I went on a mindfulness retreat a month ago with some church people. They didn’t ban phones outright, but asked us to unplug. I didn’t miss my phone at all, mostly because no one else was on their phone. I find it’s incredibly hard for me to stay off my phone when everyone is looking at theirs. Just something I noticed!
On the email conversation I created an email account for my children when they were born. I periodically wrote to it and often would forward pivotal posts and photos to it.
Now that they are adults they still use those accounts and appreciate the content.
I'm so happy to hear your adult children appreciate this. I did this for my son and write him birthday letters every year. I figure I'll turn it over when he turns 18.
Just wanted to say thanks for the MWEG event last night! It was a great introduction to y'all for my friend Mary Frances, who I hope to see here in the comments this month during her gifted subscription.
I struggled during last night's event to put into succinct language the problem I'm having, so I'll put it here. When staying with an old high school friend of my husband, she brought up not liking Kamala but also being concerned about her industry if certain things come to pass in the economy. I know she votes Republican and is Catholic, and when we are all together we have been known to bring up things that bother us about local politics (she and her British husband in Florida, me and my husband in Seattle). We're able to nibble around the political edges, but we don't talk directly about who we're voting for. When she made her comment about Kamala, I was like, we, head tilt to the side, whatever. Then she mentioned she doesn't really care about January 6th, and my eyes went wide. I take my cues from my husband when we're all together; I like her but don't know her well, and I don't want to make things uncomfortable (I can, famously, make things uncomfortable). My husband kept his counsel, so I did too.
When I asked him about it yesterday, he was like, I think she's looking for permission to vote for Kamala. She's educated and has the business savvy to see which way the wind is blowing, but she's not surrounded by Democratic leaning voters.
So now I'm just frustrated! I wish I'd known how to express that I believe Kamala is the right choice - and that J6 is a legitimate concern - in a moderate way that didn't sound provocative. When we visit family in Florida, we tend to lock down and keep our opinions to venting in the rental car. I don't have any practice with listening to the other side and somehow validating their frustrations while also firmly stating my beliefs and values.
I thought keeping the peace was the respectful thing to do in my host's home. Now I feel like I let her down by not being vulnerable and sharing what I think and why.
I'm late but I just wanted to say I struggle with this, too, and not just with politics. I just never know when to push further or ask questions and when to stay silent and keep the peace. I just never want to offend anyone or make anyone uncomfortable. So just know that you're not alone with this!
How are y'all talking to people about the election? I live in a very red town and most of our friends/family are voting for Trump. Anytime I try to even mention something related to election (like I casually brought up gun laws with a friend recently), it is very obvious that those discussions are not welcome. Not really sure that posting my thoughts on social helps in the way that I want it to. And not really sure how to not lose my mind over the number of people in my life that are voting for him. I'm feeling so upset & frustrated and I think it is because I feel like there is nothing I can do since those around me aren't up for engaging. How are y'all handling this?
Kelly, I am in the same boat and I find it so very challenging. I have a number of friends who are voting for Harris and for some local change in Tennessee, but majority of my family and the area around us are voting for Trump. I've stopped bringing it up for the most part because it causes too much strife in my family and sadness for me. I just can't get my brain around it. Having a few friends to talk about it in similar situations is helpful. Knowing I'm not alone through your post is helpful. And I've recently started sharing about our big local transit referendum and even did my first phone banking today for that, which was a little scary but also empowering and encouraging. It felt like it gave me something to do, even in the face of the larger vote feeling like a struggle still.
Yeah. Best I’ve gotten is explaining what I like about the party I’m voting for and what policies matter most to me. It hasn’t changed minds - and then I hear about a lot of fear based things that is motivating the other person to vote differently and I usually respond with what scares me is what happened on January 6. Then we stare at each other and usually move on to another topic 🫠
I feel you Kelly. My parents are writing in Nikki Haley which makes no sense to me whatsoever. And when I tried to engage on it, they just shut me down. I feel pissed off but really I’m just deeply disappointed. So just doing my best to sit with that and finding a way to move on from it. I don’t know what else to do…
I’m sorry to hear that, Amber. I think the only thing that comforts me is knowing that there ARE a lot of other people who feel the same as me and I won’t be alone in that if it does come down to another Trump presidency.
