Perpetual Economic Growth is Not Available

TOPICS DISCUSSED

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EPISODE RESOURCES

The Economy

Laurel Wittman

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:00] Well, because it's not sustainability as a mission. It's just growth. Sometimes perpetual growth is not sustainable. Wait, let me change that. All the time perpetual growth is not sustainable.  

[00:00:18] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:20] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:21] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics, where we take a different approach to the news. Today, we're going to talk about our economy, bear markets, recessions, crypto crash, what exactly is going on? And in our main segment, we're going to share our conversation with Laurel Whitman, president of the Well Spouse Association, the only nonprofit that provides support specifically for the spouses and partners of people living with chronic illness or disability. And then we'll close out the show, as we always do, with what's on our mind outside of politics, specifically summer.  

Beth [00:01:04] As you know, we have spent a lot of time and energy on the Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. That committee is continuing its good work. We're recording today on Monday, June 20th. There will be another hearing tomorrow, June 21st. And then we think the final primetime hearing on Thursday, June 23rd. But it all seems to be a bit fluid and we're trying to adapt as it adapts. We have been covering the daytime hearings two ways, on Instagram live and on Twitter. We will have another HotMic watch  along on Thursday. You can keep up with all of the information about this through our social channels. We've also been recapping the hearings in detail in our newsletter with lots of links. So if you're missing where you can go back and watch, we have links. We have clips in the newsletter. So go to Pantsuitpoliticsshow.com That will connect you to our socials and to our newsletter. And we hope to see many of you on social media as we watch together tomorrow afternoon.  

Sarah [00:02:02] And if we sound different is because we are recording together this week. I am at Beth's house while our children, all except Felix, are at Camp Ernst sleepaway camp together. So we have a lot of uninterrupted time to work and think, and we love being able to record together. We're recording all the News Briefs and More to Say is together this week. So make sure and check out that if you're in our premium community. And up next, we're going to talk about the economy. The economy is feeling as emotional as all the rest of us. I feel like that's how I will take away. We have a lot going on. So a convergence of several things. We have entered a bear market. What does that mean? It's a 20 percent decrease from the high in January. I really appreciated The Daily explain this whole bear market, bull market. And they said the closest they can explain where these animal terms came from is that bulls gore and pull up and bears claw and pull down and so it's supposed to signal the direction of the market. I don't know how we pick that but I am fascinated.  

[00:03:06] We also had last week, as probably everyone saw, the Fed announcing that it is raising rates. This is the biggest increase since 1994. They are trying to not just slow down, I think, but shut down inflation. And inflation is real. The Consumer Price Index shows average prices rose 8.6 percent over the past year. That's a Kohl's Statistic to describe what we are all seeing in our everyday lives with the cost of gas and the cost of food and the cost of all that summer travel and then even things that are supposed to be independent.  Bitcoin, I feel like was always talked about and described as separate from the market, but it is certainly responding particularly to the Fed increase. The price of Bitcoin has fallen below 20,000 for the first time since December 2020. It even got all the way down to 17,800 at one point. So it's lost an enormous amount of value, at least on paper. And so all these events converging in a high level numerical way to describe, I think, what we all feel, which is that the economy is going through some things.  

Beth [00:04:18] And it's going through some things all over the world. This is not a uniquely American phenomenon. As we've talked about a million times here, there are so many different reasons all of this is happening and it's hard to isolate any of them. A war in Ukraine. The pandemic. Supply chain factors. Natural disasters. There are lots of reasons, and that makes it a complicated problem to tackle. And I also think that we're just living through a very transitional time in terms of technology, in terms of what people want to be doing with their time. It feels cliche at this point to talk about the great resignation and the labor shortage, but these are still new issues that we are sorting out the effects of and will be for a long time. I don't say any of that to say, well, there should be no pressure on policymakers. I think there should be tremendous pressure on policy makers to be responding to these issues. I just don't think there's one type of response or that any response is going to be effective very quickly.  

Sarah [00:05:25] Ezra Klein had financial journalist Rana Foroohar on his show, and she described what's happening right now as that everything bubble bursting. And, to me, I really appreciate this conversation because it feels like we spend a lot of time trying to describe the immediate history. We're really focused on the supply chains and the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. It's like our vision with the economy, what's happening, is so short. Unless we're just saying this is the worst it's been since 1970 or this is the biggest increase since 1994. And what I really appreciate about their conversation and something I think we've talked about and which I think about all the time, is that the underlying assumption just feels like something's wrong with the economy if it's not in perpetual growth. Well, perpetual growth is cancer. It's like we had to have correction. We all knew that there was an enormous amount of money sloshing around for way longer than is normal.  I feel like that's getting lost. I feel like there's no language around the correction. And I think it's because anything that happens in the economy has so much impact and causes a lot of pain for a lot of people. But I don't really feel like that's what we're centering. We're centering the pain of stockholders and CEOs not centering the pain of people on the bottom end of the economic ladder. And the truth is perpetual growth that leaves a lot of people behind, that creates the circumstances in which painful corrections are necessary, also create that kind of pain. It just depends on what timeline you're examining. And I feel like whenever we talk about the economy, the timeline is jacked and never proportional or realistic or even wise in the way we talk about it.  

