does a society owe to the people in, you know, to the people that it represents and the people that it that it that it encompasses and the and I think, and so many ways millennials have been left out of the protections that are are, you know, our predecessors had I mean, like in Georgia, we don't even have teachers unions anymore. Like we don't have anything, you know, and, and these are the kind of systems that you're always hearing blamed for the state of America, while you're watching them be eroded. Right. It's really, it's quite terrifying. So, let me go, let me go back to you and let's kind of take a step back and, you know, and a breath. What made you want to write this book, you know, and, you know, and so much of what what both you and Josie have been have been talking about is sort of a real misunderstanding of this generation and and sort of what you, what you face. And I'm just so struck by that, you know, the, you know, the lack of pensions and the lack of unions, how did we kind of how did we get here to the point where there is so much precarity that the clip is right there for this generation, how do we get here as a nation, kind of what decisions led us to here. And then what were what were the decisions that led you to want to write this book. Yeah, so, you know, the reason I wanted to write the book is that like Josie, I also feel like I look around at my life. I'm 37 years old. I'm, you know, at the sort of most privileged end generation, right. I'm married. I have a law degree. And I'm still tremendously in debt. I look at where my parents were at my age and they just seemed so much more stable and adult like, and I'm still checking to make sure I don't overdraw my checking account on a regular basis, you know, I'm an adult woman. And so that sense of, you know, is there just something wrong with me, and then look around at all my entire cohort, you know, everyone I know and we are all very much in that same boat, which was so different from our parents and predecessors did make me want to explore these questions more and you know, then sort of okay boomer meme, which engendered so much pushback from boomers, and you know, from which they felt clearly very profoundly insulted. To me, that was a really interesting moment, because it's like, Oh, you guys just really don't get it. You hear on Fox News about how we're all spending our money on avocado toast and we're sensitive and, you know, there have been Fox News headlines about how millennials are scared of plants. When I read that, I'm like, wait, what? I kind of am, to be honest. You're kind of afraid of plants, where did that even come from? I can't keep them alive, so. So you're afraid of the millennials intimidated by plants? Right, right. I'm the problem. Industry of, you know, fear-mongering about millennials and young people that does seem quite resonant among baby boomers. And so I wanted the book to be a look at exactly Bridget what you just asked, how did we get here? And the answer to that is multi-fold, but a lot of it does come down to baby boomer politicians and then politicians who were elected by baby boomers. A lot of this stuff was put into place by Ronald Reagan and that sort of snowballing effects of tearing up the social safety net and frankly tearing down the ladder that allowed so many boomers to climb into little collapse. Things like affordable public education, things like at least for white baby boomers, affordable housing, preferential mortgages, the ability to be a homeowner and build generational wealth. And what you're seeing now among millennials, and this is where I think it's important to really emphasize that there is a tremendous racial component here, is that like Josie said, generation-wide our futures have been stymied and our opportunities have been curtailed. And that's been true, again, because of political decisions that were made when we were small children and because of financial explosions beyond our control, first the Great Recession. And now millennials have also gotten hit the worst by coronavirus financial impacts. But there's also a degree to which millennials of color have been hit much worse by all of these dynamics and are much more vulnerable, again, because of these long term, these long ago made decisions that are now impacting their lives. So, you know, kind of the best way I can explain this is, you look at a millennial who was born, you know, in 1983, let's say when I was the year I was born. And that millennial is black. That millennial's parents were much less likely to own their home than a white millennial's parents, right, because of things like redlining because of things like preferential racist mortgages. So then that millennial has less family wealth to draw on when they want to go to college. And our millennials are the most educated generation in American history. We were told go to college. And that's the path to the middle class. It actually turned out that was less true than we had been promised. But if that, if that African American millennial goes to college, they are then going to have to take, they're going to be much more likely to have to take out student loans, and they're probably going to have to take out more. And that's what happens, something more than 80% of black college students took out loans for what college was closer to 70%. So, you do see a big gap there. Black millennials were also more likely to be working full time when they were in college. And that's in part because, again, you have these huge racial wealth and income gaps. So black students are more likely to have to work not just to support themselves, but also to send money back home and help support our family unit. Millennials have more immigrants in our generation than any other. And so you had a lot of millennial immigrants who were also helping to support family, the world over. And that just was much less applicable to your average