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Vox
12-05-2025
- General
- Vox
You've found a lost relative. Now what?
is the host of Explain It to Me, your hotline for all your unanswered questions. She joined Vox in 2022 as a senior producer and then as host of The Weeds, Vox's policy podcast. Every week on Explain It to Me, Vox's call-in podcast, we answer the questions that matter to you most. When we got a question from a listener named Hannah, it piqued our interest. She wanted to know: How do you find a long-lost relative? 'I was raised by my mom,' she says. 'I knew my dad was out there somewhere, but I never really gave too much thought about it because I did have a pretty full life.' By the time we spoke with her, she had found her father online and reached out to him. But it raised an entirely new set of questions. 'I never gave much thought to, 'Okay, so now what?'' Journalist Libby Copeland has spent a lot of time thinking about those next steps. She's the author of The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are, a book that looks at the ways at-home DNA testing has shaped families. 'This whole question around the distinction between biological and non-biological family and roots and identity, it's everything to me,' Copeland told Vox. 'I think it's so intrinsically connected to existential questions around who we are and how we get to decide what to be.' Explain It to Me The Explain It to Me newsletter answers an interesting question from an audience member in a digestible explainer from one of our journalists. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. On this week's episode, we discuss with Copeland how to find family, the way at-home DNA tests have changed things, and what to do if you come across an unexpected relative. Below is an excerpt of the conversation with Copeland, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to Explain It to Me on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you'd like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@ or call 1-800-618-8545. Has this reporting changed the way you think about family? Definitely. I grew up in my biological family, so I'm not someone who was donor-conceived or adopted. But spending so much time talking to people who don't have a genetic connection to the families that they were raised in, it's really interesting to hear just how much pull that genetic family has over you. In my family, we were able to connect with ancestors in Sweden, and then we traveled there and we're able to connect with a second cousin of my dad going back a hundred-and-something years from when our relative had emigrated. That made the world seem so much smaller and so much more intimate. It made history feel present to me. It made me feel like the past wasn't over. If someone's taken one of these at-home DNA tests and they realize they have a family member, how should they go about trying to connect with them? It very much matters who it is and how much knowledge you have going into it. It's often easy to start with the person you're finding [through the test] just because they're the immediate connection. But if you're finding a half-sibling and you know that's because you share a father in common, a lot of [experts] will recommend that you start with the father first. 'The danger of the promise of DNA testing when it's used like this can be that we interpret it in a simplistic way.' Very often, there's a secret at the heart of your own origin story if you're one of these folks who's gone to DNA testing either looking for family or making a discovery. People are advised to start with the person at the center of it because they often want to have agency over their own narrative, and connecting with that person first allows the best possible chance of them then introducing you to other people. What's the proper way to go about this? Do you show up on their doorstep? DM them on Instagram? Write a letter? When I was writing The Lost Family, I talked to people who did show up on someone's doorstep or make a phone call and it can be quite challenging and disruptive. You want to do it on terms that allow the other person as much control as possible, because in this situation, very often, there's a disconnect of knowledge. For instance, the seeker knows they exist, but their genetic father may not know. Very often, the best possible way is to write a letter. The tone of that letter is something that you want to think really carefully about, because there's different ways you could go. You're not necessarily trying to make a really intimate connection right away, but you could share a little about yourself, share a little bit about what you're looking for. You could start small and build a relationship from there. Let's say you're in a situation where you find out who your parent is, but you know, it's hard to find them. You can't find a number, they're not on Facebook, but their kids are. Should you contact them? Like what do you do in that situation? You might say something like, 'Hey, I see we're genetically related based on our DNA test. I'd love to connect and learn a little more about how we're related. Are you interested?' There's also this question of, 'How do I ask my dad, 'Why didn't you ever come see me?'' without coming off too intense? This is the mystery of a lifetime. People talk around that question for decades without ever fully asking it. I interviewed a woman who wasn't told she was adopted. She didn't find out until she'd had some life-altering surgery that it turned out she might not have