Breonna Taylor, Protecting Democracy, and Burnout (with Anne Helen Petersen)

Topics Discussed:

• Update on Beth's Mom

• Breonna Taylor Decision

• Protecting Democracy

• Work and Burnout with Anne Helen Petersen

We talk with Anne Helen Petersen about her new book, Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, how our culture of work is affecting us all, and the political decisions which got us here.

Thank you for being a part of our community! We couldn't do what we do without you. To become a tangible supporter of the show, please visit our Patreon page, purchase a copy of our book, I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening), or share the word about our work in your own circles. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for daily news briefs, GIF news threads, and our real time reactions to breaking news. To purchase Pantsuit Politics merchandise, check out our TeePublic store and our branded tumblers available in partnership with Stealth Steel Designs.

Episode Resources

• Anne Helen Petersen Twitter

• Anne Helen Petersen Substack

• Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

• More than 500,000 mail ballots were rejected in the primaries. That could make the difference in battleground states this fall (The Washington Post)

• The Election That Could Break America (The Atlantic)

• Biden Campaign Voter Protection

Transcript

Sarah: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Pantsuit Politics. We are thrilled to be here today. Sharing with you our interview with Anne Helen Petersen, author of Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation. That's going to be the main segment of the show. Before we share that we're going to talk about the grand jury decision in the case of Breonna Taylor and our home state of Kentucky and update on some election shenanigans? Nonsense? Trouble? Danger ahead? I don't know, somewhere in there is where we're going to settle. I think. Before we get started, we want to welcome Marnie to our executive producer team. We are so, so thrilled to have her as a patron. And for every patron we have some exciting news. 

Beth: [00:00:49] You are now able on Patreon to just buy an annual membership instead of being billed monthly for your Patreon contributions.

And I know this is something that many of you have wanted for a long time. It is a much easier way to give someone a gift to be a patron. And so if you would like to check that out, you can just go to Patreon.com/PantsuitPolitics. I want to say that our entire community has really lifted me up. And my family up during the past week, especially the folks on Patreon have just felt like an extension of my, sort of in real life friends and been so gracious and kind, and I am very, very grateful for that.

Sarah: [00:01:29] And as you maybe know, there will be a presidential debate on Monday, which is not awesome for our recording schedule for Tuesday's show. So our plan is to process the debate for all patrons. On Tuesday together and post it on Patreon. So you don't have to wait all the way until Friday. We'll talk about the debate on the show on Friday as well, obviously, but for that sort of instant feedback, we'll be on Instagram during the debate, talking back and forth, but we'll come together on Tuesday after we've had a good night's sleep and process the debate and post that for all patrons on Patreon.

Beth: [00:02:06] I do want to give an update on my mom. I've tried to share as much as I can as forthrightly as possible on social media, because my family has made a really conscious decision that we want people to understand our experience with. COVID-19 a lot of folks in our local communities are still of the mindset that this is no big deal.

And so it's really important to my mom and dad, that if they can help anyone understand that it's a big deal, they want to do that. I think that my mom is in the best place available to our family right now. By that, I mean, she, it's not on a ventilator and we are incredibly grateful. She's receiving very good care.

She said that pretty much every treatment that she's read about she's had while she's been in the hospital. They are scanning for blood clots. They are monitoring her insulin levels. There are so many places that are precarious. You're gonna hear that word a lot in our conversation with Anne Helen. Um, so many places where

a number shifts and things can go horribly wrong, but also she is improving. And I don't know, you know exactly how any of this works, but I do think it matters a lot to her strength and her resilience to know how many of you care about our family. And it does mean a lot to me. And I will try to say that more articulately at a time when I've had more sleep and have cried less in a week and feel a little bit more like myself, but.

This is going to be a very long journey for her and that's the best case scenario. So I just want to continue to say the time that we spent in March buying the health care community a minute to figure this out was well-spent. My mom's outlook is. So much better because healthcare professionals have worked so hard, hard to understand this and adapt.

And I don't want anyone to think when they look at the numbers that any aspect of sacrifice we've made as a society has been for nothing. And I also want people to know the CDC says that 90% of Americans have not yet been exposed to COVID-19. We have 200,000 people that we've lost with only 10% of our population being exposed.

And so there is more to do here and there's more to care about here, even though we're tired of caring about it, please don't give up on caring about people like my mom. 

Sarah: [00:04:44] Well, and here's what I think is really important. We are all so happy that you have positive trending news to report, right? But this is not over.

And the fact that your mother seems to be heading in the right direction, the suffering that she has undergone. The long recovery that awaits her, the thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in medical costs that will rack up for her care is still a policy failure. Americans losing their lives is not the only policy failure.

All of this was unnecessary. All of the stress that you and your family have been under, the physical suffering your mom has endured. Those are all policy failures. I think that it becomes this well. If somebody didn't die, then it's okay. No, Nope, Nope, no, no. That's not. That's the worst outcome, but that is not the only bad outcome that results from the failure of leadership that has been everywhere throughout this crisis in our government. 

Beth: [00:05:49] That's right. And it's hard to talk about because on the one hand, I have such gratitude for where she is compared to where she could beam. On the other hand, she's still sitting alone in a hospital with a machine having to breathe for her.

As positive as the outlook is compared to the range of available options. Uh, I am not okay. And she is not okay. My sister is not okay. My dad is not okay. We're all both fine and not at all. And I, I worry that this is another thing. The song that I love keeps coming back to me that you can learn to live with anything.

If it happens by degrees. I worry when we get to a place where we go, Oh, well, thank goodness. Like moving on. Because even with our healthcare professionals, having worked so hard and learned so much and, and. Devoting themselves as selflessly, as so many of them have been doing, this is still an enormous challenge and an enormous failure and an enormous burden that our country did not have to sustain.

That impacts people who don't have health insurance differently than my mom, but impacts people who, you know, she doesn't have young kids at home. She's retired. There are a lot of factors here contributing. To our family's ability to weather this with her that are not available to everybody. And it is a living hell for our family, with those resources to get through it.

So I just, it's really difficult to know how to talk about this with sensitivity to everything, especially when, just to be honest with you, like, I don't have it right now. I am not, I'm not at my best right now. But I do want to thank you all so much for, I have felt your care every day, every tweet and direct message and note of support helps.

It really does. So thank you. 

Sarah: [00:07:50] Well, I just think that to underline that one more time. Yes, it could be worse. But let's not let the conversation end there with your mom, with COVID with immigration, with anything. Yes. It could be worse. It could also be better lots, lots, lots better. And I think that's just the thing we need to remind ourselves and remind our family members and our friends and neighbors that the conversation doesn't end with, "Well, it could be worse." Yeah, it could. It could also be lots better. We don't have to be here where we are right now, which is don't. We don't have to be here. This was not pre-ordained. This was not the only path. It just wasn't. And it's certainly not the only path forward.

 On that note. In our home state of Kentucky, we had devastating news out of Louisville. The grand jury reached a decision in it's deliberation over the death of Breonna Taylor, who was shot by Louisville Metro police officers when they entered her home in a no knock warrant, the grand jury reached the decision that no charges should be filed. And her death, there were three charges of what an endangerment against an officer that has already been, um, relieved of duty because of the shots he fired into her neighbors homes. And so in this case where the refrain has been, say her name, her name was never mentioned in the charges. It was all her neighbors that had had shots enter their homes and these wanting to endangerment. And you know, as much as this lack of justice is devastating, it is not surprising because this is a reflection of our legal system who it's built to protect and the standards that are incredibly difficult to meet when there is an officer involved shooting. 