white millennial. Once that millennial graduates from college, they're going to have more student loan debt. And then a black millennial is still facing racist hiring and pay practices, which are even worse if you're talking about a black woman, right? So lower pay, less chance of getting a job, even with the same degree and even with the same credential as a white millennial. You then add on to that, that jobs now are very, very concentrated in cities. So it's very hard to get a job in an affordable part of the United States. Chances are that millennial is going to be moving, you know, not necessarily to New York City, but to some relatively major urban center. And what researchers have found is that even when you look at rents and what tenants are offered in rent for similar apartments in similar neighborhoods, black tenants pay more than white tenants. So you're running on this additional racial tax stress in housing. You put all of that together, you know, it's all of these things impact millennials, right? High cost of education, high housing costs, you know, rent and owning a home is now twice as expensive as it was for young adults in the 1970s. That's true for all of us. But millennials of color, black millennials specifically, get hit with these kind of extra one to punches all along on every level of this. You know, Josie, you've really looked a lot at mass incarceration, and I can't help but think that this is also a part of the, a part of the puzzle, a part of this kind of picture that's emerging. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, about how you see kind of structural racism and mass incarceration as being part of this, you know, this larger picture and what this generation is forced to grapple with. So, I mean, I think everything that Joe just highlighted, really underscores the battle that millennials especially millennials of color facing. Part of that, and another, and another element of this that that contributes to the fact that that we're talking about a generation that doesn't see its government working for them is this role of criminalization and mass incarceration right so, you know, we are a generation where, like, when you look at the early late 80s through the mid 2000s you're seeing a major just upslope in the number of people going to prison, being cycled in and throughout jail in and out of jail and you know having interactions with the police and what just reduce every single level of power in a community so like when I graduated from college I worked at the Bronx Defenders which was in the South Bronx which was then the, the, the poorest congressional district in the United States. The fact that so many people in that community had were in prison or had been to prison just decimated the economic power of the community the schools in the community the parks in the community right the social services in the community. And this was a community of, which is now a community of millennials right and this is the nature of a world where, at its worst one in nine black men would would be sentenced to time in prison one and, you know, one in three black men. One in nine black men were in prison one in three black men I think would be sentenced I think what was what the statistics were in 2008. And so this, this, the fact that we have been so comfortable as a community as a society, removing black and brown people from their homes for infractions that you know we would never remove the upper class white people from their homes. Right, and completely taking them out of the economic system not just while they're incarcerated but for the rest, generally the rest of time I mean once you get out of prison finding a well paying job finding a job that has that is to, you know, stable being able to take care of your family becomes just drastically drastically more difficult if not impossible. And so I think we'll notice I've also been growing, you know, raised under the specter of what your government does is is punish you and surveil you and monitor you and regulate you, but they don't take care of you and they don't protect you. And they don't, they don't provide the safety and the freedom that they talk about. And I think that's really, really a big part of this I mean I think back to what some of the conversation was during the presidential primaries and a lot of it was like what is really being free. Are you free. If you can't feed your family. Are you free. If you can't, you know, if you can't find a job. If you can't find affordable housing like Jill said if you have to move to a city that you can't afford to get a job is that freedom. And I think these are the kind of questions that really have shaped the way that we are able to reimagine what the future could look like. Because it is it really does present some real conflicts you know these are ideas that have to be undergirded by your by your system by the system for them to have any meaning and right now they do that doesn't exist. Right. So I'm just going to remind everyone again. If you've got questions if you will have a comment. Go to the bottom of your screen there's a Q&A function. You know please feel free to use that type that in we've got the new America events staff is going to be monitoring that that we can pose your questions or get your comment to to Jill and Josie. But Josie let me let me kind of build on on a little bit of what you said and also Jill a little bit of what you said. You know Jill you talked a lot about how these are choices that we have made you know political choices that got us here. And yet the kind of the cultural narrative is like oh you snowflakes oh you boomers it's all kind of like mass individual failure which you know I do a lot of gender equity and work family issues and that's the narrative there as well. Oh you can't figure out how to make your family work. You can't figure out childcare. It is your fault because it's a