If I may also vent about the people who will vote for him despite claiming to not like his rhetoric, but “his economic policies will be better” (but they can’t actually name a policy of his or explain why they think it’ll be better) - just own that you don’t think a woman can do the job. Or that you don’t want women to have bodily autonomy or transgender kids to play sports. I don’t want to waste my time explaining that tariffs don’t work the way he says they do if that’s not actually what you care about.
So, am I remembering wrong or were we in a pandemic and we changed policy to catch and release due to having no safe way to hold undocumented immigrants? Yes, the policy was not changed back, but taking time to see if it worked at that points makes sense. (In fact, no one is discussing the that emergency measures used to feed people during the pandemic, protect workers and save small businesses obviously are going to have ramifications- to be where we are in three years seems insanely good).
Another vote for doing it this way. I think this will mean that everything Pantsuit Politics will be in my Inbox, which is the easiest place for me to manage on Substack.
Interesting to reflect on our changing relationship with email. I wonder how long it will be before our AI-augmented accounts are just emailing each other without us even being involved.
To Beth’s comment about how Kamala cannot answer questions about Biden’s age with anything but kindness and respect, can you even imagine if the sitting vice president admitted on national tv that she had concerns about the SITTING PRESIDENT’S competence?!?!? The national security implications of any answer other than “I respect him and his leadership, and have no concerns about his capability to do the job” makes my head spin!
Thank you so much for moving the comments here. When there are multiple comments in a thread in chat, it is hard to get back to where you were. It works much better in this space.
I don’t have anything profound to say other than you need to know how often I was nodding in agreement and saying “yes” out loud while listening to this episode. It was such a smart conversation. Thank you ❤️❤️
A visual cue in the app for me is a tiny grey unlocked padlock in the corner by the content that is spice cabinet only. When I look at the pp view, I can see that items that don’t have that padlock icon are public.
The only posts that will be open to the public will be our weekly newsletters, which will continue to be free always. And, of course, holding space for any time we might like to share the occasional premium episode more widely.
Thank you for listening to our feedback and reworking things... this reminds me of voting. It’s almost like we should vote for the candidate that listens to feedback around America while VP for 3.5 years and reworks things!!!! Let’s make it through to the finish line.
Thank you Pantsuit Politics team for everything you do!
I teach high school math and I think it’s really important to understand when our views are outdated. I love giving my students advice about EVERYTHING! But things are different than they were for me graduating high school in 2000. My college experience was completely different than what my kids will see. As a small example, it used to be that all “smart” kids took calculus. This is just totally outdated in 2024. A lot of my VERY smart kids will need no math in college beyond college algebra, and a LOT of them need statistics. We still have a lot of teachers and parents struggling to get out of this mindset. I will tell my kids that I am so happy to give them all the advice! But I also want them to talk to LOTS of other people and hear a lot of voices that may end up being more valuable than mine. Do you have siblings or older friends with more recent experience? Do you have ten more adults who can share their insight? I am doing them a huge disservice if I act like my very dated views are all that matter. I thought about this a lot during today’s episode.
On the other hand, a hill I will die on is that people should read whole books. Hard books! Because your brain needs to stretch in all directions, not just wander down the path of least resistance.
In my day (read that with old lady voice), in order to take calculus, you had to pass trigonometry with a B or higher. I couldn't get there because I spent two years in a garbage Christian school that didn't teach anything higher than algebra. So I went to college with no more than that, and then tested out of basic college math and never took any math classes! One of my chief academic regrets is that I didn't learn calculus or statistics. I tell everyone to take them early and often.
I took Advanced Geometry, Trigonometry, Statistics I, and Pre-Calculus in high school. I didn't hit my math stride until my Junior year, and I doubled up on Summer school math classes to be able to take Stat I and Pre-Cal my senior year. I may not use it in my every day life, but that advanced math develops a higher level of thinking and problem solving that has been extremely valuable. I encourage people to take all the math they can, in high school, college, and beyond. It's all extremely valuable in our advanced tech world.