Beth: [00:09:37] There are so many pieces of this that I find that just make me feel really tender, you know, for, for every family member, for every person who loves her, because when you're going to hear so many people parroting the words of Kentucky's attorney general, who I, I want to just take a second and say, I don't have any concept of what it would be like to be a black, Republican attorney general in my early thirties, whose career has been politically focused, not legally focused stepping into this space. I have no clue what that's like. And it has to be very difficult. And also when you are out of your depth, it is your job as an elected official to get some people around you who aren't to advise you on these things.

And I thought he was woefully unprepared. For the remarks that he made to the public yesterday, woefully unprepared, but a lot of people are going to pair it, his remarks and talk about the fact that a shot was fired first. And so the police were entitled to return that fire. And I understand that. And I also think it is important in this case and every other to take a longer view of the decision making process, because.

No knock warrants are predictable in their outcomes. When you enter a home in the middle of the night and you knock down the door. It is predictable. What happens from there? Yup. Predictable sometimes means something different than premeditated under the law. Sometimes it doesn't, it depends on who the defendant is.

Sarah: [00:11:29] Yep. 

Beth: [00:11:29] And you have to take a longer view of these events. To do justice. I think now I'm not sure what justice looks like in this case. If I'm being perfectly honest with you. I don't know because my heart is not set up for retribution and punishment. My heart is set up for stopping harm and I struggle beyond that.

But it is so clear what happens in these cases, every decision here to get a no knock warrant, because maybe there are drugs in the apartment that was a failure of decision to execute that warrant in the middle of the night is a failure of decision. They're just predictable consequences piling on top of each other here.

And so to say that this was pure self defense and that the offensive action was initiated by people who were asleep in their bed. When folks came in their home in the middle of the night, that just defies all reason. 

Sarah: [00:12:34] So many of these cases speak to fear among our black brothers and sisters, as they move around in public.

But this case, this case is uniquely terrifying because Breonna Taylor wasn't  in public,Breonnaa Taylor was asleep in her bed in her home, and there seems to be no willingness to acknowledge. How terrifying that is, you know, there is still a federal investigation about the violation of her civil rights.

I don't have a lot of hope in that process, but I think like you said, the wane of her rights as a citizen asleep in her own bed and law enforcement's rights. With regards to drug charges when we know what happens exactly. Like you said, we know what happens when you don't knock and you barge into somebody's house.

You know, they weren't tracking a serial killer. That's not what was happening. And also, I just think there's, there's this sense of these are highly trained professionals and the return of fire was enormous. The shots fired in return to me were an escalation. And I don't feel like there's enough analysis of that either.

Like this idea that like, Oh, well they were fired upon. Yeah. But then they rain down fire, you know, I just don't think there's, there should be some responsibility for that. Now I will say I'm incredibly encouraged by the list of reforms listed in her. Settlement and the wrongful death settlement with the city, think the reforms are good and I think we will see impact, but I think we have to see impact, right?

Like we have to see what's going to happen. Is that just a list? Are those just suggestions? Are you going to Institute those changes? There needs to be follow through and not just. Lip service, which is so often what happens in cases like this? 

Beth: [00:14:52] I think that's well said. Criminal justice is always about balancing both individual interests and community interests at the same time and systems wrapped around those two things.

And I think what is so problematic about the presentation and result. In this case is that the officers are being defended with a systems approach. There's this kind of regretful. Oh, it's just, our law is not set up to deal with something like this. There's a tragedy, but the thing is, it is a tragedy, but it's not an accident because what happened here was so predictable.

It's not an accident. The tragedy, not an accident. And so. When you use that system's defense on behalf of the officers, but then there is no systems defense available to Kenneth Taylor. He fired that shot legally in Kentucky. And so where is the system side for the victims here? And then when you refuse to answer questions about the makeup of the grand jury, you are once again saying, well, this is about an individual case, not about systems, but wait for the officers.

It's about systems. So, and it's always about both the deck starts to look really stocked because it is when you recognize that if you are black, it doesn't matter if you are on the suspect or victim side. 

Sarah: [00:16:31] Yeah. 

Beth: [00:16:32] It never works for you. And that's where we just, we have to fix this. That's unacceptable. It cannot stand.

People are going to have no faith in this country whatsoever. And that's, you know, as we start to talk about the election, everything that we do here in America is built on trust and consent to being part of systems. And we are understandably losing that. 

Sarah: [00:16:59] Well, let's do talk about where the system worked because we've heard for months is that democratic governors can't govern and can't keep people safe.

The protests in Lowville have continued. I expect them to continue. Last night, there was lots of hand ringing on Twitter about the state of emergency and the curfew people peacefully protested, some were arrested for unlawful assembly. They chose to continue to protest after the curfew, but they were arrested.

There were two officers involved that were shot non life threatening injuries, and the suspect is already in custody. The city didn't burn. I don't see Donald Trump out there praising the fact that people were allowed to protest and voice their outrage and will continue to protest. And also, you know, it didn't devolve into chaos.

You know, it worked, they took steps to allow people to protest, but also to maintain, Ugh, God, I can't believe I'm about to say this law and order. And people safety and it worked. And, but we're not going to see that, right, because it doesn't fit the narrative because we, you know, we have elected officials that don't ever choose to build trust.

They only want to tear it apart. And that is so dangerous as we're going to talk about next. 

Beth: [00:18:29] It was all over the news this morning. As we sat down to record on Thursday that the president has just told us that he is not willing to peacefully transition power. 

Sarah: [00:18:42] Which he said last time, not, let's not forget. He did this last time too.

He just happened to win. Last time 

Beth: [00:18:49] He has said, we'll see what happens, but then he says things like, if you don't count the votes, there won't be a transition. There'll be a continuance. Like he's saying with his words, In public, not in response to gotcha. Type questions. Will you support a peaceful transition of power is not a gotcha question.

And it's not a question asking him to concede before anybody's voted Scott Walker. Who's already come out in defense of him. That is the problem in this country. The problem for me has never been Donald Trump. I mean, I think he's a problem, but like, I feel nothing in my heart about Donald Trump. If he goes and plays golf for the rest of his life at Mar-a-Lago, I'm happy again.

I just want to stop the harm here. I want him to not be there. President. My problem is with the Scott walkers of the world who stand up and say, Oh, come on media, you are overreacting to this. No, there is. A huge body of commentary from this president and people in his campaign where they're openly telling us that they don't value American democracy is very clear.

Sarah: [00:19:57] So this was in response to an Atlantic article. What if Trump refuses to concede and highly recommend it? Not an uplifting read, but an important one. And I think it's important because. You know, everything he's ever told us about himself is that he will most likely not concede. Even if he steps aside, he will spend the rest of his life.

Speaking from whatever podium is afforded to him, that the election was rigged and not fair. He did that when he won. And so he will most certainly do it if he loses. And I think being open eyed about that. And under, you know, we know who he is now. He's not catching us by surprise anymore. And I think we can also assume that we know the Republican surrounding him and how they will behave because they aren't catching us by surprise either.

I feel such a shocking amount of, I don't know if it's acquiescence or lack of surprise with the way the Supreme court thing has gone down. I'm not even outraged. I expected them to fold. I expected them to fold. And I think that we should ax. We should not expect Republican leadership to stand up for our democracy.

That should just be an assumption that we're working with and we should expect challenges and legal shenanigans and other shenanigans just like Roger Stone. Who's out of jail because Donald Trump commuted his sentence, you know, in 2000 with Bush V Gore. He did the Brooks brothers riot gathered up all these people and.

Gotten people's faces as they were counting the vote in Florida, he will do that kind of thing. Again, we've already seen it. We've seen people, Trump supporters with flags and blow horns, intimidating people lining up to early vote in Fairfax, Virginia. Like this is part of the strategy to intimidate and to scare and to tell people to suppress the vote and then to challenge our democracy.

Like I just. I can, I can hear people being like, Oh my gosh, it's so alarmist. I don't know what else to say. Like when he says, well, I've poor people vote. We lose. If black people vote, we lose. If, if the turnout is really high, we lose when their strategy. Admitted to every journalist who will ask is that, Oh, well, we'll lose the popular vote, but here's how we'll gain me.