private and family responsibility without recognizing that we are part of this much larger system and the system doesn't work. And a lot of that you know you mentioned these were decisions that were made you know when you start looking at the 1980s and you know Ronald Reagan and deregulation and pulling back like you mentioned the safety net the the ladder and and became this almost religious belief that free markets would solve everything. And even in the face of all of this you know now world on fire data during this pandemic you know right in front of us that it doesn't work. There doesn't seem to be you know you look we still don't have a third bailout you know and people's unemployment insurance benefits the supplement is gone it expired and there isn't any kind of movement to actually you know to do something meaningful and large. So so knowing that there are political decisions that got us here there are political and policy decisions that need to get us out of here. You know I wanted I want to go to some of your ideas in a minute but first let me ask this. Mitt Romney recently in the last couple months had said you know Donald Trump's going to win again for a couple reasons and one of the biggest ones is because the people who are most active and most energized and out there protesting. And he called it young people and the minorities don't vote. So talk a little bit about that we need political change we need kind of policy change. And yet young people, minorities, they have some of the lowest voter turnout rates. Can you talk a little bit about that and how how do how do you get that to move how do you get that to change. I mean before I mean that's intentional. I think this is narrative about young people don't vote, because we're disengaged we're lazy. We don't care. I don't know that I buy in a, it is absolutely true that young people tend to be less engaged with the formal political process than older people that was true and viewers were young to if you go back and you read the New York time from the 1980s. I mean, I don't have any plans about how do we get these young boomers to get to the voting booth and eventually they did in 1984 and they reelected Ronald Reagan so thanks for that. I did not vote for him in 1984. But what you're seeing now is a long standing concerted effort on the right systematically disenfranchised voters of color. You've seen it in court gutted the voting rights act. You've seen it now with Republicans who essentially realize that the more people you enfranchise and the more people who have the ability to cast their ballots, the less well they do. If they cared about people voting and young people voting, we would all be able to do mail and balance. We would perhaps even have electronic voting mechanisms that were saving secure. We wouldn't disenfranchise and I think in 11 different states people that have committed certain felonies after they have served their time are no longer allowed to vote in the US. We would not have hours and hours and hours long lines outside of voting stations in communities of color. We wouldn't have courts for example in North Carolina striking down Republican quote unquote voter ID legislation that they said and I'm going to get the language wrong here but something like precision targeted at disenfranchising black voters. To me the issue is less you know let's all kind of yell at millennials for not voting and more let's ask well why isn't it easy to vote on a college campus. Why do you have to wait in line for hours to vote wise to wise voting day not a national holiday. I'm not sure how young people and voters of color to the voting booth if those are the same folks who are tend to be working multiple low wage jobs cobbling together. A bunch of different resources to try and feed their families and then you're also expecting them to go stand in line, you know, in Atlanta for five hours to have a political voice. The system has been set up again against young people against voters of color. And I think the answer is not, of course, I would like to see more millennials getting the support of for example Democratic Party to run for office. I think that that would be energizing for young people I think that it's important. But really we need to knock down these intentionally erected barriers that keep us from voicing our political beliefs. I just see, you know, again, can you, you know, can you expand on that again with a lot of the work that you've been doing in the justice system. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right that like what we have it's so funny when people are outraged by low voter turnout because we live in a country that has basically signal to us at every single juncture that they don't want us voting. Right, they don't want the left voting, they don't want, you know, they don't want progressive voting they don't want urban people voting they don't want black people voting they don't want brown people voting and they don't want young people voting. And so the fact that now that's been internalized by many people should not be particularly surprising like she'll set it sort of how the system is set up exactly what they, what they want, right. And I also think, you know, I used to get really upset when people didn't vote. When I first met my husband he was like I only voted once I was like okay well this is not going to work out because that's ridiculous. But like, it's, it is, it is you I it makes a lot more sense to me the older I get. And the more I move into like the age brackets for more more people vote, because the civic engagement, the changes you see in policy across the country and like what the overtone includes right and what people are willing to talk about don't happen at the voting booth. They happen by civic engagement on every single other level. They happen on the like much maligned social media, right, they happen in books like this one they