100%. I so wish I’d taken more stats classes in high school and college. I don’t know if data science was really even a field when I was in school, but now (as a manager of a team of technical editors) it’s such a huge part of what I do every day. I’ve told several younger cousins majoring in liberal arts degrees to take statistics when they can.
I 100% agree with you about calculus and that stats is a more useful class. Alas, for the tiny percentage of students who want to go to "elite" colleges, calculus is a much better course ot have on the transcript. Even better is to have both calc and stats. I wish they would chill out, but even more so, I wish that we didn't give certain schools the cachet that they have.
Also, many people do not realize that economists need calculus.. My husband is a research economist, and he uses advanced calculus every day.
Don’t even get me started on “elite” schools and what they require! We have a program at my school that basically pulls the smartest kids in the district, and gives them more college level opportunities. Which sounds amazing but basically breeds an elitism among these students that I find wholly unproductive.
Let's be honest, there are people who are super smart, and they need more challenging schooling. This isn't elitism if it's open to EVERYONE who acedmemically qualifies for those opportunities. Brilliant people are just always going to do more, and they should do more, and they should be encouraged to do more. Humans are never going to be equal when it comes to intellectual abilities. It's just part of human diversity, same with athletic abilities.
Isn't that just Gifted and Talented? Those kids need higher level classes. Without them, they get bored out of their minds and disengage from school. Happened to my sister, and it happened to my husband.
We were just in Alaska for a week for a Bucket List 49th anniversary trip and the Northern Lights are best seen through your phone camera too.
We saw them from our Airbnb (hit me up if you want a fantastic rec) and didn’t realize they would be so much more until the next night at Aurora Point Viewing Center.
I went on a mindfulness retreat a month ago with some church people. They didn’t ban phones outright, but asked us to unplug. I didn’t miss my phone at all, mostly because no one else was on their phone. I find it’s incredibly hard for me to stay off my phone when everyone is looking at theirs. Just something I noticed!
On the email conversation I created an email account for my children when they were born. I periodically wrote to it and often would forward pivotal posts and photos to it.
Now that they are adults they still use those accounts and appreciate the content.
I'm so happy to hear your adult children appreciate this. I did this for my son and write him birthday letters every year. I figure I'll turn it over when he turns 18.
Just wanted to say thanks for the MWEG event last night! It was a great introduction to y'all for my friend Mary Frances, who I hope to see here in the comments this month during her gifted subscription.
I struggled during last night's event to put into succinct language the problem I'm having, so I'll put it here. When staying with an old high school friend of my husband, she brought up not liking Kamala but also being concerned about her industry if certain things come to pass in the economy. I know she votes Republican and is Catholic, and when we are all together we have been known to bring up things that bother us about local politics (she and her British husband in Florida, me and my husband in Seattle). We're able to nibble around the political edges, but we don't talk directly about who we're voting for. When she made her comment about Kamala, I was like, we, head tilt to the side, whatever. Then she mentioned she doesn't really care about January 6th, and my eyes went wide. I take my cues from my husband when we're all together; I like her but don't know her well, and I don't want to make things uncomfortable (I can, famously, make things uncomfortable). My husband kept his counsel, so I did too.
When I asked him about it yesterday, he was like, I think she's looking for permission to vote for Kamala. She's educated and has the business savvy to see which way the wind is blowing, but she's not surrounded by Democratic leaning voters.
So now I'm just frustrated! I wish I'd known how to express that I believe Kamala is the right choice - and that J6 is a legitimate concern - in a moderate way that didn't sound provocative. When we visit family in Florida, we tend to lock down and keep our opinions to venting in the rental car. I don't have any practice with listening to the other side and somehow validating their frustrations while also firmly stating my beliefs and values.
I thought keeping the peace was the respectful thing to do in my host's home. Now I feel like I let her down by not being vulnerable and sharing what I think and why.
Is there any reason you can't circle back and say you've been thinking about your conversation and......
I can try!
I'm late but I just wanted to say I struggle with this, too, and not just with politics. I just never know when to push further or ask questions and when to stay silent and keep the peace. I just never want to offend anyone or make anyone uncomfortable. So just know that you're not alone with this!