needed if she'd known her full medical history. When she finally did find out the identity of her biological father, she reached out to him in a number of ways. He was not terribly responsive, and then she finally called and got him on the phone, and he was so dismissive. He could not at all give her what she wanted. He would not even confirm that he knew for sure that she was his daughter or that he'd even dated her mother. She cried a lot when we spoke, and it was because she had these questions that could not be answered. Her biological mother had passed away a few months before she discovered her identity. And the real question she wanted to ask her biological mom was, 'Did you ever look for me? Did you ever think about me?' And in the absence of being able to ask her, the daughters of her mother did not want to believe that she existed. They didn't want to believe that her mother had placed a child for adoption. In a perfect world, you would form a relationship and get to know them, right? But it very much matters what the secret is at the heart of your own identity story. Because the nature of that can alter people's willingness to embrace that you exist. There's the question of what you do with that. I also think there's the question of what people are looking for when they're looking to connect with new family. Are you trying to figure out where you got your eyes? Where you got your personality? All of it, right? I want to see someone else whose face looks like mine. I want to see someone else whose eyes look like mine. I want to have the experience of looking and seeing myself, the way I see myself in a mirror, in somebody else. If you're adopted, you may never have had that experience. It's profound. I interviewed a man who had been a donor in the 1970s. And he had, the last time I spoke with him, 21 children through donor conception, and then he had two biological children that he'd had with his wife. They talked, and some of them are quite close to him. Some of them do have Thanksgiving dinner with him. And they talked about how they would get together and go to a bar, and they would just be completely struck by their mannerisms or their mutual love of music. It blew them away. And they were like, 'Okay, yes, DNA is not destiny, but man, is there something to be said for the power of genetics.' How much we should make of the similarities we see in family when it comes to personality traits? Do genetics really tell us who we are and who we're going to be in this way? The danger of the promise of DNA testing when it's used like this can be that we interpret it in a simplistic way: 'The blueprint for my future means I'm inevitably destined to be XYZ.' And that's not true. I have seen cases where people were so eager to find family that they read into things and found patterns that weren't there based on their assumption of genetic identity. In all of this talk of found family, we haven't really talked about managing the existing family you have. How do people juggle that desire to find out about new family members without unintentionally hurting or alienating the people who have been there for them all along? I talked to a lot of people who were seekers, and some managed to do this really well. It's incredibly reductive to think about this as a nature versus nurture thing — you can have room in your heart for both. You can have your dad who tucked you in at night; he fathered you and he still fathers you. There's another man out there, though. And to him, you owe half your genetic data. He's your biological father and we don't have the language for that.
Vox
28-04-2025
- Business
- Vox
How to talk to your boomer parents about retirement
is the host of Explain It to Me, your hotline for all your unanswered questions. She joined Vox in 2022 as a senior producer and then as host of The Weeds, Vox's policy podcast. Money is always stressful, but between on-again, off-again, on-again tariffs, inflation, and a general sense of uncertainty, all things finance have been especially anxiety-inducing lately. Much of the advice given is geared toward people who have time to make up losses in the stock market. But what if you're retired or close to retirement age? That's the matter at hand on this week's episode of Explain It to Me, Vox's call-in podcast where we answer the questions that matter to you most. Washington Post personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary knows that worry firsthand. She's on the edge baby boomer and Gen X and is looking ahead to when she's no longer working. 'Like many people, I'm stressed to the max,' she says. 'So I am punching a lot of pillows and crying and screaming and doing a little cussing, but trying to not let the fear dictate moves. And that's the key.' Today, Explained Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day, compiled by news editor Sean Collins. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. What other advice does she have for people looking to retire soon? And how should those of us who have more time talk with our older loved ones about their retirement plans? Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you'd like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@ or call 1-800-618-8545. What should people who are approaching retirement age be doing right now in this economic moment? You want to do a retirement budget. Figure out what it would take if you retired to live in retirement. And if you have a shortfall, then there are some things that you need to do. Try to boost your savings. Try to look at your housing situation. Can I cut housing? Can I have a roommate? Do I need to move someplace that is more affordable? So you have to do some forward thinking before you retire to make sure that your finances are as secure as possible. Related The best financial advice right now is the most counterintuitive I have to admit something: I was particularly interested in this episode because my parents are boomers. What advice do you have for listeners that are like me? It's understandable that you're concerned about your parents because if they're not prepared, then that burden may fall on you. I say burden, not in a sense of you don't want to do it, but certainly when you are in your 30s, 40s, and early 50s, you're trying to get ready for your own retirement. But I think this is a good opportunity to have open conversations. This is a window to say, 'Hey, How are you positioned? Are you worried? Is there anything I should be concerned about? Is there something I can do differently to help you?' And maybe that'll open up a conversation where they say, 'No, we're fine. We're really worried, but we got things in control. Here's what's happening.' It's a very difficult conversation to have, especially if you've grown up in a household where money wasn't talked about a lot. For a younger adult to try to come to their parents and say, 'Hey, you got any money? What's going on?' — that's a hard conversation. But the roles aren't reversed. You are not their parents. You are now an adult friend who happens to be their child. How do you recommend that listeners start that conversation with the retirement-age folks in their lives? Start with yourself and your own feelings. Say, 'I'd love to talk to you about this because I'm a little worried. I'm saving for retirement and this is what's concerning me.' And then you say, 'How about you?' What you don't want to do is say something like, 'Do you have any money? What's going on?' You don't want to come at them in a more adversarial way. You should see each other as companions and accountability partners. What should people prioritize when they look at their finances right now? In this moment, cash is king. If you got a tax refund, I would be saving that. If you were already just getting by — maybe you weren't living paycheck to paycheck but there wasn't much left over — I would be stockpiling cash in a high-yield savings account in case you lose your job, in case the economy really does go into a recession, if it gets worse than it is now. The prudent thing right now is to not get into any kind of debt or use a lot of cash that you might need if you lose your job. If I was a federal employee, a federal contractor, anybody whose income is derived from the federal government in a significant way, I would be canceling vacations. I would not be doing major home improvement projects. I don't want to make people panic — although it's perfectly fine if you're scared because that's just human nature. But I will say the prudent thing right now is to not get into any kind of debt or use a lot of cash that you might need if you lose your job. What are the different ways people can help their parents financially without getting behind on their own goals? Do your own budget, and make sure that you have a cash cushion for yourself. Make sure that you are saving in a way that will hopefully help you have a secure retirement. Get rid of all your debts: If you got credit card debt, student loan, car note — everything except for your mortgage. Then, if all of that is taken care of, if you want to create an account where you put some money in every month to say, 'This is the money that I'm gonna designate to help my parents or maybe another relative.' My husband and I do that. We have a family and friends fund so that if somebody loses their job or has some difficulty, this is where we pull the money to help them out. What advice do you have for people who are at retirement age but haven't been able to save as much? How do they prepare for this moment? The first thing I would say is don't beat yourself up. You are where you are. Accept that, but do something about it. If you are getting close to retirement, then you've got to make some hard decisions. Look at your housing situation. You might have to say, 'You know what? Those young adults that were asking me about my money? Maybe I have to move in with them or they move in with me.' And so you look at the big parts of your budget and how you might change that. Financial advice can admittedly be a little frustrating because we hear the same thing over and over again. 'Sit tight, stay the course, don't make any rash decisions.' What do you say to people who feel antsy right now? Who want a different answer than what they usually hear? Listen, good advice is good advice, no matter what. Good advice is timeless. And people want a microwave answer to a problem that needs to be baked in the oven. You can't microwave your way away from this situation. You just can't. There is no secret recipe or secret anything. We know by history. The market eventually returns historically. Could it change in the future? Sure it can. But we have decades and decades of data that show that when we go into an economic downturn, we come out because it's in everybody's interest to make sure that happens. And so while you may be tired of us saying, 'Hold tight,' you might be tired of us saying, 'Don't make rash decisions,' that is the best advice. We know that when you make decisions in haste, when you make decisions based on your emotions, you make bad decisions.