Electorial vote system. Like there are, there is nobody in the Trump campaign that assumes that more Americans will vote for him. And the popular vote than Joe Biden. Literally, no one, like that's just, that's the baseline. Well, we'll lose the popular vote. That's the baseline assumption in the Trump campaign.

Like, how can I not be alarmist? How can I not be concerned? How can we not go clear eyed into the next 40 days, understanding the way in which he will continue to behave and will behave after the election? 

Beth: [00:23:03] I take him both literally and seriously this time 

Sarah: [00:23:06] word. 

Beth: [00:23:07] And to me, the first priority. Has to be making sure that our country gets to continue doing the thing that we have taken so terribly for granted in my lifetime.

Yeah, because when you talk about values voting, the first value is believing that other people have a right to participate in decision making equally to your own. And when you have a calculated, announced strategy of voter suppression, That only one party has been doing. You know, I, I wish that we could say, well, like everybody does this.

No, really this is, this is a Republican tactic. Now I just think you have to put any other fears aside. And say we uphold the democracy first and then we sort out the rest. And by the way, if you're concerned that Joe Biden as president and a democratic controlled Congress would mean this lock step March into a socialist future, I would just invite you to read any article about the democratic caucus.

Sarah: [00:24:18] We rowdy. 

Beth: [00:24:21] If Democrats win 

Sarah: [00:24:22] We  rowdy and hard to control, 

Beth: [00:24:23] Democrats could run the table and still have protracted fights over who's going to be in leadership and protracted fights over what legislation gets prioritized and what's in it. And when it gets voted on and how, and by whom, I mean, The democratic party is containing a plurality of viewpoints right now.

Yeah. And that's good. It should, that's healthy. I wish the Republican party did. But what we've learned over the past four years is that the Republican party will March in and lockstep. We've been told now what the plan is, and that plan is increasingly authoritarian. And so while I don't like to be hyperbolic or alarmist either.

The most clear eyed assessment I can offer is that this presidency poses a threat to our ability to continue to choose who governs this country. And so I have to think about this. Look, my kitchen is full of fruit flies right now. Okay. I hate fruit flies. I think they're terrible. And they divide and multiply so fast.

And so I've had to put all of my products in the refrigerator until I get rid of these things. And I don't like that. I would like my bananas to be out. I would like my sweet potatoes to be out. There are some things that I don't care so much about. I can compromise on with my apples and oranges, but everything else I want out, it is not good fruit in the refrigerator, but also.

The thing is the fruit flies will go, Oh, sweet potatoes. We are thriving now. Yup. And that's, what's happened with the Trump presidency. And so I have to say all this disagreement that I might have with some of the policies that could be coming down the pike in a country where Democrats have majorities in the white house, there, they are worth the sacrifice to make sure that we still get to vote.

Sarah: [00:26:14] Can I ask you a hard question? I've been contemplating. So in this article, they talk about how Al or in 2000 had much more ammunition to continue the fight, but to protect our democracy conceded, I was also thinking about Gerald Ford, who made the decision to pardon Richard Nixon in order to protect our democracy.

And if you had asked me before. Was that the right call? I would have said no, I'm because I'm an Enneagram one and there is right and wrong. And as long as you're on the side of right, you keep fighting and it was what Richard Nixon did was wrong and he deserved to go to jail for it. And I've worried that it really reduced our trust in our institutions.

The belief that we do have rule of law and everybody is responsible under the system. Okay. Okay. But now facing this challenge and understanding the character of Joe Biden, as well as I can for never having met him or had a conversation with him, there is a part of me that thinks and wonders it's the right thing to do is to take criminal prosecution after the election off the table for Donald Trump.

To relieve that pressure to find a space of compromise and to get him to back the hell down, to protect our democracy by. Cause I think that's what he's, he's fighting against criminal prosecution because he knows that's coming. He doesn't even like the job. He doesn't like the job. I don't really think he wants to continue to do it, but he does want to protect himself from criminal prosecution, which is most certainly coming.

Now, it's not like Joe Biden can wave a wand. He has no, you know, I mean, it is the justice department, but some of these are state prosecutions, but like, if there's a scenario in which he pulls the people at the table and said, let's take this off the table. We have to relieve some of the air from his fight, from his case, from his base, give them something because that democracy is often compromise, brutal, heartbreaking, compromise.

I don't even know why I'm crying. It's like such a future scenario, but like, I do think there ha there is going to be things like this. Like I think there are going to be really brutal compromises in order to let some of the pressure out of the room. And I just think, because especially if you are in that plurality on the democratic side, You need to think about that and you need to prepare yourself for that, because this is not a, we roll in like victors.

We're just trying for better. And there's going to be a lot of loss in the process. 

Beth: [00:28:58] Listen, Donald Trump as a man is not worth what this country is going through right now. Yeah. He's a human being. I care for him as I care for all human beings. I am connected to him, his fate and my fate are tied up together.

And upholding his ego sense of entitlement to stand in front of a microphone and say, whatever he wants to say is not worth the breakdown in families that have happened because of him. It is not worth. The phrase, constitutional crisis becoming commonplace and him enduring some kind of punishment to me is not worth bringing this country to the brink.

It's not worth it, 

Sarah: [00:29:43] but isn't that going to also, that's going to be damaging to the rule of law. There's no other way to slice that. 

Beth: [00:29:48] That's right. There is no way to come out of this scenario without damage. It's the question is what kind of damage and how can we handle it? And that's why I think, honestly, for all the criticisms I've had of him and there are many.

Joe Biden has acted like the president. I would like to have over the past couple of weeks, when they started asking him about court packing after justice, Ginsburg's death, his unwillingness to go there impressed me a lot. Now you and I have lots of thoughts about the Supreme court and its reform. And I hope that we get to them sometime, but for him to just say, like, that's not what we need right now.

I think that's wise. I want a president. Who's willing to say, that's not what we need right now. That might be the right thing. At some point today, it's not what we need. We have not had that kind of leadership in too long. And the world is putting situations in front of us where we desperately desperately need it.

And so there is no, and again, I'm not really wired this way, but there is no piece of me that would hesitate to say. Just go play golf forever, Donald Trump, and let us move along with the work of American democracy. That is just not a hard call to me at all. 

Sarah: [00:31:06] I think it, you know, I told myself when he was elected, there will be no justice, even if we pursue all these criminal prosecutions, even if he goes to jail for tax fraud, for embezzlement, for campaign finance violations.

He will sit in that jail and that will not be justice because he would never, ever accept fault. He would never, I don't think he is capable of understanding his behavior. And so I kind of released that. I think the reason I got so upset and contemplating the scenario is that it just. There's a difference between like, he will never accept justice and also feeling like he got away with it.

And that's just so brutal to me. It is so brutal to think that he would exact this sort of damage that he would rip families apart that people would dive COVID-19 on her, his terrible leadership, and there would be no consequences. I feel the same way about Mitch McConnell. I just, it's so hard to contemplate. 

Beth: [00:32:07] I guess. I just don't believe. And maybe this is part of where my punishment retribution aversion comes in. I just believe there are always consequences. They just might not be consequences imposed by us. And, and I know that we are in a period for many people listening right now that is just filled with bitterness and despair.

And I understand why completely and I feel myself drawn to that constantly. And I'm not here to tell you that you shouldn't feel it because I think a lot of life requires some bitterness. I think I've probably needed more of it in my past. I've needed to get angrier I've needed to speak more boldly.

I've needed to be clear about. Where I stand and what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. I think there is a level of bitterness that is necessary to motivate us to do what is right. We would be in a completely different picture right now, if three to five people like Paul Ryan. Had spoken with clarity a few years ago.