How are y'all talking to people about the election? I live in a very red town and most of our friends/family are voting for Trump. Anytime I try to even mention something related to election (like I casually brought up gun laws with a friend recently), it is very obvious that those discussions are not welcome. Not really sure that posting my thoughts on social helps in the way that I want it to. And not really sure how to not lose my mind over the number of people in my life that are voting for him. I'm feeling so upset & frustrated and I think it is because I feel like there is nothing I can do since those around me aren't up for engaging. How are y'all handling this?
Kelly, I am in the same boat and I find it so very challenging. I have a number of friends who are voting for Harris and for some local change in Tennessee, but majority of my family and the area around us are voting for Trump. I've stopped bringing it up for the most part because it causes too much strife in my family and sadness for me. I just can't get my brain around it. Having a few friends to talk about it in similar situations is helpful. Knowing I'm not alone through your post is helpful. And I've recently started sharing about our big local transit referendum and even did my first phone banking today for that, which was a little scary but also empowering and encouraging. It felt like it gave me something to do, even in the face of the larger vote feeling like a struggle still.
Proud of you for phone banking! Sending you a virtual cobbler ❤️
Yeah. Best I’ve gotten is explaining what I like about the party I’m voting for and what policies matter most to me. It hasn’t changed minds - and then I hear about a lot of fear based things that is motivating the other person to vote differently and I usually respond with what scares me is what happened on January 6. Then we stare at each other and usually move on to another topic 🫠
I am feeling this melting smiley face so hard. The awkwardness in those moments - I just want to interpretive dance my response, I feel so stressed
That is just such a face palm moment….like obviously there is nothing else to say after that so why are we signing up to do this again?!?! Ugh!
I feel you Kelly. My parents are writing in Nikki Haley which makes no sense to me whatsoever. And when I tried to engage on it, they just shut me down. I feel pissed off but really I’m just deeply disappointed. So just doing my best to sit with that and finding a way to move on from it. I don’t know what else to do…
I’m sorry to hear that, Amber. I think the only thing that comforts me is knowing that there ARE a lot of other people who feel the same as me and I won’t be alone in that if it does come down to another Trump presidency.
If I may also vent about the people who will vote for him despite claiming to not like his rhetoric, but “his economic policies will be better” (but they can’t actually name a policy of his or explain why they think it’ll be better) - just own that you don’t think a woman can do the job. Or that you don’t want women to have bodily autonomy or transgender kids to play sports. I don’t want to waste my time explaining that tariffs don’t work the way he says they do if that’s not actually what you care about.
So, am I remembering wrong or were we in a pandemic and we changed policy to catch and release due to having no safe way to hold undocumented immigrants? Yes, the policy was not changed back, but taking time to see if it worked at that points makes sense. (In fact, no one is discussing the that emergency measures used to feed people during the pandemic, protect workers and save small businesses obviously are going to have ramifications- to be where we are in three years seems insanely good).
Another vote for doing it this way. I think this will mean that everything Pantsuit Politics will be in my Inbox, which is the easiest place for me to manage on Substack.
Interesting to reflect on our changing relationship with email. I wonder how long it will be before our AI-augmented accounts are just emailing each other without us even being involved.
Another YES vote for this post/comment section set-up.
To Beth’s comment about how Kamala cannot answer questions about Biden’s age with anything but kindness and respect, can you even imagine if the sitting vice president admitted on national tv that she had concerns about the SITTING PRESIDENT’S competence?!?!? The national security implications of any answer other than “I respect him and his leadership, and have no concerns about his capability to do the job” makes my head spin!
Thank you so much for moving the comments here. When there are multiple comments in a thread in chat, it is hard to get back to where you were. It works much better in this space.
Yes yes yes!! Maybe it’s because it’s closer to the experience I know but I LOVE IT like this. Thanks Maggie and team ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you for making a post about the episode!! Love following the comments here (they move so fast in the chat).
I don’t have anything profound to say other than you need to know how often I was nodding in agreement and saying “yes” out loud while listening to this episode. It was such a smart conversation. Thank you ❤️❤️
I like the episode being here as a post vs over in the chats. But can someone clarify which, if any, are public vs only viewable by the Space Cabinet?