Beth [00:07:13] I remember working as a young lawyer right out of law school, 2007/8/9, as the economy is in freefall, and all of these institutions that seemed unflappable are suddenly hitting the bankruptcy courts. And that was the area that I was working in, corporate bankruptcy. And I remember reading about derivatives and all the things that had gotten us there and and realizing, well, no wonder this has come apart, because at some point, everything became unreal. And I thought, we won't make that mistake again. But then as you look back, especially over the past couple of years, where there were tremendous amounts of wealth being funneled into NFTs and meme stocks. I feel like we almost squandered the lessons of the last recession and squandered the opportunities that we had when there were tremendous amounts of capital looking for places to go, that we didn't invest that money very wisely. It continued to be an individual's game. And I'm curious what will be written about this time when we're years out and have some perspective on it? And so I agree with you that we can't be in that state of perpetual growth, because when we are, we don't make good choices. And I also don't want to say that in a way that ignores the pain that it causes when the economy constricts for those of us who've never had enormous amounts of capital to just play with.  

Sarah [00:08:52] Yeah. I mean, they described it as a saccharine economy. And that sounds right to me. And I think the problem with conversations about the economy is the same problem we have in conversations about our political parties. Are we talking about the people in power and the leaders and the people who benefit from the system? Are we talking about the people who prop up the system who are like the mass participants? Are we talking about Mitch McConnell? Are we talking about voters? Are we talking about Tim Cook? Are we talking about people who work minimum wage jobs at fast food? How are we possibly supposed to have a conversation about "The economy" if we don't delineate and define which groups we're talking about? And so we're not talking about a saccharine economy. Believe I'm talking about Tim Cook. And I think it goes even further back than like NFTs this sort of stock buyback, just enormous amounts of capital. I read a story about the new CEO at Amazon and how this Jeff Bezos era is over. And it's like, well, we thought Jeff Bezos was a genius and I don't want to take some of Jeff Bezos's impact and vision away from him.  

[00:10:02] But it is a different thing to be this big thinking, transformational CEO when there's just money everywhere, when you can borrow massive amounts of money for tiny interest rates than what this new CEO is facing, where you've got rising interest rates and a lot of increasing pressures from a lot of angles.  And I hope we look back and see that maybe what we saw is transformational. It was a sugar high. It was that manic energy. And I don't think we make great decisions during those cycles. We don't build. We don't invest at the corporate level, at the institutional level, at the government level. I was so struck by this conversation on Ezra Klein show because they described Harvard as a hedge fund because it just has so much money. It's like corporations become hedge funds, because really what you're doing is you're not making iPhone, you're trying to decide what to do with these billions of dollars in corporate finance. And you're really not educating a couple thousand students at your university. You're trying to decide what to do with a multibillion dollar endowment.  

[00:11:11] And it's just all this money was everywhere. And instead of spending time thinking about like, what does that mean? It's like every piece of financial reporting is bad. There's not enough growth. There's coming a recession. Now, I was so struck listening to The Daily where they kept saying no one wants a recession. And I wanted to say, "Well, right, no one wants a recession, but should there be a conversation about what our economy needs instead of only what we want in the the scenario?" And, again, I'm talking about the big players, the power players, the people who benefit from the system. Because I do think you have to have two separate conversations about the impact at the bottom. But I do think, like, you need different conversations and also they're connected because if the big players are exploiting the system in this sort of manic sugar-high energy, obviously it's going to have impact to people at the very bottom of the economic ladder.  

Beth [00:12:13] I am very guilty of the thing I'm about to describe, so I'm not sitting on high describing this phenomenon. I think that there comes a point in almost any organization, whether it's for profit or not, where the sustainability of the organization becomes the controlling ethos instead of the mission. Where it is we must preserve these billions of dollars in some way and keep them making more and more money for us because we want this to last forever. And I think what we've lost is a sense that some things aren't supposed to last forever. Some things are supposed to meet a moment and then become something else or kind of die off and something else takes its place. And it's really hard when you see yourself as a fiduciary to an entity to think maybe this entity isn't supposed to last forever and maybe we should be spending down this endowment to really fulfill our mission right now, instead of working to only preserve it so that we can do this perpetually into the future. I would argue this is what's wrong with the Republican Party right now, too. There is this sense of just sustainability. Instead of at what point do we say, "Well, what is all this for? What are we doing?" And that's the other thing that I keep thinking about when I hear people say, "Well, the economy is more important than X, Y or Z political story." It is not separate.  

[00:13:35] We are unprepared, as I see it, in health care for a post Roe world where state legislatures get way in the business of OB-GYNs. I don't think our health care infrastructure is ready for that, and that impacts the economy in a massive way. We are unprepared for a world in which every election in the United States is followed by political violence, that affects the economy in a major way. And we could go on forever. But when people say, like, well, I'm not going to watch-- it's so privilege of you to ask people to watch the January 6th hearings because of gas prices. Friend, those things are married. Those ideas go together in such a cohesive way, which is why all of it's hard to untangle. Going back to what I said at the beginning, there's not one cause for why the economy is suffering right now, and there's not going to be one solution. And you cannot isolate the variables for your attention the way that we kind of want to ask each other to.  