have what we're talking about is a level of a level of what it means to actually be civically involved in your community that doesn't begin and end at the voters, the voter booth. I understand, you know, like I have a grandmother who fought for the fought to get rid of the poll tax in Texas when she was 15 she's still alive like the idea of not voting to her is is unfathomable and totally understandable and she's probably the reason I show up every time. But I, it doesn't, it's not actually logical way to spend your time and a lot of communities you show you get there, you spend seven hours in line, and then your vote doesn't count, or there's some something in your way or your kid can't vote because of something that happened when he was 18 and he got a felony he pled guilty to a felony or whatever it is. And so you see just the impact of a country that has said, we don't value your vote over over and over. This is what happens, right. And I don't think it's particularly surprising. So listen, we've got the first question here from Sophie, let me read it to you. She says it's common for younger generations to butt heads with their parents generations. How do past intergenerational conflicts compare to current ones between females and boomers. Are there lessons to be learned from past generational conflict, or is this conflict unique to the present moment. So Jill, can you start with that one for intergenerational warfare is definitely nothing new. Humors themselves should understand this probably better than anyone because you know when they were kids there was any young adults there was so much hand wringing about all the ways in which they were doing it wrong. There was a famous Tom Wolf essay in New York magazine called the new generation. Maybe boomers were this generation of self involved naval gazing narcissists, you know, following either maybe it was Christianity, maybe it was Eastern mysticism, but that they were all just completely interested in self examine by their sort of hollow empty selves. And before boomers and everybody was concerned about like beatniks, you know, they're, you know, Randy poetry. So this is the idea that the kids are doing it wrong is definitely not new. I'm sure by the time millennials are in our 50s and 60s, you know, we're going to be complaining about whatever young kids are doing. I don't understand. Like, I already I'm like, I don't get tick tock. I am I'm already trending that direction. And so this tension between boomers thinking that millennials are all, you know, entitled kids who have it easy while they had to walk up, you know, walk to school uphill both ways. Very far from a new dynamic. I would say what is difference about the millennial boomer divide is that I'm not sure you've ever seen a generation of American history that has been as dominant as boomers have for this long. There has been a boomer in the White House as either president or vice president since 1989. 30 years, and there's never been anywhere younger. You've had a few silent generation people, right? Dick Cheney, Joe Biden. But you've never had a Gen X or never had a millennial. And so they have had this total stranglehold on American politics for the entirety and 37 and then for the entirety of my life that dominated the electorate. So that I think is different that not only they've been in charge for so long, but they also have been totally unwilling to see really any power or to share it and boomers are staying in the workplace longer. They're not as they're not retiring as early as previous generations. They're certainly saying in Congress a lot longer. And they're saying legislators for much longer. So that sense of generational friction where I think millennials feel like, well, our lives have been indelibly shaped by you guys, often for the worse. And now you're refusing to step back, even though the oldest millennials are 40. You're not letting us come in to the same kind of power that you held when you were our age. I think that dynamic is new and is very real. And I think grievances on the look on the millennial side are pretty legitimate. Mm, Josie, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting point because it does it's sort of the tone is sort of step back, let us show you how it's done. When what I think our generation is trying to say is that the way you're doing it doesn't work for us. Right. And it's not it's not benefiting us. I mean, I do think, of course, like, you know, we all my parents left their parents were like, didn't get it right. I'm sure I can tell you right now that I'm going to be confused by stuff that my kids are that my kids generation does that is not going to, you know, is not going to make sense to me kind of culturally but I think what we're what Jill is really getting at is that power and the power dynamic here. There's such a stranglehold. You know, you hear anytime anybody under 45 is talked about a politician has talked about it's like the young and upcoming like the youth like the, and it's like these are like it's not to say that like being 45 is old but it is to say that like that feels like a reasonable age should be a politician. Right. And the narrative is like always that these people are too. These people don't get how it's done they're too young to see how it's done they're too radical they're too. And it is. I mean, the gender and racial elements of that are obviously exacerbate sort of what we see but I think it exists kind of across class and across race and gender to represent the fact that what the the society is not is structured so that millennials are the invaders, they're non employers, and that really impacts everything right it really impacts the entire way that it really structures our entire future. Yeah. And that really, I mean, it's terrifying, I think, for people who, like Joe said, I'm a, I'm a full adult. Like I'm like, there's nothing there this, but it doesn't