A visual cue in the app for me is a tiny grey unlocked padlock in the corner by the content that is spice cabinet only. When I look at the pp view, I can see that items that don’t have that padlock icon are public.
The only posts that will be open to the public will be our weekly newsletters, which will continue to be free always. And, of course, holding space for any time we might like to share the occasional premium episode more widely.
This post is locked--Spice Cabinet only!
Thank you for listening to our feedback and reworking things... this reminds me of voting. It’s almost like we should vote for the candidate that listens to feedback around America while VP for 3.5 years and reworks things!!!! Let’s make it through to the finish line.
Thank you Pantsuit Politics team for everything you do!
I teach high school math and I think it’s really important to understand when our views are outdated. I love giving my students advice about EVERYTHING! But things are different than they were for me graduating high school in 2000. My college experience was completely different than what my kids will see. As a small example, it used to be that all “smart” kids took calculus. This is just totally outdated in 2024. A lot of my VERY smart kids will need no math in college beyond college algebra, and a LOT of them need statistics. We still have a lot of teachers and parents struggling to get out of this mindset. I will tell my kids that I am so happy to give them all the advice! But I also want them to talk to LOTS of other people and hear a lot of voices that may end up being more valuable than mine. Do you have siblings or older friends with more recent experience? Do you have ten more adults who can share their insight? I am doing them a huge disservice if I act like my very dated views are all that matter. I thought about this a lot during today’s episode.
On the other hand, a hill I will die on is that people should read whole books. Hard books! Because your brain needs to stretch in all directions, not just wander down the path of least resistance.
In my day (read that with old lady voice), in order to take calculus, you had to pass trigonometry with a B or higher. I couldn't get there because I spent two years in a garbage Christian school that didn't teach anything higher than algebra. So I went to college with no more than that, and then tested out of basic college math and never took any math classes! One of my chief academic regrets is that I didn't learn calculus or statistics. I tell everyone to take them early and often.
I took Advanced Geometry, Trigonometry, Statistics I, and Pre-Calculus in high school. I didn't hit my math stride until my Junior year, and I doubled up on Summer school math classes to be able to take Stat I and Pre-Cal my senior year. I may not use it in my every day life, but that advanced math develops a higher level of thinking and problem solving that has been extremely valuable. I encourage people to take all the math they can, in high school, college, and beyond. It's all extremely valuable in our advanced tech world.
100%. I so wish I’d taken more stats classes in high school and college. I don’t know if data science was really even a field when I was in school, but now (as a manager of a team of technical editors) it’s such a huge part of what I do every day. I’ve told several younger cousins majoring in liberal arts degrees to take statistics when they can.
I 100% agree with you about calculus and that stats is a more useful class. Alas, for the tiny percentage of students who want to go to "elite" colleges, calculus is a much better course ot have on the transcript. Even better is to have both calc and stats. I wish they would chill out, but even more so, I wish that we didn't give certain schools the cachet that they have.
Also, many people do not realize that economists need calculus.. My husband is a research economist, and he uses advanced calculus every day.
Don’t even get me started on “elite” schools and what they require! We have a program at my school that basically pulls the smartest kids in the district, and gives them more college level opportunities. Which sounds amazing but basically breeds an elitism among these students that I find wholly unproductive.
Let's be honest, there are people who are super smart, and they need more challenging schooling. This isn't elitism if it's open to EVERYONE who acedmemically qualifies for those opportunities. Brilliant people are just always going to do more, and they should do more, and they should be encouraged to do more. Humans are never going to be equal when it comes to intellectual abilities. It's just part of human diversity, same with athletic abilities.
Isn't that just Gifted and Talented? Those kids need higher level classes. Without them, they get bored out of their minds and disengage from school. Happened to my sister, and it happened to my husband.
What is the solution for "smartest kids?"
I love this. Such a good reminder to me as a parent, too!
We were just in Alaska for a week for a Bucket List 49th anniversary trip and the Northern Lights are best seen through your phone camera too.
We saw them from our Airbnb (hit me up if you want a fantastic rec) and didn’t realize they would be so much more until the next night at Aurora Point Viewing Center.