Sarah [00:14:35] Well, because it's not sustainable ability as a mission, it's just growth. Sometimes perpetual growth is not sustainable. Wait, let me change that. All the time perpetual growth is not sustainable in our economy, in an organization. I was so struck by The New York Times reporting on Jack Welch and his time at GE, and his impact on corporate philosophy, and this  financialization that the corporate structure was only meant to grow the bottom line, to grow the finances, that you lost this idea of the mission being the product or the service or the employees. It was just the dollar amount. And I think that pure financialization outlook has affected so many things, including the way we think about the economy. And I can hear people be like, you, dumb lady, are you trying to convince me that the economy shouldn't just be about finances? Yeah, I am trying to convince you about that because that isn't the only thing the economy is. The economy is the manifestation through a dollar amount of everything that's happening in our culture and our politics and our governance, even our personal lives depending on who you are.  

[00:15:48] And so I just think that when we shrink it down and we make it about the growth, these percentages, these numbers, and we lose that bigger picture and we can't see the weirdness of what's happening and we miss those broader impacts, just like you were saying. Also, I can feel a repulsion, a paradoxical repulsion of like I don't want to talk about the financial impact of Roe v Wade. I both want us to expand our view of the economy and also not make everything about finances. I just want both sides of this coin to be more holistic because to something you mentioned earlier today, and to just continue to make this the Ezra Klein podcast, he wrote an editorial that was like, this is a weird time. And I think that that's what I'm pushing up against. Like,  it's weird out there, man. Everything's changing. I will read a story. I mean, he cited the Google engineer that felt like the AI that they were working on had gained sentience. And I felt my body go, uh-huh. Like, I kind of feel this sense of, like, here we go. We're on this road that none of us really want to look at.  

[00:17:02] I was reading Laura Tremaine's book, and she has this great thing where she talks about lean into the things you want to skip past. And it's like we're so bad at that in America. And I feel like we are living in the culmination of all the things we have perpetually wanted to skip past. We wanted to skip past the fact that it was a weird economy where there was so much growth that was unsustainable. We wanted to skip past the long term impact of the pandemic. We wanted to get past the distrust in our governing institutions. We just wanted to, like, speed past it or take this sort of surface level analysis. And it's all culminating in this way where it feels like every story, every headline is just building in this, like, you cannot ignore this any longer narrative.  

Beth [00:17:49] I think that's exactly it. And something that I've been thinking about a lot, especially since I read the first reporting about that AI is just what does it mean to be sentient? I'm reading a book about that that is just called Sentience, and it explores the animal kingdom. And it's fascinating. And I can't know for all of us what it means to be sentient, but I can try to work on an answer to that question for me. I can't know for all of us whether the global economy has failed and we need to go more regional and what that means. I can't know for all of us what a dollar represents, but I can try to know for me. And I think that's why-- not to be a commercial for it, but I love Laura's book Share Your Stuff I'll Go First because it kind of calls you back to those fundamentals. How would you answer this question? What is important to you about this thing? That's the best I know how to do in a situation where I have very little power and influence. I'm not at Davos.  

[00:18:50] I hope the folks at Davos are thinking, what does it mean to be sentient? And what are the ethics of all these things that our money is creating? But I can just do it in my little life and try to know the best I can and ask policymakers to care about the impact of the gas prices and the grocery prices and the logistical impediments to getting goods and services moving around the world and getting enough medicine ordered for people. The economy is the hardest thing that we talk about because we have the least influence over it in so many ways. And the only way we know how to exercise any control, I think, is to say, well, you should never order anything from this company or go to this restaurant or drive this kind of car. And that is just missing it. That's just missing it. Not that our individual actions have no impact, but that I think we can't fully understand the impact of those individual actions without at least spending some time on like the values underneath all of it.  

Sarah [00:19:52] And so we're going to pivot now, but we think it's relevant. We're going to share our conversation with Laurel Whitman, who became president of the Well Spouse Association's board in September 2021. Her husband of 17 years, Eduardo, was diagnosed with MS in 1998 at the age of 24, and his disease course has been very aggressive. He is now in 24-hour-care for years, and when Laurel became president of the board, she reached out to us to see if we'd like to have a conversation about the work she does and the way her husband's illness has impacted her life. And we are, of course, delighted to talk to her and excited to share a conversation with all of you, because we do think these conversations about care and friendship like we had with Jennifer Senior have a bigger macro impact.  

Beth [00:20:30] It is especially important to me to have this conversation with Laurel. My mother has a serious chronic condition, and I have seen firsthand the way that that has changed her life and our family's lives and her marriage with my dad. I'm sure I don't see even a tiny percentage of that, but I see enough to know how significant it is. And when I think about things like the January 6th hearing, the economy, all these macro issues, going back to our conversation with Jennifer Senior, I think our fundamental happiness and the relationships that we have, and the support we have to just get through the day matter a lot. And it is clear everywhere you look that we do not have enough support for people who are living with lifelong medical needs, medical needs that often our systems cannot address well. So I really appreciated this discussion with Laurel and hope that you'll find it valuable too. Laurel, we're so happy that you're here with us. I wondered if you would mind to tell people a little bit about yourself and about the organization that you lead.  

Laurel Whitman [00:21:44] Sure, I'd be happy to. So my name is Laurel Whitman, and I am the president of the board of the Well Spouse Association. We are the only nonprofit that is set up for the partners and spouses of people with chronic illness and disability. My tenure started about three months ago, so I'm still getting my feet underneath me. But it's been it's been exciting so far. And it's an important organization for people who are in situations like mine. So my husband has advanced M.S. He was diagnosed very young. And I knew when we got married that he had M.S., but it progressed pretty rapidly, and I found myself quite alone. And so finding, Well Spouse was really life changing for me, and I'm excited to be able to give back.  