So embrace that. I also think there is a tipping point for betterness where it shuts you down and that's the space I don't want to be in. And I think that sitting in my home wishing for Donald Trump's indictment is, is the kind of betterness that shuts you down. Yeah. There is no pure outcome here. And there's no outcome that doesn't involve some, some real damage, like we're in a period of trauma and there's no way out of that.

So, what we have to choose is whether we take that trauma and use it as a creative force or a destructive course. And I actually think that Joe Biden, it can help us use it as a creative force 

Sarah: [00:34:03] because we know that there is a lack of leadership. And I know the question on everybody's mouth is what can I do?

And let me tell so many of you. That I think you're already doing it. We're getting the messages from women in particular who have either not been paying attention or have, and have kept their mouth shut because they are averse to conflict or they love and care about people and they don't want to make them uncomfortable.

And I see you dropping that approach. And it makes me so proud and hopeful. I think that there are so many of you pushing your husbands, pushing your family members, pushing your friends and your community leaders and saying this far and no further. And it. Is magnificent and you are not alone. Every time I have stepped out with my Biden shirt or my Biden mask or encountered somebody and my Biden sign, I get a, I like it.

I'm with you. I see you. We are there. We are not alone. And it is going to take every single one of us in this election. There's a great part of the Atlantic article. I just want to read really quick. It says, if you are a voter, think about voting in person after all, more than half a million postal votes.

And this year's primaries, even without Trump trying to suppress them. If you are at relatively low risk for COVID-19 volunteer to work at the polls. If you know, people who are open to reason, spread word, that it is normal for the results to keep changing after election night, if you manage news coverage, anticipate extra constitutional measures and position reporters and crews to respond to them.

If you are an election administrator plan for contingencies, you never had to imagine before. If you are a mayor, consider how to deploy your police to ward off interlopers with. Bad intent. If you are a law enforcement officer protect the freedom to vote. If you are a legislator, choose not to participate in

If you are a judge on the bench in a battleground state, refresh your acquaintance with election case law. If you have a place in the military chain of command, remember your name. Duty to turn aside unlawful orders. If you are a civil servant, know that your country needs you more than ever to do the right thing when you're asked to do otherwise.

And I think all those instructions are true for every single one of us. Like we have to be aware, we have to be prepared. We have to be brave. You know, I think for me right now, I'm going to talk to people in my life who I know will vote for Donald Trump and say, do you understand that he can lose? And will you accept that?

I think that's an important conversation to have. I think I'm going to encourage everyone. I know, to make a plan to vote early and in person, if they can, I'm going to sign up as a licensed attorney to be a poll observer and to protect our election. There are so many of you listening right now. And we all have the power to do our work, to protect our democracy for ourselves and for our children.

Beth: [00:37:30] So that's a lot of work to do at a time when we're all running on empty. And we're going to shift gears now, but not really to talk with Anne Helen Petersen, who I think is one of the most important thinkers of this particular time period about her book. Can't Even which I think about constantly. And we're really excited to share this conversation with you, especially if you feel a little, but knocked down by the discussion.

Yeah. We've just had, I hope that it leads this conversation. Lets you know that, that you are not individually knocked down, that there are a lot of forces at work here that are depleting. And that it will take a lot of forces at work for us to be renewed. You don't have to, to go take a hot shower and a yoga retreat to get yourself out of this.

It's going to be, be a little different than that. But I think Anne Helen has really important words for us here.

Sarah: [00:38:38] We are thrilled to be joined today by Anne Helen Petersen who writes Culture Study on Substack and is the author of the new book, Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation. You probably saw Anne Helen's viral article that sparked this book on burnout on Buzzfeed. Got a kabillion, approximate approximating number, approximate views.

Everyone was talking about it. And now she has written an amazing book, exploring it further. Thanks for coming on Pantsuit Politics Anne Helen. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [00:39:06] It was my pleasure to be here. I just, I love this podcast. It's it's a dream. 

Sarah: [00:39:12] Well, we love you, but I wax poetic about how much I loved you on the internet last time. So I won't subject our listeners to that again. I do want to dive into the book is so good. Uh, it felt like deep societal therapy, like a bloodletting. That's the word I'm gonna use? That's what it felt like to me, because you're talking about economic anxiety. You're talking about generational economic insecurity and how it's really.

Ratchet up all these individual expectations we have of ourselves careers, children, parents. Okay. And here's my first question that I thought of immediately, like when I was reading the book, I think all this economic like insecurity, like you, you call us the precariat, like a play on precarious and proletariat, which is G yes.

And I feel like, anytime you say economic insecurity, post 2016, people get triggered. And I hear you're justifying white supremacy. You're you're making the Trump voter feel better. How do we talk about this when just the term economic insecurity comes with all this baggage? 

Anne Helen Petersen: [00:40:14] Yeah. You know, I think that economic insecurity or procarity is the, where the, like, you know, maybe that's just like the fancier word for it, but the precarity really speaks to that idea that like, you don't have a safety net and you do things out of desperation.

And I think a lot of behaviors get amplified. In those moments of desperation. And so in the case of Trump voters, sometimes that meant that their racism and their nativism and xenophobia, like all of those things got amplified and excused, right under the name of economic precarity. And I think more of what I'm trying to think about here is like looking at these habits over work and exhaustion and just like general, uh bleary-eyed uh, you know, the feeling that all of your life it's kind of turned into a flat to do a stint, try to think about like, well, why are we acting like this?

And. A lot of it has to do with that project. Would that feeling that we don't know what the future is going to bring? And again, that, like, if you, because of, because of your burnout, if you act in a way that is morally objectionable or gross or racist or sexist in any way, like it doesn't excuse it. But it can give you some insight into why that burnout is there in the first place.

Does that make sense? 

Beth: [00:41:36] It does. Absolutely. It ties in with, with my experience of writing the book. Which I would describe as the overview effect. When I read the book, it really helped me see myself as part of a generation instead of just a person having a life experience. I almost felt ridiculous reading parts of the book like, Oh, I thought this was just me.

No, my choices. But I tie that into your answer to Sarah's question, because I also felt the book, not in a way that felt overwrought, but being really careful to say we are all part of a group here. And also there are some real distinctions in our experiences of burnout. And I want to be sure to be precise about what different groups, how different groups experience burnout, and so that dance of.

Everyone has some form of this and not all of those experiences are equal, felt like a theme to me. And I wonder about your process in, in thinking through how to do that dance. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [00:42:44] Yeah. Well, it was a process. Uh, I think, you know, As a fellow white woman, I identified my experience, you know, like th their article, the initial article was all about my personal revelation of like, Oh, this is what's happening.

And, Oh, this is something that's not just happening to me. Right. It's something that is happening to our broader generation. It's something that spreads that isn't universal, but that is a common experience, a collective experience in many ways. And I think maybe one way that I try to think about it is you can have solidarity with people whose experiences are different from yours, right?

Who are texture, their, their experience of burnout is textured very differently or Burnett has accumulated differently or more severely for them, but you can still have that solidarity and still advocate for things to change, not just for you, but for everyone. And so you're right there. I was just constantly trying to.

At once invoke my own experience and then descend that experience over and over and over again, being like here's how it would happen for me, or here's how it happened to a person whose socioeconomic background might be similar to mine. But like, that doesn't mean that that's the universal experience.

Like here's how, you know, the chapter where I talk a lot about supervision. And uh, whether or not people could go outside, like some of that chapter is very devoted to white bourgeois parents who were like, Oh, I just want to like, supervise everything that you're doing to make sure that you turn into like this middle class Minneapolis.

And then there's a long set action that just details the story of a young black girl growing up. Uh, in the suburbs, basically like her parents wanted her to be supervised because these white people were just horrible to her. Right. Like just like asked her if she was the help, like all sorts of things.