Vox
14-04-2025
- General
- Vox
The end of 'college for all'
is the host of Explain It to Me, your hotline for all your unanswered questions. She joined Vox in 2022 as a senior producer and then as host of The Weeds, Vox's policy podcast. Is college for everybody? According to Chelsea Waite, a senior researcher at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, the answer is no. And more students, parents, and educators are realizing it. Waite spent two years speaking to administrators, teachers, parents, and students at six high schools in New England to learn more about post-grad desires. The study, for the Center on Reinventing Public Education, specifically concerned New England high schools, but Waite says she's heard from school leaders across the country that the findings resonate. 'What we found is that the vision that they painted was that they want every single student in that school to have a pathway to a good life,' Waite says. What does it mean to have a 'good life' in this context? And what does a path that doesn't include college look like? That's what we tackle on this week's episode of Explain It to Me, Vox's weekly call-in show. Check out the conversation between Waite and host Jonquilyn Hill; it's been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to Explain It to Me on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you'd like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@ or call 1-800-618-8545. When I was a kid it felt like the purpose of high school was to prepare every single person to go off to a university. Has that changed now? Let's go back to the beginning of high school, because I think that will help us answer where we are now. When high schools first started in the US, they were not universal and they were really designed for elites: largely white, male, middle- and upper-class students who would go to high school as a way to get them to higher education in order to then go into these leadership roles in society. Then from the 1910s to 1940s, there was a big high school movement that basically made high schools kind of like, mass education for everyone. The idea there is that we have a responsibility as a society to make sure that young people are prepared for the world. For some of them, that might mean college. For others, it might mean they're better working with their hands and they should be in a different kind of job or career. As time went on, it became very clear that there was major inequality in who got access to what path. Yeah, I remember my dad telling me his school counselor said, 'Maybe you should just join the military.' That phrasing feels weird for a number of reasons. (He eventually got his doctorate.) Take your dad's experience and then compare it to sort of how you described your experience. I think that's a great representation of what changed from the 1950s to '70s all the way to the '80s, '90s and early 2000s, where there was really this recognition that we are not giving young people equal opportunities to get into college, which is associated with economic and social mobility and opportunity and higher earnings over your lifetime. There were lots of schools — including a number of charter schools — that opened with this 'college for all' mission. Now fast-forward to sort of where we are now. There has been a lot of reckoning about how pushing every student to go to college and take on the cost of college without necessarily being really clear about what they want it to do for them means that we have a lot of students who enroll in college and then never complete a degree, take on a ton of debt, and generally kind of struggle to make college really work for them as a path to the rest of their career. Now we're in this place where it's a little more holistic: If you want to go to college, you can. If you want to join the military, you can. If you want to do a trade or start working, you can. Is this shift coming from the students themselves or is it coming from somewhere else? Some of it's from students themselves. Students are genuinely questioning if college is worth it and if college is really the right thing for them, knowing what they know about themselves. Related The incredible shrinking future of college What we're hearing from students is that choosing to go to college has financial risk. There's social pressure and social dynamics that students are not sure that they really want to take on, especially coming out of the pandemic. Some students didn't even get a real full high school experience. They described not necessarily feeling ready to just jump into the college experience. I think it's really a testament to students knowing what they themselves need. Parents are saying they just want their kids to be happy. I think every generation of parents to some degree would say that. But are parents really okay if that means their kids aren't going to college? It's mixed. We're in a moment right now where a lot of people are kind of wrestling with this question. What we heard from many parents is that they really wanted their child to make the best choice for them. Parents are also seeing the data. There still is clear evidence that more education over your lifetime does mean more lifetime earnings on average. But the average is key there. If you actually look at the spread from the lowest to the highest earners at different levels of educational attainment there's a whole lot of overlap. Do you see any resistance from high schools? We hear some. And here's where I think it's coming from: Teachers all went to college. So everybody in a school, for the most part, has gone through a path that's included college at some point. So it is hard to kind of get out of your own experience and really recognize that taking an alternative pathway. Some parents and even teachers that we talked to said that they had some concerns about this shift to celebrating a bigger spectrum of post-secondary opportunities; that [it] means that the school is lowering doesn't have to be true. We are seeing schools where expectations remain really high. Every student graduates both prepared to go to college, if they choose it, and really knowledgeable about the kind of careers that they might want to pursue, including some that don't involve a degree right away. However, I think the concern about lowering expectations is totally legitimate. There's a big risk to guard against going backwards in time to that period where teachers and even some parents are saying, 'some students are made for college and others are really better to go to the military or to go with their hands.' Related Applying to college today is incredibly public and incredibly isolating Are we still asking too much of students? Looking back, I was very fortunate that at 15 I wanted to become a journalist and I'm doing it as an adult. But that's so rare. How are kids supposed to know what they wanna do with the rest of their lives? Are we asking too much of kids?