Beth [00:22:24] That's awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about Well Spouse, how it began, who well it serves? When I read the description, I thought what a broad category of people this must support. So can you talk a little bit about that?  

Laurel Whitman [00:22:38] Sure. Yeah. So the organization itself is about 34-years-old. It was founded by a woman whose situation was not unlike mine. She was an author and wrote a book about her experiences as the partner of somebody who had M.S.. This was, of course, back before the Internet was a thing. And so she sent her book out into the world, and she had a page in the back of it where it said, If you're also in this situation, send me a postcard and we'll connect. And people did. And so they found her. Yeah. And a group was convened. And this this group of 10 people met in Pennsylvania and put together what has become Well Spouse. 

Beth [00:23:12] That's amazing.  

Sarah [00:23:13] And how do you, as an organization, think about this large spectrum of everyone who might have a spouse that has chronic M.S. and need a very high level of assistance and care to someone maybe just tackling a difficult diagnosis that hasn't dramatically affected life yet, maybe just increased fatigue. Beth, I know you've spoken a lot about having fibromyalgia and how that affected your relationship. Although,I was thinking to like truthfully spouses dealing with  someone with long COVID or maybe just an intense time with COVID. Like, there's just this incredible spectrum of experiences around caregiving. And I'm wondering how your organization thinks about that.  

Laurel Whitman [00:23:57] Yeah, it's a great question. And one place I like to start is talking a little bit about the language. You know we obviously call ourselves the Well Spouse Association. It doesn't mean that we ourselves are well, it doesn't mean that we're only for spouses. We are for people who are in partnered relationships because we think there are commonalities. And that's really what brings us together. No matter what your disease or your disability is, there's a lot of commonalities that we face in the emotions and then the financial impacts of the disease. And the disease is progressive, so the changes that come along with that along the way. So that's really where we find we can bring people together in a meaningful way. It's finding those commonalities.   

Beth [00:24:39] Speaking of the language, is caregiving a word that you embrace or how do you think about that?  

Laurel Whitman [00:24:47] Yeah, I've had some Twitter discussion on this recently, and it's a great question too. And a lot of people don't identify as caregivers. I know for years I didn't feel like I was a caregiver because  my husband was still working and he was still relatively independent. And I associated it in my head with something that that did become true for us but doesn't become true for everyone. So there is a whole spectrum of care. But we really do think people who are attending doctor appointments with their partner in the early stages of the disease, that's a type of caregiving. It's a way of being there. We try to be pretty inclusive with the language, but it's an interesting discussion that's taking place now. What does it mean to be a caregiver, to be a care recipient? The language, I think, is really interesting and it's something a lot of us are focused on.  

Beth [00:25:35] Well, I ask because I have thought quite a bit. Sarah mentioned that I have fibromyalgia and it was very intense and a really difficult part of our marriage for a while until I kind of found some supportive treatments and practices. I hope now that it's something that my husband doesn't have to think about very often, but in the time when he was providing some care for me, I thought, how is there reciprocity in our relationship when we are navigating this dynamic? And I could see where having a group of people in similar situations or even quite different situations might be illuminating around what are our obligations to one another through something like this?  

Laurel Whitman [00:26:18] Right. Yeah, it's a great question and a great thing to think about and a difficult thing. . A lot of us, I think, when we're in the partner situation, your husband's shoes, we don't want to put another burden on our partner and our emotions can become part of that burden. So it's really helpful to have this place to go to have support where you can kind of freely unload all of that and then go home in a different frame of mind and to be more present then in your relationship and and not bring those burdens. And there's a theory, I guess it's called the ring theory. And it really resonated with me. And it's the idea that the person with the disease is kind of in the middle of the circle, and then they're concentric circles that go out from there. And the partner is not in that circle, and the idea is you you project emotions out and you provide support in. So the partners is helping to protect the person in the middle and then your family's hopefully are around you to protect you and the person. That resonated with me. And so we are a way of helping to kind of dump the emotions out.  

Beth [00:27:23] I mean, do you think of it as you come to the Well Spouse Association to be the center of your circle for a minute? Because that experience of having a partnership, often in a different light than you expected, I think its own circle in a lot of ways.  

Laurel Whitman [00:27:41] Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. It's a place and it's hopefully a safe place to come and wrestle with really important topics. You know, what does intimacy look like when your relationship changes? What does autonomy look like when your relationship changes? And it's nobody's fault disease and disability just kind of do this. And it's hard to know where to put some of the anger that comes up with some of that. And we want to be a safe place where people can go and first recognize those emotions because that's really the first step. A lot of people come in there, they don't recognize what they're feeling. They just know they're not sleeping well and they're having panic attacks. And they're lashing out at their partner in ways that they don't want to. And we're like, yes, that's because that's depression and that's anxiety. And you're feeling grief. That's what grief looks like. Yeah. So it's helping to put a language around some of that. And then you can start to wrestle with it and then hopefully you get to a place of acceptance.  

Sarah [00:28:41] I'm wondering, as you work with people on these commonalities and you learn to recognize all these feelings and struggles and grief surrounding the relationship with your partner, how that affects your other relationships. How does this flow out? How does this carry over into other parts of your life?  