So how can that supervision, like, where does the motivation for that supervision come from different places, different motivations, all that sort of thing. So hopefully I've done an okay job of. Simultaneously, you know, invoking my own experience and then de-centering it, but it is a process and I'm mindful of the fact that it is continually a process and has to continue to be a process.

Sarah: [00:45:06] Well, it's consciousness raising to me. Like it's just the purest. And consciousness raising is the first step of solidarity, right? Is we realize that it's not just our individual journey, but it's like we even see consciousness. I think through the, through the realm of the individual, through the filter of individualism, instead of saying, Oh, no, there's a role for society consciousness raising, right.

There's a way where we all speak our individual journeys. We see the trends and the patterns, which is absolutely what you've done here. And then we can. Evolve into a better system society, cultural approach. And I think like I just, I'm in this space right now where I feel like individualism as a cancer.

Um, it's like, I'm seeing the matrix, I see it everywhere. Like, and it's, you know, even to the way people ask you, like, you know, asking and I feel like what you're doing over and over again, when people are like, well, how am I going to fix my burnout? And you're like, hi, let me just say one more time. Like what I'm.

Illuminating is not an individual condition. And therefore an individual approach is not the solution. And I feel like that's what we say here all the time with politics, the state of our politics is not an individual condition and therefore an individual solution. You know, people want to do a Google search or, or, you know, learn or read a book or do all these like very individualistic things and fix a cultural problem.

And I don't. Like, it's like, I feel like on repeat, we need to just say like connection community, societal consciousness. This is what we're aiming for here. We all have to get out from behind our computer screens, which you know, in this current COVID moment really complicated. Yeah. We need to connect to our fellow humans from a safe social distance from behind a computer screen.

Wow. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [00:46:53] Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the thing that's hard is that individualism is such an American trait, right? Like I wrote about this a lot in the early days of COVID that like, part of the reason it's hard for us to think about staying home, just to protect other people is because we're like, well, if I do things to protect myself, then that's fine.

Right. Or if I feel like I'm not at risk, then that's fine. Uh, but we are so. Interwoven and like community is also an American value. It's one that has gone by the wayside in a lot of ways as we've become so burnt out and lack those connections or lack the time for those connections. But I think it's easy sometimes.

Yeah. To be like, well, we can blame all of this on the fact that like, we're a bunch of, like, we have this cult of the individual in the United States while forgetting that we were a collectivist nation in other ways, for a very long time. 

Sarah: [00:47:46] Well, and I think what you articulated so well is that there was, there was a government role.

Like the government was playing a part in keeping us connected and keeping us particularly economically cohesive. And by that, I mean, where there weren't. Massive separations between the people at the top and the people at the bottom, that there were government policies that were active and precise, and that were keeping that middle class, that cohesive element with regards to our economy keeps us connected and all of those.

And you, when you push pressure on that and the government steps out, well, then you see other places fall away. You see social capital and community organizations. You see, you know, church membership drop, you see all these places where there was. Where we had as members of the middle class time and energy to go be in these cohesive, connected gatherings, falling away too.

It's like a domino effect. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [00:48:40] Absolutely. It's all in own, all interwoven. And I think there was this kind of fantasy that came in the late seventies, early eighties, like, Oh, well, what if we stopped funding these things? Right? What if we stopped funding these things in order to achieve some of these other.

Goals like, you know, stopping any sorta like reducing government spending or embracing trickle down economics there weren't immediate downsides to say. Drastically cutting funding to state institutions, whether it's, you know, colleges just like afterschool programs, like all sorts of things, you oftentimes can't see the immediate societal ripples, but we are experiencing those ripples in full effect, like the student loan crisis, or even actually, you know, if you want to connect the dots to COVID like the reason why these state schools are so adamant about reopening is because they have no other strategy.

Because there is no funding from the gut. Like the funding from the government has been cut so much that they are so dependent on out of state tuition, and thus are so dependent on having in-person out of state tuition classes, you know? 

Sarah: [00:49:54] Well, and think about how you even, how we even talk about the government.

That's us guys. That's dollars. That's our money. That's. Or the commute, the committee, you know, but it's like, we talk about it. We personify it in a way, because that individual personification is like the only language we understand. Yeah. And so many ways. 

Beth: [00:50:11] Well, and I think that we personify it as us as an individual versus the government.

And I think part of what your book makes really clear is that actually the power struggle happening here is the government versus private employers. 

Sarah: [00:50:25] Yeah. 

Beth: [00:50:27] And I'm, I'm interested in that  of your thoughts about labor unions and the centrality of work in our lives as you started having conversations around the book.

Anne Helen Petersen: [00:50:37] Yeah. So I owe so much to just reading a bunch of business history, essentially. 

Sarah: [00:50:45] I didn't know all that stuff about the consultant. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [00:50:47] Oh my gosh. So current state it's so interesting. So this is book that I relied on really heavily called temp. It's by a historian from Cornell named Louis Hyman. And it's written like.

It's kind of written like one of my books in terms of he's an academic, but he's writing for an audience that isn't like other nerdy academics. So it's very accessible to the outside reader, but it's all about like how this history of temp workers, like the temp agency in the 1960s, seventies led to. Our conception of temp workers as basically workers who don't need to be treated as humans, right?

Like they don't have to be given any of the benefits or safety nets that we had come to understand as part of the contract with workers over the course of the post war period. So the thing that I think is most essential for, for me to understand as I was researching and that I think a lot of people maybe kind of understand, but don't completely understand is that there was this postwar period of about 20 years that sometimes referred to as like the golden age of capitalism, when.

So many people from so many different areas of the country from many different races. I think it wasn't just a white person thing. Although a lot of the people who benefited from it were white people, but we're able to enter the middle class for the first time. Like the middle class became a thing during this period because of the combination of, you know, regulation on private industry, the robust protections of unions and workers, like more of the money that companies made, went to the worker just generally. And also workers had things like weren't bankrupting themselves by paying for medical care or elder care or childcare. 

And that started to fade in the 1970s, just as a lot of our boomer parents were entering the job market for the first time. And I think that it was around just long enough for people like our parents or our grandparents to feel like it would last forever. And so a lot of the actions that were taken as these mini recessions started hitting in the 1970s and eighties were either like desperate attempts.

To try to patch the system that was unraveling. And in sometimes those desperate attempts look like things. Well, why don't we try cutting taxes for the rich, if that works to solve our problems or what if we stop using our tax dollars to fund some of these programs? Like what if that solves our problems?

Right. And some of solutions just look like desperately. Yeah. Trying to work harder as an individual in order to protect you and yours. And that's where like this cult of overwork really started to gain traction in the seventies and eighties with our parents. You know, I don't know if you guys remember this, but like, do you remember the word workaholic?

Like the first test, the first time I really heard it was Stacey's dad in babysitter's club was a workaholic. 

Sarah: [00:53:55] Yeah. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [00:53:56] And I remember thinking that it was something like really associated with like white collar work. Uh, but it was, and that's true. Like it was primarily associated with white collar work, but like, we are all just workaholics now.

Like that's just what it is to be a person working in America is to be a workaholic. 

Sarah: [00:54:14] It also perpetuated this weird linguistic thing where we put. A holic after everything and yeah, it's really terrible, but yeah. And I think it's so insidious because then what that pushes it, the phrasing of like, well, you are a workaholic, it becomes identity driven, right?

It becomes a personal part of your personal identity, which is the hardest. Level of change. Like I was reading this New York times piece about the new book, about white women in the white supremacy movement, like the women and the white supremacy movement. And they were talking about like, some of it is just the repetition, right?

Like you just repeated enough. It becomes true. And it's really hard to undo that. And I think like, that's, what's so insidious about individualism, right? Like if we adopted as a part of ourselves, whereas it's exactly like Beth says, like until you're in an experience, like, I think. It didn't feel impactful in the moment, but the more I think about it, like to the bar when I was breastfeeding a three month old infant.