Vox
07-04-2025
- Business
- Vox
I can't afford a house right now. Am I screwed?
is the host of Explain It to Me, your hotline for all your unanswered questions. She joined Vox in 2022 as a senior producer and then as host of The Weeds, Vox's policy podcast. 'Should I buy a house?' That's the question that a listener, Miranda, brought to Explain It to Me, Vox's weekly call-in show. 'I think that's always been the go-to investment for past generations,' she says. 'You buy a house and that's kind of your retirement plan, and that just doesn't seem realistic or even attainable.' Miranda is far from alone in questioning whether homeownership is still the reliable engine of building wealth as it was for past generations. The US is in the midst of a housing shortage as millennials and Gen Z reach their prime home-buying years, but many are locked out of the market. Gone are the low post-Great Recession interest rates, all while the net worth of homeowners eclipses that of renters. Explain It to Me The Explain It to Me newsletter answers an interesting question from an audience member in a digestible explainer from one of our journalists. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. It's a complicated calculation, one that Mandi Woodruff-Santos knows well. She's the host of Brown Ambition, a wealth and finance podcast. 'I bought my house in 2018, which feels like a thousand years ago,' she says. And initially, she wasn't completely sold on the idea of homeownership. 'I didn't realize how little I desired to actually own a home until my husband was like, 'Get me out of this concrete jungle! I want to touch grass.'' Eventually, a house just outside New York City won her over. 'We were able to find a home in a great neighborhood that was within walking distance of the train. I saw this little house, and I thought, 'I want that house.' And that's how I ended up here.' How do you determine if homeownership is right for you? And if it isn't, what are other ways to build wealth? That's the topic of discussion on this week's episode of Explain It to Me, which has been edited for length and clarity. You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you'd like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@ or call 1-800-618-8545. We've been told for years that buying a home is this important milestone for adulthood and the first step to building equity and wealth. But with the current prices and interest rates, the barrier to entry feels especially high. What do you make of that advice about home buying? It's kind of like when you become a new mom: Don't get any of your parenting advice from someone who hasn't been a mom in like the last two years. You need fresh intel, and the reason is that so much changes. If you're getting advice from your parents, relatives, and, frankly, journalists, too — we tend to be a little bit on the older side — if you're getting advice from people who are not in the current market, it's not as applicable because they bought in an entirely different environment. Related How young people can avoid the financial pitfalls of previous generations There are choices I made in 2018 that I definitely wouldn't tell anybody to make now. I think it's really smart to ask for opinions and to be open to other points of view, but just understand the context from which they are giving you that advice. What do you make of the question from our listener? Is buying a house something she should be working toward? If you understand maintenance, if you understand property values and how they can be impacted by things like development and weather patterns — if you understand all these things and you still really want to buy a house, then yeah, go get your house! The ultimate thing is — can you afford it? If you're getting advice from people who are not in the current market, it's not as applicable because they bought in an entirely different environment. Now there are all sorts of different trains of thought about if a house is a good investment. I think you have to understand why you're buying a house. Are you buying a house for your family to live in for the next 10-plus years? That's a very different equation to me than if you're buying a home that you're hoping to fix up and flip on the market in a year or two, where you want to see a much higher return on investment. But if you're someone like me who's like, 'I want a place where