Laurel Whitman [00:29:01] Yeah, totally. So relationships often change. We do spend a fair bit of time in our support group meetings talking about family members who aren't supporting us in the way that we hope that they would. Even if they love the person, sometimes they just they can't handle whatever the illness is. It's hard for them to see the the person with the illness in that situation. We talk a lot about friends that disappear. And I try to bring some-- I'll use your word, I try to bring grace to it because I know that this is a difficult situation for everyone. But it can definitely become then a burden on the Well Spouse to have to reach out and ask for the things that they need. It's hard to ask for help and to be vulnerable and to say that you aren't getting what you need from somebody. And, unfortunately, when people start to disappear you want to have some of those discussions. We talk about how you can have them. And we also talk about kind of when to cut your losses sometimes. You know, that this just isn't a relationship that is going to support what you're looking for. Where else can you go for that kind of support?  

Sarah [00:30:06] Well, and I'm also wondering, beyond how it negatively affects your relationships like what you  learn. Like, when you learn to recognize those emotions and you learn to find support and you learn to find language, I imagine it doesn't just affect the partner relationship, but it affects other relationships as well.  

Laurel Whitman [00:30:30] Yeah. I find myself-- and I've been at this fairly long time, that I have more patience in all of my relationships, and I have a lower threshold for small things upsetting me because I've wrestled with some really big things which is beneficial. And I find too-- I love this one. I would never give this one up. I'm really able to sit with people who are in pain and not try and fix what is upsetting them.   

Sarah [00:31:07] I love how you said that. I love how you said I would never give up this one. That brings tears to my eyes. That's so beautiful.  

Laurel Whitman [00:31:11]  Yeah. It's a gift to be able to do that and to give that to somebody, to really make them feel heard. So I think that's a really important piece of what we can do as a community.  

Beth [00:31:27] How do you develop that sense of, I'm sitting with your pain, not trying to fix it? How do you avoid taking on everything of your spouse's as your own?  

Laurel Whitman [00:31:37] Yeah.  

Beth [00:31:38] I worry about that in situations that I see. I just think there's an invitation to selflessness that's unsustainable.  

Laurel Whitman [00:31:50] Yeah. You have to be careful not to be a martyr, even  when that feels like the right decision, I think, or the right set of choices to make. Yeah. Other people have taught me how to do this because they gave me the gift of being heard and being listened to and being able to speak my story. That's how I learned how to do it with other people. And that's because it was fast. It wasn't because of my work or -- and my family was struggling because this is their son in law. This is their brother. This is their son. It was something that would be hard for them to give, but the Well Spouse community allows you to get a little bit of distance, I think, from it. And then that's a piece of it. I think that's what makes it hard for other relationships. It's hard to get the distance you need to be that kind of mutual support and listen to somebody without judgment.  

Beth [00:32:51] I noticed that you used the word acceptance earlier, and I think a whole lot of loving any person is growing your capacity for acceptance. I just wonder when you are observing best practices and learning from others in Well Spouse, what do you hear about relationships in terms of being able to define them outside of the role that care plays?  

Laurel Whitman [00:33:18] Well, I see tremendous capacity for love, which sounds obvious. But I think there's a tendency in real life, too, to talk about how difficult things are. And the kind of love of sitting in a hospital room with somebody while they sleep for hours and hours and hours, you know? And that's something that seems very normal to a lot of us. That's really amazing. And there is a selflessness to it of being present for people in that kind of way. Most of us, I think, make wedding vows. And this is really putting wedding vows to the test. Not everyone sees them the same way and feels them the same way. But for a lot of us having the kind of resources that let us keep showing up day after day, I think that's a special thing.  

Sarah [00:34:23] I wonder when you say that a lot of caregiving revolves around relationships that are not a choice. Parent to child or child to parent. But at the end of the day, Well Spouse serves people that it is a choice.  

Laurel Whitman [00:34:36] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:34:36] Some people make different choices.  I'll never forget reading a statistic once that talked about how common it is for women who get sick for their husbands to leave. And so I wonder how that's affected your thinking. Like, how you feel about the people that make a different choice, or how you think about the role of choice in your decision and how you talk about that in Well Spouse.  

Laurel Whitman [00:35:03] Yeah. I think I would answer and say that a lot of people in Well Spouse I think what comes through is it doesn't always feel like a choice even though it is. These are people who do take the commitments they've made very seriously. Sometimes that can go even further than it should. There are people who are in relationships that they would have otherwise left, but for the illness, but they don't want to be the person who leaves the partner who can't provide for themselves or is not independent, even if they're abusive. That's a topic we talk about. That's  heavy stuff. I don't have answers for it. All I can do is be there to listen to somebody and hold their hand for that.  I can't tell you to leave. I can't tell you to stay. I don't know what the answer is, you know. So that's some of that work we're trying to do is help people figure that out for themselves.  

Beth [00:35:59] What would you like to see in terms of societal support for families served by Well Spouse that isn't there today?  