Anne Helen Petersen: [00:55:12] Okay. Oh my gosh. 

Sarah: [00:55:13] And I just pushed through, I just thought, well, that's, that's it right? That's how it works. And then like probably five years later, a woman sued for a ride for breastfeeding break. It had, it didn't even occur to me to demand it. It didn't even cross my mind. Right. And like, I'm not a person that takes on that.

Like sorta, I would never have described myself as a workaholic, but that I would never, like, I was a valedictorian, but I didn't kill myself in college or law school. Like I didn't, I didn't feel like a perfectionist as far as like the grades and the good girl kind of situation. I wasn't at the, all the way at the end of the spectrum.

But even me, like, even a person who likes to think I challenged the status quo a person that like doesn't get caught up in that much stuff as I. At least identify others as it didn't even cross my mind and went until she said, and I was like, Oh my God, like, yeah, I didn't even think to say this is wrong.

Like this is really, really wrong. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [00:56:07] Well, and 

Sarah: [00:56:08] it's just little stuff like that 

Anne Helen Petersen: [00:56:09] you're touching on. I think a major theme of the book is it, which is that a lot of us are waking up and realizing that we've told ourselves like, This is just the way it is for a long time. And now we're waking up and saying, Oh, this is, this is wrong.

This is horrible. This feels like crap. And most importantly, it doesn't have to be this way. 

Beth: [00:56:33] And I don't know how we start to fix it. This is an anecdote that kept coming to mind from my life as I was reading your book, because you talk a lot about all those places where the social fabric is woven. And how those have eroded as work has taken on an outside place in our lives and government funding has shrunk for everything else.

So I kept thinking about this moment at my church, where there is a real concerted effort to be that social fabric. Like the church is working hard. Tangibly to try to have that place in our lives and it's struggling and you can feel the struggle and the tension, and almost the artificiality around trying to create those experiences when we're not practiced at it anymore.

But I was sitting with a group of people in my church, in a group that was just for parents talking about how do we want to talk to our kids about our values and. The pastor put up a list of values on a screen and said, you know, which of these would you say are like the top five in your house? And in a room full of maybe 15 people?

I was the one person in the room that did not include hard work on my list of values. 

Sarah: [00:57:43] Hmm. 

Beth: [00:57:44] Wow. I just think about how much this has permeated all of us, no matter what environment we're in that sensibility of like, I need to kill myself or I'm doing it wrong. I don't know how we overcome that in at least a short amount of time.

Anne Helen Petersen: [00:57:59] You know, I think one of the big problems is that we have come to view more work as harder work. 

Sarah: [00:58:06] Yep. Right. Well, that's capitalistic to more healthcare is better. Healthcare, more education is better education. Like I can keep going. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [00:58:14] Totally. That's a really great point. And I think that like, I, this is Courtney, but I've learned a lot from exercise in terms of what, how to actually get peak performance.

Like I'm not, I'm not like a peak athlete in any definition of the word, but. In the pandemic times I've been doing a lot of like videos and stuff at home where the coach will say like, If you don't rest, you're going to feel like crap tomorrow, and you're not going to be able to do your work. Like you're not going to be able to do you know, what I ask of you in terms of athletic exertion and rest is justice might have much of a crucial component.

As the work itself. And we don't think about that at all. Right. Like we don't think with COVID people who are working from home now, they're not like, Oh, isn't it amazing that I have like 30 minutes on either side of my day where I could do that. Something like I could meditate, I could spend real concerted, like very present time with it.

My kids, if I chose to do that, I could read instead we're like, Oh, an extra hour. Or I could just be staring at my computer and doing work and like shooting off some emails. Right. We do not think of off time as crucial to the rest of our capacity to do work so hard work could be conceived as like when you are actually doing work, you are doing really good concerted work.

And when you're not doing work, you're not doing work, but I think we have just redefined hard work as well. Working all the time and that's very toxic. 

Sarah: [00:59:47] Well, let's talk about this word that you lay down and the chapter on rest, you said, do you know how to move without moving forward? Yeah, I like it brings tears to my eyes.

That's so intense to think about like, do I know how to be without producing? And I think, you know, when we talk about individualism and especially when you talk about in a religious setting and you say hard work. Because the narrative is here's the narrative, right. I chose to have a baby, right. I chose to have a baby.

So if I chose to have a baby and breastfeed that baby, and I knew the bar was coming up, that's my individual choice to overcome the hard work. And so if every solution comes through an individual lens, well, then that means every problem is an individual problem and never a systemic problem to ask. Like, no, but why was I put in that situation to make that choice in the religious setting too?

Like, there's a sense of like, Oh, well, it's your choices. It's free will. And so if you, if you're struggling well, then it's obviously your fault and you need to work harder to overcome 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:00:47] it. Yeah. I mean, all of that just erases all of these different societal influences, right? Like all of these things about.

Where you're born, how you're raised, uh, the opportunities that are available to you. Like you can't, you know, there's a great line. This is like cheesy, but there's a great line and a Little Fires Everywhere that like, we used the adaptation on HBO where it's like, I think Reese Witherspoon's characters is talking all about like making good choices and that sort of thing.

And Kerry Washington's character's like I didn't have those good choices to make. Right. Like those were not available to me for what, for many different reasons. So it's not about, Oh, making good choices, right? Like there's, there are only so many choices that are available to you. So I think about like, there's a section in the parenting chapter.

That's all about like this pressure. And denigration of people who don't like feed their kids, the right things that you're supposed to be feeding your kids, given the era. Right. And there I cite this great article that is from someone who researches basically a parenting nutritional choices. And poor parents know what healthy foods are, right.

It's not like, they're like, Oh, McDonald's is healthy. Right. This is the best thing that I could give my kids. But what happens is that oftentimes when you're poor and you only have a certain amount of money, whether it's food stamp money, or just like whatever money to spend on food. It's really, really wasteful to buy foods that your kids aren't going to eat.

Right. Like to give them that cornucopia of options that is suggested in order to like, 

Sarah: [01:02:31] we'll just keep putting it on the plate and having them take one bite and then throwing it down the garbage disposal. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:02:36] Right. And like that is it's time intensive and it's capital intensive. And that is not a choice that is available if you are really actually struggling to make ends meet.

And so instead of saying like, Oh, the reason why this has become it's harder to get good nutrition as a poor person is because it's so much harder to, to offer all of these options. It's so much harder to come by fresh fruits and vegetables, like we say, Oh, well, they are making bad decisions for their kids.

Right. They're lazy. 

Sarah: [01:03:10] I mean, I feel like moralizing is like the evil cousin of individualism. Like we all put, we put on the altar of the, our individual choices. And then if we have even like the slightest inkling that maybe they're not going well for us, well, then we moralize to make it worth it. That we've made these sacrifices because they were the right things.

It makes us feel better about all these sacrifices that we were already putting. We're just keep throwing good money after bad, basically. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:03:32] Right. Well, and again, to go back to the parenting chapter, cause I was just revisiting it, but like, 

Sarah: [01:03:37] well, I highlighted like half of it. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:03:39] That's where you have this flip side of like mommy martyrdom, right?

Well, with like the martyrdom would the exhaustion, like you have to be moralizing while also being like I'm doing all of these things. I'm trying so hard. I'm also exhausted. I also hate it. Like I'm also a wine mom. Like all of the things identities come from this pressure to be all things to everyone all the time.

Beth: [01:04:03] So a part of your book felt like such a relief to me because of someone naming that. I also felt a little more nihilistic after reading it. I don't think that's a bad thing to be clear. I think I probably needed that because I think that's how we start to pull back from that moralizing. That is not a criticism at all, but I wonder what this left you with in that realm.