always feel like we have that level of control over our own lives. You know it's interesting so I know I was chosen to be the facilitator of this because I am technically a baby boomer you know I'm at the very tail end I was born in 1962. But a lot of what you're saying really resonates with me as well. And I think what's important to recognize is that the people who have been making the decisions who are holding on to power. They are a particular type of baby boomer and let's face it they're white men. And so if you are not a white man in that baby boomer generation. There are many of the things that you're talking about that sense of being left out that there might have been other protections. Maybe my college education didn't cost quite as much as my kids, you know I've got to, they're not millennials are Gen Z, I guess the next one down. I've been saving it since the day they were born you know so there are, you know, there are things that are felt their pains across generations and I think that it's really important to really name kind of where that the stranglehold of power is and it's really white man. I just want to say it's sort of an interesting point right because so often it is, it is your generation that ends up having to take care of the millennials that can't don't have the tools to take care of themselves because of the, you know, because of what they face and I think about my mom is a baby boomer she babysits my kid every day because right now it doesn't make sense for him to go to school but also I don't want to pay I can't pay for for a nanny I don't you know we don't have that kind of so that like there's so much kind of When the when the societal structures kind of fall away, who has to fill in the blanks, and it is, it is individuals across all generations that have to fill in those blanks. When, when society is basically, you know, creative policies that don't make it possible for people to adequately stand on their own two feet. Absolutely, and it's your mother, right. Yeah, yeah. So let's go to the next question because it kind of gets at some of these some of these issues. This is from Melanie she says I come from a country where political choices mean I have no student debt, and I'll have a state pension, but one that will be less generous than my parents. So the issue is global, although with nuances. I'm curious to hear if beyond the US specific policies. If you found systemic reasons for this generational gap globally. So Jill, let's, you know, let's talk about that because, you know, one of the things that we certainly look at is there are our other countries that have, you know, adequate, if not generous social safety nets, they have social health and welfare systems in the United States we spend as much on health and welfare as say the Nordic countries in Scandinavia, the differences, they do it collectively and then everyone benefits, we do it individually so the more money you have the better your choices the better your outcomes. And again that money and those choices and that ladder are controlled by a very small baby boomer white male culture. So, so can you talk about that they kind of the US and the global context there are differences, but there are also generational differences in other countries that do have different systems. Definitely. So, you know, there are some experiences that apply certainly to millennials, kind of all across the world, right, that we came of age with the internet, you know, the internet does not only belong to America. We came of age with the smartphone. And, you know, that looks very different in different places. Right. I mean, there are many, many developing countries that essentially just skipped over landlines. You know, and, but smartphones or at least telephones are so relatively ubiquitous. So that kind of connectivity that ability to look over borders across cultures and see, even if you don't physically go to a place that life is different that life maybe could be better. I think has certainly been a very defining millennial experience all over the world. You know, I can Google, well, what does Sweden do when it comes to childcare, you know, what, you know, what is the Danish healthcare system look like and think, huh, like, maybe that's a little better than the way we're doing things here. You know, that said, I think there are also some dynamics among millennials that often in the US, we hear attributed to our sort of systematic political failures. For example, the fact that millennial women, millennial men to be on the track women on these things aren't having as many children as premium generations and are having them later. And many people who share my politics point to, you know, our lack of pay parental leave or lack of universal childcare, how expensive it is just physically be pregnant or lack of universal healthcare, you know, as a as a driving force in this millennial baby bust. And, you know, all of that it is, it's true, but you look at countries that do have those things and they're also having fewer children than their mothers, right. So I think instead what you're seeing is a continuation of, you know, what has frankly been a centuries long project for having fewer children and having them later, you know, within which there was one very, very great reversal in the 1950s. So I believe in Europe and the kind of post war period. Um, but that was the outlier, you know, instead millennials, the world over have kind of been following for young people of every generation have been following a particular trajectory when it comes to childbearing and decisions that we make around that. So, I think that, you know, the questioner makes a good point that so much in the US of what drives kind of millennial for outcomes are political choices. But some of what shapes millennial life is not just the political universe that we were born into. It's also a universe in which we