Laurel Whitman [00:36:10] Yeah. So there are some obvious ones around the financial impacts of people in our situation. That is one of the ways that spousal caregiving is a little different from other types of caregiving because when you marry your partner, you often have two incomes providing support for a certain life you're living. You often lose the person who has the illness, who is no longer able to work, and then we often have to leave the workforce as well. So the financial impact, I can not mention that right up front. That's an obvious one, but it's an important one. I think people also want to help, but the ways that they help sometimes are a little tough for us to hear. I'll bring up self-care. Self-care is a little bit of a loaded term in our community, I find, because we all know we are supposed to be doing it, right? We're supposed to take breaks and get away and that sort of thing. But when you think about, for instance, some of our members may not leave their house for years on end. They literally cannot get away to walk for 10 minutes because they've got a spouse who wanders or turns on the stove and burn down the house. And you can't you  can't get aides. So then hearing somebody, in a good natured way, say you need to take 15 minutes for yourself can sound really hollow. And that's not anybody's fault. There's a great quote and I need to attribute it. But the paraphrase of it is if we're preaching self-care to people when they really need community care, then we're letting them down. It's one more way to [Crosstalk].  

Sarah [00:37:46] Well, it's so good. I love that.  

Laurel Whitman [00:37:48] Yeah. It resonated. When I read that, it's like, that's why I don't like it when people tell me to do self-care.  So I think the community can-- if your loved one is in the situation, any kind of caregiving, I ask how you can take a burden off their plate to let them do that. Can you go to the house for half an hour and just sit there, so that they can run out and run to the bank or get a manicure or a weekend away. I think there really needs to be a trade to make that self care possible. We all know we need to do it. We all know we need a healthy diet. We need to exercise. You know, we all know that, but help us get there and help us make time for it.  

Beth [00:38:32] And do you mind to just give us some tip practically? If I have a dear friend whose partner just got a diagnosis that is going to shift things for them. How can I best get them connected to Well  Spouse and then also show up for them as a friend?  

Laurel Whitman [00:38:51] Yeah. So connecting to Well Spouse, literally, you can go to our website. We have all of our support group meetings are listed there on our map and our calendar and we run 20 of those a month. And we have a lot spread mostly on the coast at this point, but we also have a couple of national groups. We have a a younger Well Spouse group, for instance. That's for people who are in the earlier stages of life and dealing with children and work, that sort of thing. We have online resources that support groups on Facebook and Reddit. And so we're trying to be easier to find. You know, the tips from early in the disease, I think back to when I first got together with my husband and his disability was starting to progress. You know, there's a tendency to ration and do a lot of research and try and come up with a cure or a fix. And I understand that. And I did that. And I wasn't ready for support groups.  Early on, I wasn't ready to hear what it could be like. There was always a cure right around the corner. If you can push back against that urge just a little bit, maybe that's the way a family member can help, you know, is to help them corral some of that research.  

[00:39:57] But I think you really need to sit with some of the emotions around being diagnosed and the losses that may come and will come over time and not rush again to fix things. That's kind of an urge to fix things and make them go back to the way they were. But that before doesn't exist anymore, you know. And then the other tip I would give is to help them acknowledge the grief that comes along the way, especially with progressive disease. My husband's progression was the loss of his working life, the loss of his independence, the loss of his ability to walk, then the loss of his ability to literally do anything. And I didn't do a good job of marking all those losses because they're hard and they're overwhelming. And so if you can find a way to sit with those emotions and channel them more productively than panic attacks and anxiety like I did, I think you'll be ahead of the curve on getting to that place of acceptance that you want to get to I think.  

Sarah [00:41:05] Well, thank you so much. Thank you for sharing that in your journey and for being a part of Well Spouse and for all the work and support that you give. I think it is invaluable.  

Laurel Whitman [00:41:12] Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.  

Sarah [00:41:25] Thank you, Laurel, for talking with us and for reaching out to us. I wanted to put a broad theme on our conversation outside politics today, Beth, but I think it's fair to say we just want to talk about yesterday.  

Beth [00:41:33] Okay.  

Sarah [00:41:34] Which is when we dropped our kids off at summer camp and went to our first concert of the summer. Well, not sure. I guess Garth Brooks was your first official concert of the summer. This is my first official concert of the summer.  

Beth [00:41:44] I mean, it was technically spring when we saw Garth. I was a little chilly. It rained on us the whole time so we could make this the summer kickoff.  

Sarah [00:41:52] So we dropped our kids off at sleepaway camp. All but Felix, who is heading to diabetes camp later this week, and I think the main takeaway for all of us is that we're just jealous.  

Beth [00:42:03] Yes. Chad said this first and I heard it and thought that's correct. He told the girls, I'm just jealous. I want to go be away from phones and the Internet for a week and away from work and just doing fun activities and games and learning new things and sitting by a fire and talking about stuff that's important. How amazing does that sound?  

Sarah [00:42:22] Swimming. There's a slide into the lake. They have these circular kayaks. It looks super fun. And a brand new ropes course. I was made for scheduled activities. This is the life I should live. I should be perpetually at camp where someone is telling me like this is the schedule of events today. It just feels like a key in my heart. I love it so much. You don't get a lot of opportunities like that as an adult. So, yeah, I'm super jealous. I think they're going to have the most amazing time. This is a very well-run camp. I'm already so impressed with just all the processes they have set up, even sending this first email. The first night was like, "Here's a helpful article for missing your child. Like, please don't spend all your emails telling them how much you miss them. We need them to settle in and not be too homesick. It's incredible.  

Beth [00:43:14] So this is the first sleepaway camp that either of my kids have done. Is that true for years to?  

