5SR - October 10, 2023

Hitha on Pax Americana, a novel approach to the childcare crisis, and Selena Gomez

Author

Hitha Palepu
October 10, 2023

Today’s curator is the founder of #5SmartReads, Hitha Palepu. She’s a consummate multihyphenate - CEO of Rhoshan Pharmaceuticals, author of WE’RE SPEAKING: The Life Lessons of Kamala Harris and How to Pack: Travel Smart for Any Trip, and professional speaker. Hitha is an unabashed fan of Taco Bell, Philadelphia sports teams & F1, romance novels, and is a mediocre crafter. She lives in NYC with her husband and two sons.

As I did yesterday, there are some articles that I cannot do justice by in offering a summary or my reflections. This is another one of those articles, and I ask you to read this piece in full with an open heart and mind.

Something I do to make sense of senseless times is to zoom out and examine the global state of affairs, and to revisit history to see what cycles are repeating and what helped us exit from them.

Many times, this exercise brings me a sense of calm that the long arc of history bends towards justice. Right now, I’m finding it difficult to look around the bend to see that light at the end of this tunnel. And this article does a thorough job of explaining why.

Pax Americana - also known as the Long Peace - is the term we use to describe the 70 some years of the steep decline of war and conquest (though this period wasn’t without it). This country has built its post WWII power on the correlation of relative peace for the decades after, and some would conjecture that the decline of America’s role in the world is correlated or causing the rise of global unrest and wars requiring global intervention.

This is a highly reductive argument that often ignores the trauma and immense death that’s occurred in the Eastern Hemisphere and non-white people. And while I have criticisms of this article, I also am in agreement with Noah that the decline of Pax Americana is going to be messy, wild, and and uncertain.

Juno Dawson is an exceptional author, both of nonfiction and fiction (I’ve been saving The Shadow Cabinet for this month specifically, and I don’t I’ve needed a smart witchy book more than I do now).

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven is a necessary addition to the witchy/magical book zeitgeist, and I’d also enter Dawson’s article as a necessary read to connect our love for these books and what they mean to marginalized groups - the queer community, especially, even when they aren’t represented in the majority of this genre.

“Witches are, almost always, oppressed women. They’re the misfits, the outsiders, the hags and freaks. As far as we have come on, culturally, queer people still face disproportionate harassment and prejudice. Even the most privileged in our community have had a taste of hatred. And so, witches – often born that way – use their powers not only to rise up against men, but to tackle their specific discrimination.”

What happens when you make childcare free for every child care employee, and revise licensing regulations?

You can hire the workforce required to cover the demand of childcare. And the investment from the state - on average, about $200/week per child - is worth it when child care centers are fully staffed and are able to open up more spots.

And that’s exactly what’s happened in Kentucky.

I would like to reframe the economics of Kentucky’s program away from “subsidies per child” to “workforce investment”, which is exactly what it is. The more robust our care economy is, the more revenue the state receives through income taxes, sales taxes on increased purchases, and a healthier population (chronic stress - of which lack of childcare is certainly a factor - is associated with health issues like muscle tension, digestive problems, headaches, weight gain or loss, trouble sleeping).

30 states are looking to replicate Kentucky’s program. I hope to see federal support for such an initiative as well.

I am so, so grateful for Selena Gomez.

I think her Carpool Karaoke is still the best one ever aired. My makeup bag is filled with so many Rare Beauty goodies (I use the undereye brightener nearly every day - it’s excellent and DOES NOT CREASE). And Only Murders has been a delightful distraction from the general malaise of the past 3 years.

Most of all, Selena helped me feel less alone over the past two months as I navigated my own bipolar 2 diagnosis.

The term ‘bipolar’ triggers a lot of emotions and stereotypes, many that fail to accurately capture the spectrum of this disease and the experiences of those living with it. I frankly was shocked when my psychiatrist delivered that diagnosis.

The first thing I did was to watch Selena’s documentary again, which showed how messy learning to live with this diagnosis is and that you can thrive once you adjust to your medications and care.

This profile was a necessary reminder of what thriving with bipolar looks like, and is also a necessary read on what humane leadership and brand is.

Thank you, Selena, for everything you do and what you work for. I don’t have the words to describe what they mean to me - but they mean the world.

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