have the internet in which we are more connected in which travel is cheaper and easier than it's ever been. Um, you know, in which we can have these sort of cross cultural cross border interactions, whether we leave our homes or not, and that that is not universal among millennials, but it is certainly closer to universal among millennials than for any previous generation. So it's always your, your sense that there's kind of like because we know more there's kind of like a grasses greener kind of thing going on or what do you mean. I think that that's part of it. I also think there's a sense in which, you know, millennials don't have, and I think this is even more true for Gen Z, the kind of monoculture that boomers have, right? You lived in a community of people that kind of mostly looked like you. You watched the same television show, the whole, right, or maybe the radio, depending on how old the boomers are that we're talking about. And you all ingested the same thing. You know, you read the same newspapers. Whereas, you know, for millennials today, I can be in my room watching Netflix on my laptop. My sister can be on her iPad, scrolling through, you know, whatever website caters to her specific political beliefs. You know, my mom can be watching television upstairs. We can all have these really distinct specific experiences of what we learn and focus on. Sorry, my finger. I don't know how to shut that off. I'm not good at technology. Yes, I think part of it can be a grass is greener syndrome that we can look, you know, overseas or, you know, across whatever borders and say, oh, they do these things well. And then we can also look at, well, you know, what do we do well, what is it that that I personally value, and we can kind of pick and choose not necessarily the politics of our own country, but certainly what we aspire to be and where we want to direct our time, our energy and our efforts. And I do think among American millennials, a lot of us are looking at systems in Western Europe and saying, why did, you know, why don't our friends who live in France have any student loans and why do you know they go to the doctor and you get a prescription and it's $10. Obviously, this is possible. Why don't we have that here. So, Josie, I'd love for you to chime in because you also talked about, you know, we don't have the systems we don't have the support. You know, and you would get the first thing that I can imagine hearing, you know, Joe, after you saying that is, you know, probably a boomer old white guy on the hill saying, well, because they pay a whole lot more taxes. And here in this country we value freedom, you know, we want to give you, you know, your own money so you can make your own choices without recognizing that that also creates a system that then enables people to make different choices. So Josie, can you talk a little bit about that the other thing is, you know, you hear this a lot, you know, when Joe Biden came out with his new care plan, the very first thing from the Trump administration is like socialism like it's like this red flag and everybody's going to go run for the hills like it's such a terrible terrible Stalinist kind of thing, which is kind of can you talk a little bit about some of those tensions. Yeah, I mean I would say the first thing is and I think Joe just what Joe was getting at and just said is that like freedom is kind of meaningless without like some level of certainty, right, like you stability, like you don't feel free if you don't feel stable. It just, you know, and so even if like technically there are all these different things you can do because you're not paying you know because the government isn't funded. It's not actually true in practice and I think you, I think like for my, you know, I'm thinking about truly interesting hearing the statistics about having children, because I do think of that as being like a primary, primarily economic kind of choice but you actually see that it also plays it also is affected by the fact that the level of choice that women have him is dramatically different than than 100 years ago. But I also think like, maybe I mean when my kid was born he was sick he was in the hospital it cost me $25,000 the first two weeks he was born. I have great health insurance, right. And so that impacts me ever having more kids. I mean it has a real impact on the choices you make when there's no social safety net whatsoever kind of protecting you and in that way it when people are limiting their choices because they just don't have access to the to the kind of freedom to make those choices. I think what we don't and what we don't perceive is how much it limits our entire like how much those limits kind of affect our entire society right when you have people who feel like they can't go to the doctor, or, you know, they can't get their kids a good education, or they can't get a good education themselves or they can't, you know, try new things or switch careers or whatever it is by by the by the kind of mere structures that are put into place by that it's so limiting to all of us it really like disallows all of us to kind of provide, you know, give back more to kind of society in general I think and so I just I just find this whole narrative about freedom to be really, really prescient because there is I mean there's also like an entire kind of sector of millennials right that are like pro freedom pro liberty hate taxes like the whole you know TP USA and the entire kind of structure of millennial conservatism that doesn't seem to recognize what is lost when we don't fully take care of our, you know, of a sort of civilian cohort, and it, and when we make those decisions as individual about weakness about being a snowflake about being lazy about wanting to be given to you, we lose so much, because people are able to do infinitely more when there's even a baseline of care, and you can see that in the boomer