Sarah [00:43:19] No. Amos has been to, I believe, three sleepaway camps. He did tell me the other day he cried every night one of them, which I did not know. But he said it was not because he was homesick, it was because he likes in early. He's like, because you train me to like a good, early, dependable bedtime and everybody was staying up late every night, which I thought was hilarious. But this isn't Amos's first sleepaway camp.  

Beth [00:43:41] Well, it's the first for both of my daughters. And Ellen had no questions about that. As you heard on the podcast, she was excited to be away from us. Jane had lots of thoughts about it. Jane is much more introverted like I am. It is a big part of Jane's identity that she is introverted. She likes to tell you about that. I let her lead this conversation, but when she brought it up, I told her that I had a hard time at my first sleepaway camp. I wanted to come home. My parents would not let me. I am so grateful that my parents did not let me come home. And I told Jane, I've missed out on a lot of things in life that are so much fun because I've told myself that I couldn't handle the discomfort of them and I don't want that for her. And I think something like Summer Camp, even though it's a lot for someone who's introverted, still has all these moments where you can take a walk in nature and just find that recharge that you need from a little bit of quiet. I don't want her to believe that introvert means I can't stand to be around other people for a long periods of time because you do. Just you'd miss so much when that's the headspace that you keep yourself in.  

Sarah [00:44:48] I don't really know what introvert, extrovert means anymore. I'm mean, to be honest. Like, my kids are such a weird mix of both. I'm a weird mix of both. If I'm probably being all the way honest, I'm kind of ready to abandon those two terms. Amos was like, "I don't want to do the high five line. I don't like attention." I was like, It's not attention if all 500 kids are participating in the high five line, Amos. But he's also, like, absolutely my friendliest kid and wil; walk up to anybody. He's definitely going to live his best life at summer camp. But Griffin is tough and he, like, knows he's sort of particular and kind of embraces it and doesn't let it get to him. I'm not  even really worried about Felix. And he's little. I didn't send any of my way at sleepaway camp this young, I think Nicholas a little bit thinks we are crazy. But my boys  I think they're just going to love it. Nobody had questions. They didn't even seem that concerned. I was like, catch on the flip side, this is going to be great. And Amos and Griffin are going to  directly, not even through our home, to another sleepaway camp next week. So we're like in deep summer camp territory here.  

Beth [00:45:47] Well, the camp director has focused so much on how important it is for them to have a chance to be independent and how this is about building life skills and confidence and identity away from the influence of screens and peers and Tik Toks and group texts. And I am for that. And I just feel really lucky that we get the chance to let our kids do this.  

Sarah [00:46:06] Yeah, I'm so grateful. So on our first night away, we went to see Train with Blues Traveler and Jewel opening for them. And then on Tuesday night, we're going to go see The Chicks. I thought that Blues Traveler and Jewel were incredible. I'm not a huge Train fan. I was impressed by their hustle. I have never seen a band work so hard at entertaining their audience through T-shirts, took selfies with people's cameras. There was confetti. There were streamers. There were volleyballs. There were multiple covers mixed into some of their most popular songs. I've never seen that level of hustle at a concert. It was intense.  

Beth [00:46:46] There were beach balls, not volleyballs. It wasn't a dangerous situation.   

Sarah [00:46:51]  I've said that like three times. No, beach balls.  

Beth [00:46:52] I love to go see Train again. Not because I'm some big fan of their music, because as you noted, it's a little one note with Train.  

Sarah [00:46:59] If you've have heard one train song, you have heard all of the Train songs.  

Beth [00:47:02] Maybe if you've heard two. If you've heard like an upbeat and a ballad, you got it. But, yeah, you can tell they love to perform. They just love doing this. And they put on a fun show. We went to Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati, which is one of my favorite places to see music. You're right on the river, as the name would suggest. There's a big lawn area. There's open air amphitheater that we set in, and it's just lovely. I just think it's a fun way to spend a summer evening. There's really nothing I would rather do on a summer evening than sit outside and listen to bands. And then Jewel was there.  

Sarah [00:47:35] She was incredible. And now we're friends with her.  

Beth [00:47:36] I have had Jewel in my heart since I was a teenager. I loved her so much. I wore out my CD of Pieces of You.  I've seen her at Riverbend before. I saw her there the first time I was in highschool.  

Sarah [00:47:50] That's why I was wondering if you'd seen her in concert before.  

Beth [00:47:51] Yeah, and she's amazing. And I just think she's getting better and better with age. She's just in the fullest expression of her Jewelness now.  

Sarah [00:47:58] I mean, I liked her. I was more Sheryl Crow person. I definitely bought her poetry book. I thought her voice had much more depth and texture and not in a like sloppy way, but in a tightly controlled, incredibly impactful way. I thought her performance was very impressive. She also wore custom jumpsuit that I'ma need to get one of those for myself. It was so incredible. She looked incredible. She was great.  

Beth [00:48:25] Your version has to be the Kentucky version. Did you see that it was all Alaska stuff? Itt was the Eagles and the Constellation and the flowers all from Alaska.  

Sarah [00:48:33] I must one. And also she shared her Insta stories twice. So we are friends now and we are going to try to get her on our show. So in summary.  

Beth [00:48:41] Just putting it into the universe, we would like to have Jewel here.  