Do you feel empowered by this information? Do you feel exhausted by it? Like where are you. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:04:30] Yeah, it's so hard because you know, this is sort of in line with the question that I often get, which is like, did you cure your burnout? Which of course not right. 

Sarah: [01:04:40] Ask me that question and read the book, 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:04:43] right? No, but like if the premise of the book is that we can't care burnout.

Until we fixed societal burnout, then of course I haven't fixed it. I have found some strategies to identify when I'm feeling more burnt out and like try to be gentle with myself and trying to remedy some of those behaviors. But at the same time, like I'm doing weeks of book promotion, while also launching my own newsletter, like all of this stuff at the same time, like, I feel like I'm working all the time and it's hard to feel like something's going to change.

But at the same time, you know, I do think there is a big possibility for systemic change in November. I'm also terrified that democracy is dying so I can try to hold both of those things in my head at the same time and hope for the best while expecting the worst, which I think is kind of like the motto of 2020, right.

Sarah: [01:05:40] Well, cause it feels like COVID, I say it shakes things loose. I think it accelerates stuff. So there's lots of spaces where it feels like maybe we would have been waiting five years for something it's happening now. Like I know that you were very excited about the unionization of graduate students.

Would you like to talk about that? Where you're finding hope, where COVID's shaking things loose.

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:06:02] Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I've been tweeting about this all day, so. We're recording this just slightly before this comes out. But like, there are places all over the United States where graduate students right now are pushing back against the universities COVID policies and, you know, someplace like university of Michigan, they're on strike right now.

And it's not just about the fact that like, They are being called to, to work in environments that might not be entirely safe for some graduate students, especially higher risk graduate students, but they are also asking in their negotiations, they are asking for, you know, a childcare subsidies so that they can actually do their work.

They are asking for the deescalation of policing on campus, so that graduate students who are black and Brown, don't have to worry about their safety when they are on campus. Um, So they are, they are treating what's happening right now in a holistic manner. They are not just saying like, you know, we need more testing and tracing, like, they are trying to.

Produce those safety nets that make it possible for them as graduate students, employed by the university as a labor force and as the future reputation of the university to do good work. And hopefully there will be some response to that. But the reason they're able to advocate for that is it's not just one graduate student speaking out.

It's not just a handful of graduate students. It's a union and their strike is, you know, they are, they are significantly. Stopping the way that classes are taught on campus. Like they are, they're making their voices heard by using their labor as a witch. Right. And I hope that we see more of that going forward.

Sarah: [01:07:48] Well, and I really feel like COVID should teach us a new language. Like what we've spent a lot of time talking about is the shift from moralizing. What the people, the choices people make out during a global pandemic to like. The language of risk assessment and people assess risk differently. And if we can move from right wrong, do you have a bigger appetite for risk than I do?

If COVID can teach us anything, like, I feel like that would really be helpful because if you're in a union that's risk assessment right there, we're going to take the risk on as a group, we're going to spread the risk. I mean, that's what happened, right? We were, the government was coming in and spreading the risk.

And what we found is an eraser of that, so that the risk is all on the individual. And the increased narrative of the individual. And so like, I just, I love the chapters on do what you love and you'll never work again. Would you talk about Steve jobs, but I emailed you immediately and was like, Anne Helen, that was Oprah. 

Oprah was teaching us and I don't criticize Oprah, but that was every day at four o'clock it was, you really need to find your passion. Remember your spirit, passion, like man. And there was like root for that. I'm not saying it's all bad. But like, that was like a steady drip in my head. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:08:59] I think that that was a message that women really needed to hear.

Sarah: [01:09:04] Right. Our mothers needed it, but I was, we were all watching too, man. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:09:07] Yep. I will. Every day I came home from school, I would watch star Trek the next generation, and then I would watch Oprah. 

Sarah: [01:09:14] Right, right. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:09:17] That was a message that I think was. You know, there are messages that come, that are appropriate for a place in time because they are trying to get you to that place of awareness, that place of confidence that maybe you didn't have before, because of, you know, in that situation, patriarchy that like, mm 

Oh, your passion, what 

you actually want to do that matters is that you love doing, like, you can do something with that, but now we're at a point where it's like, 

Sarah: [01:09:43] Everything has to be your side hustle.

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:09:45] Yeah. Everything you love, you have to monetize in some way. And I think that's really destructive. 

Sarah: [01:09:51] Yeah. It felt like pressure. Like I felt in my tone, it felt like pressure in my twenties. You better find it. You better find the one that makes you happy because Oprah says you better do what you love. 

Beth: [01:09:59] It seems like the erosion of lots of those structures beyond work.

That you talk about in the book. And, and I mean, I think this is the theme of the book that kept coming up for me too. It's just boundaries. We don't have good examples of how do we set a boundary around our time? How do we set a boundary around, I love this work. And also I cannot do it every moment of every day.

I even wonder sometimes as I read your report, Hoarding, which I think is so excellent because it seems to me that you really like look for narratives that won't confirm your own impression. Like I can see you seeking out a holistic view of whatever you're reporting on. But I always think like, gosh, I wonder how she kind of sets her boundaries around all of these different people that she's engaging with.

Did you find that to be a struggle with the book?

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:10:50] You know, 

Beth: [01:10:51] it sounds like maybe yes. 

Sarah: [01:10:54] Like she regrets giving me her cell phone number, but that was her choice. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:10:57] So here's the thing that I do to kind of kind of create a boundary is I oftentimes, and I use this for the book. I do a lot of story gathering via Google forms and Google surveys. So yeah, instead of calling every single person, I'll say, if you want to talk about this, if this is something that you you are passionate about and you want your insight to inform my thinking, here are a bunch of questions.

And on your time, when you feel like you can articulate what you feel about it, you can expand in this place. And I think the reason that I gravitate towards that is because it's what I would personally prefer. Like I just, as a writer, like I always articulate myself better. In writing, um, any, I know a lot of people who aren't writers who feel similarly, and it also just feels more private.

And that's how I think I got a lot of people to talk pretty frankly, about their experience, either reflecting on their experience as children or talking about their experience as mothers, like there was so much rage, there's so much palpable rage in that parenting chapter. And I think part of it, and it came through because people were allowed to

really dead, like really sit in that anger for a while, instead of trying to filter it for me, you know, trying to filter it as you would in a proper conversation when you're trying to maybe balance some of the things that you're saying with like, you know, counter narratives, that sort of thing. But so that, that creates a little bit of a boundary that I'm not like absorbing all of that energy firsthand in a conversation because I.

Eminent trovert so reporting really takes it out of me. It sucks out a lot of energy and I love it, but it does, it, it, I wiped out at the end of her reporting day. So having. Having a space where people can write, instead of necessarily always having a conversation. That's a little bit helpful. I do want to say that I oftentimes will follow up with people.

Like if I, you know, they've put stuff in, in the Google forum and I'm like, Oh, this is so interesting. I want to hear more from that person, but it does help a little bit like in that capacity, but now I'm horrible with boundaries. And I also, you know, like I don't have kids, so it's even easier for me to.

Expand work into even more spaces. Not that people with kids aren't doing that as well, but it's just, I don't have any stoppages, but I do think, you know, this is going back to the lack of boundaries. I think a lot of parents are struggling with any sort of parenting boundary, like the stats about the fact that after moms entered into the workplace on mass, they now spend more time with their kids.

Isn't it crazy? 

Sarah: [01:13:42] Well, did you read the Atlantic article on accommodation, anxiety and parenting and how it's accommodation? Oh, you gotta read it. It was so good. And they were just talking and they were very careful. They're like, we are not trying to blame the parents. That's not what we're doing here. Psychology has a long history of that.

It's a bad one. We don't want to repeat it, but you know, if you're anxious about your economic security, if you are working a lot because of that economic security, like in you come home to your child, who you already feel guilty about leaving, you don't want to do the like. Boundaries of know you're going to try the food.