generation I mean, the fact that they had that has allowed them to keep power for for like Jill said, you know, 3040 years it's been kind of remarkable to see the empire that the boomers have built, because they had the the social structures to build it on and it and it, you know, it just makes you wonder what's going to happen to the rest of us. And let's be clear a lot of that structure, you know, Jill you mentioned that kind of anomaly after the Second World War with that great productivity a lot of boomers then, you know, kind of born into that kind of a lot of generational wealth. When you look at like, you know, kind of a family formation, far more boomers have an at home parent usually the mother, who can take care of all of that, you know, you know they can survive and they built wealth on one income and that's far less true than X and far far less true for millennials so there's a lot of, you know, a lot of misunderstanding because both boomers have had sort of, you know, valorize this type of family that really no one else can really form, if that were even their choice. Let me go to. There was a question from Nancy that I think you guys have already addressed so Nancy I hope you feel like your question was answered. Let me ask one from Catherine she says, Millennials and women have been bearing the brunt of the pandemic, particularly around caregiving for young and school aged kids during this complete breakdown of care and school. Do you think we're at enough of a crisis point, particularly around not supporting families to galvanize around systemic change. How can Millennials shift the conversation away from personal responsibility and more toward collective action or these issues that could set women back a generation. That's that's big and I you know we've got about eight minutes left and I do want to get to solutions to so Jill go. One more question. Some data just came out on pandemic job losses, and they found that Millennials have lost more jobs than any other generation, close to 5 million jobs from February to May alone. We also know that women have borne the brunt of job losses in this pandemic. So those numbers weren't broken down by gender, but I will bet that most of those Millennials who lost their jobs women and I would bet that most of those women are given the Millennials are between the ages of 24 and 40 right. We are most of the mothers to young children in this country. And I think what we've seen in the Council on Contemporary Families just put out some data about evaluating even pre pandemic what telework looks like. And they found that you know in parents telework mothers end up doing more around the house fathers step up childcare a little bit which is a good thing but mothers end up doing kind of more household chores. And then the children just spend much more time in the vicinity of their teleworking mothers, then they do around teleworking fathers, which obviously, you know, anybody's been around a kid realizes that you have a child, sort of, you know, orbiting you the entire time you're trying to work is very hard to get 100% of your attention to your job. And so a lot of families decide again because we've hyper individualized these questions that it you know quote unquote just makes sense for mom to be the one to scale back or to drop out entirely. I think we're going to see huge reverberations from these COVID shutdowns. And I think it's going to have a hugely detrimental impact on women's labor force participation I think it already has. And I think we're going to see this ripple through for the rest of millennials lives and women right now who are dropping out of the workforce or scaling back are taking income cuts from which they will never recover for the rest of their lives. They're more vulnerable to all sorts of ills, you know and have less ability to make the kind of choices they will perhaps want to make later so it's, it's a huge issue it's a huge emergency. I'm really, really hopeful that this will be a galvanizing moment I'm hopeful that if we have a Biden Harris presidency that universal childcare will be top on the list of things that Americans need along with healthcare. You know I know a few years ago we were talking a lot about the importance of free college to young people. Universal childcare lets women go to college, right, it lets young mothers, all mothers work outside the home and support their families it's so crucial. And I am hoping that we will look around now and say this has been such a disaster it's been such a disaster particularly for women, particularly for mothers that were past the point of emergency, and this has to change. Unfortunately, I think that's going to be too late for a lot of millennial moms. Josie what do you think? Yeah I'll just say quickly I mean everything Joel said really resonates with me and I have friends who keep being like where are we not in the streets like it is really wild what we're asking women to do in this pandemic time how we have asked parents to kind of make up for the day to day failures of not just our social structures but like the general public health response of our government. And I think I feel less sure I'm like less confident than ever that we will get there in part because I mean in in part because like it I'm doing this every day but also because if we can't acknowledge right now what it means to ask someone to parent full time and work full time then when will we ever be able to really have that conversation and there hasn't been the level of sustained movement around it that one would have hoped for I mean it's crazy. I mean it's impossible to do what we are asking, especially women to do. And yet, like the narratives just sort of like make it work, and so many people don't have the tools to kind of push back on that. And so, yeah, so I told I mean everything she said really resonated with me and also I think I feel more pessimistic