Sarah [00:48:44] Now, and I love summer concerts. We have The Chicks on Saturday. This will be the seventh time I have seen The Chicks live because I'm a very dedicated fan. I've seen them on every single tour. And then the rest of my summer is very-- it is the summer. Brandi Carlile, I am seeing her twice on tour because I was concerned I might be out of town for one of them. So I bought two tickets just to be safe. And then we're seeing the Judds technically in October outside the summer concert series, but relevant because now Wynonna has got all these people coming to support her after the devastating loss of her mother, Naomi. And like the top headliner is like special guests is Brandi Carlile. So I'ma see a lot of Brandi Carlile this summer, and that is the way I like it.  

Beth [00:49:26] I have a connective thread between summer camp and the concerts. So when I saw Jewel the first time I was a senior in high school. My parents let me and my friend John, who I met at a summer camp-- he lived in a close by county, they let the two of us drive together to Cincinnati by ourselves as far as high school seniors and go to this concert and drive home together. And I bet they thought they had lost their minds that we did that. I remember Mom being really worried and being relieved when I got home. It was one of the best experiences I have ever had. That level of independence, getting to go do something really special, getting to do it with my friend who I didn't get to see very often. I cannot think of memories that I treasure more than that one. So in the moments when we think, what have we done by letting our kids go out there in the world? I hope that we're inviting them into those kinds of memories.  

Sarah [00:50:18] Concerts are so special, especially summer concerts outside. I mean, if you meet somebody new and you're trying to connect with them, just like what's your best concert? Have you seen the most in concert? It's just an endless conversation and they're so interesting to hear. Like, well, this artist did this and it was so fascinating. Or I'll never forget this moment with this group or band. We had a little bit of that conversation last night and I just love it. I think that's such a special experience and I will say this. I'm a concert person, but I'm not a festival person. Blues Traveler did a little bit of jamming, not for me.  

Beth [00:50:52] You don't want to hear somebody just go on and on and on.  

Sarah [00:50:55] I really don't. It's why I've never seen Dave Mathews in concert. Even Brandi Carlile festival,  I keep saying, like, I want to go and he's like, you would not enjoy yourself. That is not your scene. Again, previous point. I like a tight schedule and those festivals, man, I don't know.  There's just a lot of open ended jamming. I mean, I'm speaking from complete ignorance. I've never actually been to one. Maybe I should try at least one, but I just-- I don't know. It's not for me.  

Beth [00:51:22] This is very unlike you to have ruled out something that you've not done.  

Sarah [00:51:25] I know.  

Beth [00:51:26] That's not your typical [Crosstalk] Chad and I really enjoy going to festivals. We don't do it very often because-- children. But we really enjoy it because the people watching is phenomenal. I think you just roll in knowing I am older than the average person here most of the time and that is fine. I have packed my little chair because my back is going to have a chair at this point in my life and I'm just going to take it all in. We love it. Listen, I just like to sit outside. So I like baseball. I like to sit outside while the thing is unfolding in front of me that I can half pay attention to. I think it's one of life's greatest pleasures, and I really don't care what kind of music. I also believe you need to see Dave Mathews because the musicianship...  

Sarah [00:52:09] You don't care what kind of music? I don't understand that.  

Beth [00:52:10] I don't. I don't care because I just am amazed at people's talents. Like, John Popper from Blues Traveler riffing on that harmonica. Am I a fan of the harmonica? No. But I think it is amazing to see what he can do and to just watch that happen. Jewel took a minute last night, took a beat to show us her yodeling skills. I'm not a yodeler.  I'm not going to go buy an album of yodeling, but I thought it was fabulous and I could have taken, like, another 10 minutes or something.  

Sarah [00:52:37] Like, I need to have a song or two that I recognize and sing along to.  

Beth [00:52:40] You have a song or two with Dave Mathews. Come on.  

Sarah [00:52:43]  But there's so much jamming. Maybe there's a spectrum of jamming available to me on the festival circuit and I could lean into a lower end of jam.  

Beth [00:52:51] You should come to Riverbend to see Dave Mathews. It's so fun there. It's a really, really, fun concert.  

Sarah [00:52:56] I know people that are very dedicated to the Dave Mathews situation.  

Beth [00:53:00] You will get a contact high I cannot keep you from the smell of pot.  

Sarah [00:53:05]  I oppose to that.  

Beth [00:53:06] It is so fun.  

Sarah [00:53:08] But I will think about it and I will carefully consider.  

Beth [00:53:09] They are so talented. They love what they do. I love to see people-- it's how I felt about, what's his name, Chris Steigerwald at the January 6th hearing talking about all the data.  

Sarah [00:53:19] What a tie-in Beth!  

Beth [00:53:19] I love people who love what they do. It just brings me a lot of joy.  

Sarah [00:53:23] What a tie-in. Well, thank you. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics/ I very much look forward to hearing about people's concert experiences, which I'm sure we will. We will be back with you on Friday to discuss the third week of hearings with the January 6th committee. And until then, keep it nuanced y'all.  

Beth [00:53:52] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:53:57] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:54:03] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:54:07] Martha Bronitsky. Linda Daniel. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson, Katina Zugenalis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs.  

[00:54:25] The Kriebs. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tawni Peterson. Tracy Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Katherine Vollmer. Amy Whited.  

Beth [00:54:43] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Ashley Thompson. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McHugh. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller. 

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