No, you're going to go to bed, no work. You can't have that. You don't want any conflict because you already feel guilty about working. And so there's all these accommodations, which build the anxiety for the parent and particularly for the child, because the child never builds the muscle of overcoming the anxiety.

The anxiety has just accommodated and it was so good. And I just feel like it's this weird. Toxic soup. I think that one of the biggest things you name for me is the emphasis, especially in the parenting chapter. And I feel it so profoundly during COVID is relative deprivation theory. Like only when we feel more deprived than other members of our reference group.

Well, we feel entitled to protest and like we do that constantly. Well, I know somebody has it worse and it's like, I think we've lost. Like community is not always consensus. You will never be consensus our perspectives or our problems or our levels of suffering. That's not the point. The point is not, we are, you are not alone.

And we all agree. It's just, you are not alone. I see you. I affirm your experience. I can identify with some of it. Some of it is new to me. That's okay. But like, you can feel that need people have for like no conflict within the group. Like there be no tension within the community and like, that's not going to happen.

Not in a group of humans, not at my expense. Yeah. And that's okay. But it's like, you can't, that's not something you can read about. You have to experience that and realize like the sun will come up and you will be okay. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:15:40] Yeah. And I think it also prevents people from protesting conditions that are crappy.

Right. And so that includes in your job and how you're treated in your job. You're like, well, I'm not a fast food worker, so I guess it's okay. Right. Or, or in your relationship. And I think that this happens all the time. People are like, well, my husband or partner does more. Then this other husband or partner, so I should be grateful 

or 

Sarah: [01:16:12] that's not what gratitude means

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:16:13] or he does more than his dad did.

So that's a step forward, right? But again, this, this points to the fact that like you can go to marriage counseling and you can have a lot of long talks about equity and labor and invisible labor and the mental load and all of these things. But the only way to really fix it. Is if we have societal changes that make it so that.

Not only are we always worried about childcare? Not only are we always worried about like, how am I going to make space for breastfeeding with this job, which has no accommodations for it, or like kind of snidely has an accommodations for it. But like the thing that I always think back on is that the research about partnerships where labor remains portable after the child has.

Grown up a little bit like, you know, toddler like enduring equitable partnership tips. It is almost always like that stats are, if the husband has taken significant leave. And on his own. And cause that's just, it shows like if you do it by yourself, you have to see all of that stuff that is necessary to take care of a child and you never take it for granted again, but we do not live in a society where, where there's any, you know, enforce parental leave, let alone paternity leave, let alone paternity leave on one's own.

Right. 

Sarah: [01:17:31] It's not just that it shows the partner doing it, that they can do it. It shows the other partner that they can do it. Yeah, because that's what happens. It's a, well, I have conversations with my girlfriends all the time where it's like, well, he can't do it. I'm like he is an attorney. Do I need to be worried about my legal representation?

Because if he can not handle that simple childcare task, then I am concerned about whether or not he can draft a will or do an being an accountant or be a banker or be a processor, whatever the case may be like, if they can't handle that, then I got worried about his actual job just saying. 

Beth: [01:18:01] What I think is so brilliant about the way parenting was included in this book is that it shows that we bring the same scarcity mindset into our families that we have in the workplaces.

Yeah, the mom who says he can't do it, it is not different than the bookkeeper at work who says their colleague can't handle this while I'm on vacation. It's that hoarding? Purpose within our systems. I think this is what the book really drew out for me. That 

Sarah: [01:18:30] what we're doing good. Somebody should tweet that.

That's very good. I think a very good turn of phrase that make that contained so much of exactly what you're talking. Oh, that's good. That's good. 

Beth: [01:18:39] I don't think I ever really got this until I was in one of the sections of the book where you were talking about corporations that are unwilling to. Pay people more, but are willing to spend lots of money on really fluffy benefit.

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:18:53] Uh huh. 

Beth: [01:18:54] And I've been a part of that. I've made decisions like that. And so that part of the book took me to confessional a little bit and. But that helped me see that really work. I accepted that sense. Well, we don't have enough money for X thing and that enough money is never defined for us because the idea is always the yeah.

Accumulation of more. And, Oh, that's how I parent I, I treat my kids sometimes. Like they are. Bosses where the, I should always be working harder, but there's never a finish line to match and I can behave that way in my marriage and in my friendships too. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:19:37] That's really insightful. I, you know, just that idea of like the kids are the boss of you, right.

Like, that's really interesting. And I think that like most people would be very reticent to admit that that is a somewhat how their parenting has, has formed in their lives. Someone was talking to me the other day about how they really admired their friend who, when they were having a zoom conversation, their children, their child came up to them and said like, was asking a question.

And this person was like, Nope, I'm not parenting right now. Right. Like even drew that boundary the way that we drive, draw a boundary around work to say, like, in this moment I am not parenting you. Like you should go do something else. And that's something we would never say to our boss. Right. Like we always want to, to please is, you know, not necessarily an a pandering way, but we want to have a copacetic relationship with our, with our bosses. But sometimes you have to say, no, I'm not doing that right now. And that includes in the workplace or as a parent. 

Sarah: [01:20:36] If you're not giving your children the opportunity to learn that a boundary can be enforced on them and they'll survive it, what are they going to be like adults unpleasant.

I can tell you what they're going to be like. 

Beth: [01:20:46] Well, speaking of boundaries, I want to be sure that we respect your time. Is there one thing that you want to be sure to say to everyone before they go buy your book immediately as they should? 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:20:54] Well, I guess I don't think this is the end of this conversation in terms of, you know, I'm trying to give her framework so that we can see our own burnout clearly, and then we can build on it.

Like I want there to be so much more discussion and. And policy and, and just like anger and, and moving forward. But like, this is the beginning. It's not the end. 

Sarah: [01:21:17] Well, that's how the last part of your book felt like I was ready to hit the streets at the end of the class. Where are we meeting up? 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:21:23] Let's protest our burnout.

Sarah: [01:21:25] Right. 

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:21:26] You know, there are so many things that I think actual protests are actually trying to say that things the way that they are right now, It is not working. We are fed up with how it is in so many different ways, both in terms, like, whether it's in terms of work or the way that we treat each other or social justice or our healthcare system, like it is not working.

So how can we try to have the bravery and imagination to say it could be otherwise? 

Sarah: [01:21:54] Well, I also want to say that you should not just buy Anne Helen's book, which you should, you should also become a supporter of Culture Study on Substack. I'm so excited that you're all in, on your reporting and sharing it through your email newsletter.

I let you know, look, I would have subscribed when you were just writing about celebrity scandals, which was also just as prolific and philosophical and insightful. But now that you have been unleashed and you are, you know, out there in the world, finding these trends, helping us all see them. I'm just, I'm so excited for you.

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:22:27] Well, and the thing I want to make sure that people know because it's in line with my entire philosophy is like, if you have the means to subscribe, absolutely. Please consider it. But also if you are a contingent worker, or un or under employed, I give free subscriptions. No questions asked you just have to email me, but it's Anne Helen.Substack.com. That's where you can find it. 

Beth: [01:22:47] Well, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for this book. I know I will read it again, and it was really excellent and helpful and clarifying. So we appreciate you always. 

Sarah: [01:22:57] Listen, I'm going to be full Oprah this Christmas, everybody's getting a copy. I hope to give the books away. 

I learned that from watching Oprah too.

Anne Helen Petersen: [01:23:03] This is such, this is such a great conversation and such great questions and insights, and I just, I really, really appreciate it. So thank you so much. 

Sarah: [01:23:12] Thank you so much to Anne Helen for coming and talking to us, please check out her book. Every week here at Pantsuit Politics, this community gives us hope, it gives us strength and we will talk to you again on Tuesday. Keep it nuanced. Y'all.