than ever because it's been six months and there has really been no sustained movement to say, here's how we address these two things in tandem. So we've got just four minutes left. And I know that, you know, when we talk about like what we do about it that could be a conversation where we could go on for hours and hours but, you know, Jill I do want to go back to you you end the book your last line we get to it is give us a hand boomer. Okay. You know, so what do we do. You know you talked about universal health care you've talked about universal childcare you know you think about future of work and gig work and how, you know portable benefits are key to that that we don't have any of that. Talk about, you know, how do we make this better, you know if boomers are really going to listen if those old white guys on the hill or we're going to listen or step aside or we get, you know we get new new leaders. Kind of what's the prescription what do we need to do and just say I want to ask you as well. I think one thing that is underappreciated or under recognized about baby boomers is that they are the most politically polarized generation. Baby boomers really are pleased right down the middle between left and right between Democrat. Gen Xers tend to be a little more liberal millennials are much more. Um, so baby boomers yes conservative overwhelmingly white mostly male baby boomers have dominated American politics for 30 plus, you know 40 years. But the more aggressive half of the boomer generation, you know it's we're talking about people like Brian Stevenson, like Kimberly Crenshaw point the term intersectionality that millennials love so much. You know, feminist writers like Rebecca Solnit. I mean some of the most incredible social justice advocates, you know, not the people who founded these movements that we read about the history books for the people that are still very active in them leading them are baby boomers. So I think that's an important thing to emphasize that I don't know any millennials who just want baby boomer the progressive baby boomers to let go off at a corner, you know, and die. I think we understand that we have a lot. There's a lot of knowledge there. There's a lot of wisdom. That's wonderful. What we're asking for what I'm asking for from those baby boomers is power sharing. Not just we're going to impart our knowledge to you and maybe someday once we're dead and gone, you can take the reins, but a commitment to saying no, you know it. Millennials are not that young anymore. And it's time for some of us, you know, to share our knowledge but also to start stepping aside that when you see these, you know, white, Democratic, much older congressmen were being primaried by young, you know, more to the left younger Democrats. There's this real sense of wrongdoing of like well I was entitled to this seat. And what I kind of want to say is well, no, you're not. And frankly, if you've been in Congress for 40 years, maybe it's time to start thinking about, you know, who can come and fill your shoes. So I would really like to see progressive boomers considering how can I share what I, you know, how can I share my power? Is it time for me to step aside? How can I show what I've learned? Not to show what I've learned to the younger generation, but actually allow them to take the reins and steer the conversation and to decide where we're going and to take real power. And I think until you see that happening, we're not going to see the kind of necessary change that millennials want and that frankly Gen Zers need if they want to wind up better than we have. So power sharing. That's, Josie, what are some of your prescriptions? What do we need to be doing? What do we need to focus on? Yeah, I mean I, you are talking to the expert, Jill, so I'm just, I don't know that I have much to contribute, but I think what she's saying is right that like so often we focus on policy and policy really matters, right? It really matters to have universal daycare, you know, childcare. It really matters to have universal healthcare. It really matters to have affordable housing. The job market really matters, right? Ensuring that people in places where that are less populated have access to good jobs. Affordable education really matters in terms of higher education. But fundamentally this is about what we value and who has the power to make those decisions. And when we, when we have, when the narrative around millennials is oh they're so, they're pie in the sky, they're, you know, babies and they're basically their children when they're not, when they're 40 and, you know, and full of adults, I think it really gets in the way of baby boomers wanting to share that power. I think it really allows an out of not wanting to share power and the reasoning being our deficiencies versus their deficiencies or nobody's deficiencies but just the way that, you know, that this works. And so it strikes me that ultimately what Jill is saying is right that we should be able to make the decisions that mostly impact our lives and our futures. And that without that kind of power, the other policies are kind of precarious because we're relying on someone else's goodwill to ensure that we have them. Well, you know, I want to thank both of you so much for taking the time for sharing your, your experiences, your knowledge. This has been a really fascinating conversation. So thank you to Jill. Thank you to Josie. You know, thank you to all the participants who listened and shared such great questions. I apologize. We didn't get to the Gen X questions. So maybe in subsequent conversations, Jill, you can you can talk about where Gen X fits. Thank you also to the New America events team. And just a reminder, you know, it's a fantastic book. It's available through solid state books, the New America partner. And there's a link to that on the New America events webpage. So thanks to all of you and onward.