E61: If family is no longer the plan, what are we working for? With Chloe Williams
For generations, adulthood came with a promise: work hard, progress in your career, buy a house, start a family. This episode kicks off our new "What Now" mini-series, digging into the questions people are really asking themselves when the old rules no longer apply. Our first guest, strategist and writer Chloe Alana Williams, co-founder of 8th Day, describes the old promise as a three-legged stool. For anyone entering the workforce now, all three legs have been kicked out. In this episode, Chloe talks to Dan and Alice about: Why we used to live in sync with each other and now live "kaleidoscope lives," hitting major milestones out of order or not at all Why Japan's decision to support families from birth to age 18, rather than a one-off baby bonus, is starting to move the numbers where almost nothing else has A US survey in which having children didn't crack the top ten markers of a successful life for women, regardless of who they voted for Chloe's concept of "Generation Zero," a possible first generation in which half the population doesn't have children Why she believes women need to become "futurists in their own lives," planning backwards from the future they actually want A brand new framework for building a portfolio career, floated live on air: something you know, something to grow, and somewhere for flow This isn't an episode about doom, and it isn't an episode about blaming women, a narrative Chloe firmly dismantles. It lands somewhere surprisingly hopeful: that what work has always quietly provided, connection, community, people in each other's orbit, might be exactly what we should be redesigning it around. This is episode one of "What Now," our mini-series on what comes next when the old script stops applying. More episodes coming soon. Find Chloe's writing on her Substack, Natalism Nudges, on LinkedIn, and at chloealana.com.