my kids can grow up' — that is less about the ebb and flow of the current market and more about if this is a good long-term decision for me. So what I would look at today if I'm thinking about buying a house are mortgage rates. They aren't cute right now. Very ugly right now. But they're not as ugly as they could be. In the '80s, people were just walking out the door with double-digit interest rates. So interest rates aren't great, but they're not the worst they've ever been. What's more difficult these days is inventory. I wouldn't just buy whatever's there because you want to buy something. If you can wait, wait until you find a home that you really like and fits all your needs. It's worth it. Speaking as someone who is stuck in a starter home, I got my cute little 2 percent interest rate, but I'm in the tiniest little house in my neighborhood and we are busting out of the seams. Also, look at your lifestyle. At the end of the day, it's your choice. You're going to be living in it. Get clear with yourself on what you want. So if you sit down and you find out where you are emotionally, where you are when it comes to lifestyle, and you determine that buying a house is for you, what are the first steps? What do you suggest that a person do? Your credit score is going to determine how expensive that mortgage is going to be. I would say six months before you think you're ready, you want to look at your credit and take an assessment. Mortgage rates right now are around 5, 6 percent, 7 percent. They'll be even higher if you have poor credit. You want to avoid taking out additional loans six months before you apply for a mortgage because mortgage lenders don't like to see new debt right before they're going to potentially approve you for a loan. If you can wait, wait until you find a home that you really like and fits all your needs. Ideally, you're not going to have a fluctuating income. So if you're going to get a new job, that's fine, but it can make it a bit more complicated. Your lender wants to see a couple of years' worth of income, and they like to see it from one employer because this is about them wanting to pick a candidate for a loan who's pretty reliable. So for my freelance girlies, my solopreneurs, like me, it's not impossible, but you may want to talk to an accountant about how you can structure your business so that you are paying yourself as a W-2 employee. Also, saving up beyond that down payment. There are these things that pop up, and there's nothing worse than realizing you don't have the money in the bank for these extra expenses. If you're a first-time homebuyer, I would absolutely spend time researching first-time homebuyer programs. There are some through the federal government — and Lord knows what's happening with them right now — but check out the Department of Housing and Urban Development's website. Check out the Federal Housing Authority. See if you qualify for a first-time homebuyer loan. There's also a program called NACA, based in homeowner education. So if you go through their education program, they help buyers who are not maybe the most marketable candidates for a mortgage access to homeownership. There are credit unions, local banks — you may find state programs. Related Why buying a house feels impossible right now So that's if you want to buy a home. But say you can't buy a house or just don't want to. How do you build equity? What can you do? Yes, a home can be a vessel for increasing equity and building wealth. But it is not the only game in town. Ever heard of index funds, mutual funds? You can absolutely invest in the stock market, invest through your 401(k), and max out your Roth IRA. Also, invest in yourself. I don't mean go get a brand-new degree. What do you value in life? And if that's travel for you, if that's helping to care for family members, if that's moving to the city you've always wanted to move to, or just taking a chance on yourself and investing in an experience that aligns with what you value and what you want. At the end of the day, you can look back on that and say, 'Yeah, I did that for me and I have no regrets about it.' Who's to say that's not a wise financial decision? Maybe a calculator or an economist, but at the end of the day, you've got to live with yourself. I love that approach because there are all these different methods to finances, and I don't think that there's a 'right way.'
Vox
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Vox
The only generation not in a sex recession
is the host of Explain It to Me, your hotline for all your unanswered questions. She joined Vox in 2022 as a senior producer and then as host of The Weeds, Vox's policy podcast. If you've read the news lately, you've probably heard that Americans may be in the middle of a sex recession. But at least one demographic of people are having the best sex of their lives: Gen X women. At least that's the argument writer Mireille Silcoff makes in her most recent piece in the New York Times magazine. In it, she explores her own middle-aged sexual awakening. 'I was trying to explain a moment that I was really seeing everywhere,' she told Vox. Between her own life, her friends' experiences, and the portrayals in pop culture that were popping up everywhere, she sensed a trend emerging. 'There seems to be something new in the air having to do with 50-year-old women, their bodies, sex, and relationships.' So what is in the air right now? And what's behind these later-in-life sexual revelations? We talked to Silfcoff to find out exactly what's going on here in this week's episode of Explain It to Me, Vox's weekly call-in show. Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to Explain It to Me on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you'd like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@ or call 1-800-618-8545. What prompted you to write about this in the first place? I split up from my ex in my late 40s, after a very long relationship of 21 years. When I came out of it, I just thought that what lay ahead of me would be a pretty spinster-ish existence. I was really, really sick for a long time in my adulthood, and my marriage was very long and there were two children. I just felt like, 'Well, who is going to want this bag of problems? Now I'm 50.' Life is going to be orange pekoe tea, Masterpiece Theater, taking care of my kids, and hopefully remobilizing my writing, and that's it. And then instead what happened was I had a lot of wonderful new relationships with a lot of wonderful men and the kind of sex that I don't think I had even had in my 20s: a total new world of openness, exploration, interest, comfort in myself, self-knowledge and even, I daresay, wisdom. It felt revelatory. Explain It to Me The Explain It to Me newsletter answers an interesting question from an audience member in a digestible explainer from one of our journalists. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. And at first, I felt like this was my weird, cool story. But then, as stuff started coming out of the culture, some of my other friends divorced and had similar situations to mine, I realized that what I had been doing or what I had experienced post-marriage was really part of a much larger cultural story that might ring true for many women in America and beyond today. What do you think the factors are in this mid-life sexual revitalization? The women who are middle-aged now are — for the most part — Gen X. You're starting to get some millennial middle-aged people as well. And Gen X women had a really interesting formative experience when it comes to sex in the 90s. Divorce is also happening later than ever. Divorce and sexual exploration for women is a very old story: You get divorced and suddenly find a little piece of yourself sexually. I feel like that's kind of a big part of the story as well. So women having a bit of this sexual rediscovery later and finding when they're 47 or 55 that desire is still there, that sexual function is still there, that — thanks to the amazing strides that Gen Z and millennials have made opening up what's acceptable sexually — acceptance is still there. Related The online sex police are always watching and always so mad So Gen X women are more comfortable in their bodies. They may be more into figuring out kinks and things like that. Why do you think this is happening with Gen X women in particular? Why is this generation so different from boomers? Boomers were constricted by a lot of societal norms that were, for lack of a better way of putting it, very mid-century. There was an open attitude toward sex, and free love was a boomer construct. But what happened with all of that stuff is that when all of those ideas really came to roost in the late '80s and the early '90s — when women were suddenly working but men were still the bosses — it created a tough situation for the people who inherited that very open sexual culture. I see Gen X as being a generation of women who really were plunked into an extremely sexualized landscape and were needing to fend for themselves. There wasn't a lot of support for how to navigate bosses who were sexually predatory. There weren't a lot of roadmaps for how to have sex or how to be a sexual person. That was both good and bad, because, for instance, many women didn't experience orgasms because they just couldn't figure out how and their male partners couldn't figure out how so it just didn't happen. I feel like that wouldn't happen now. You've got things like OMG Yes, which is a website where you can find out how to have a female orgasm. It's a much more open environment now in order to find out about sex. But at the same time among the younger generations, there is a bit of a cliff that's happened with sexual frequency. I want to talk about that a little bit. There are so many conversations right now about how young people are having less and less sex. It seems like there's a backlash to sex positivity. Do you think millennials and Gen Z women take these sexual freedoms for granted? You do take it for granted, as you should. The parents create the situation, and the young people take it for granted. I think that the culture has basically conspired in every way imaginable against intimacy, against having an open and easy sexuality, against relationships. I don't think it's a coincidence that you really see the sexual drop off starting to happen in the same years that the iPhone was introduced. It's in the same years that social media really got going. 'The culture has basically conspired in every way imaginable against intimacy, against having an open and easy sexuality, against relationships.' People go out less, they hang out less. They do things together less in weird spaces where things can get weird. There was a lot more natural weirdness back in the day. And natural weirdness can lead to intimate moments which can lead to sex. I just feel like there's a certain cleanliness of experience in the culture right now where people are so afraid to intermingle in those old ways. It has had a big effect on people's ability to hook up or have casual sex or go from one boyfriend to another to another until you find one that you like. In some ways, I think it's wonderful for middle-aged people who already had that socialization. What do you hope for middle-aged women moving forward? Especially when it comes to sex, desire, and relationships?
