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    Why We Mistake the Wholesomeness of Gen Z for Conservatism

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    “N.Y.C. art schools see record-high application numbers as Gen Z-ers clamber to enroll,” Gothamist’s Hannah Frishberg reported earlier this month. Art school has a reputation for being totally impractical and mildly dissolute. But what members of Gen Z like about art school, Frishberg explains, is that it has “a comforting, human sense of purpose.”The art school trend sounds counterintuitive at first. During times of economic uncertainty, the cliché is that young people usually go to law school or do something else that seems pragmatic, steady and lucrative. Yet art school can offer young people a set of tangible, hands-on skills and a road to employment that is set apart from an increasingly artificial-intelligence-driven corporate world.I have been interviewing 20-somethings about dating, politics, faith and their aspirations for a couple of years now. Dozens of conversations with members of Gen Z have convinced me that the most prominent aspect of their generational character is that they’re small-c conservative.This is frequently misunderstood as politically conservative (more on that in a second). But what I mean is that they’re constitutionally moderate and driven by old-fashioned values. It might be hard for us to recognize just how wholesome Gen Z is, or what that represents for America’s future. But we should try.It’s not just their “Shop Class as Soulcraft” disposition — their bias for the local and the handmade and against tech overlords — that makes this generation seem like a throwback. Or their renewed and unironic interest in things like embroidery, crocheting and knitting. There has been a lot of grown-up chatter in the past few years about the fact that Gen Z teenagers are having less sex, drinking less and doing fewer drugs than millennials and members of Gen X did. Teen pregnancy is at record lows.There’s probably not a single reason behind these shifts. Of course, Gen Z consists of millions of people, and generalizations are not going to apply to every member. But I can see, in the ways this generation is different from previous ones, a clear desire for moderation in all things.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Have Millennials Finally Figured Out How to Topple Boomer Bosses?

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      It was a night when thousands of 20-somethings were glued to their laptop screens for a battle whose stakes were both immediate and metaphorical, a contest between experience and youth, veteran versus vitality. Mike Tyson, a decorated, tested legend of boxing, was taking on Jake Paul. Mr. Paul, decades younger and with fewer fights under his belt, radiated energy, but his reputation was based more on social media videos than prowess in the ring. The newcomer triumphed.Of course, in sports the advantages of being the scrappy, enthusiastic upstart in a fight with an old hand are obvious. There’s an energy that’s visible in quick leaps, fast punches, unflagging endurance. The same may be true in math, music or the arts. In politics, though, the fresh face is often written off. The median age of a U.S. senator is the age at which many American retire. The last two presidents were born before the invention of the transistor radio and the hula hoop.But some political contests force voters to laser in on whether all that grizzled experience is really what they want.New York’s Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday was one of those. The competition between the two front-runners, Zohran Mamdani, 33, and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, 67, played out not just on the plane of policy but also on the plane of experience versus enthusiasm: Did New Yorkers want a mayor who was relatively new to local politics, or someone whose record, scandals and all, was basically tattooed on the city’s brain? If New York is “a city for only the very young,” its politics don’t often seem so, shuffling well-known names around seats of power like musical chairs. What’s the value, some watching the mayor’s race wondered, in someone totally new?That question feels urgent on a national level, too, not long after a presidential campaign that featured a septuagenarian and an octogenarian, and weeks after the exodus of a lightning rod Zoomer from the Democratic National Committee.The dichotomy of wizened experience versus fresh-faced enthusiasm has played out many times in the business world, too — in corporate boardrooms, where silver-haired executives debated their firm’s succession; on startup teams, where founders scratched their heads over whether to bring in veterans or workers with fresh ideas.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Are Millennials ‘Childless’ or ‘Child Free’?

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      More from our inbox:America, a Beacon No More? Dadu ShinTo the Editor:“Why Do Millennials Dread Having Babies?,” by Michal Leibowitz (Opinion guest essay, June 1), left me sad, impatient and energetically questioning her conclusion.Sad to read that she and others in their 20s and 30s are so fearful of having children. Impatient with her portrait of a mental health culture that seems to her to encourage people to live in a world limited by parental abuse and inadequacy. And energetically questioning her conclusion that such a culture is causing childlessness.Young people I know are indeed hesitant about having children, but almost exclusively for the reasons Ms. Leibowitz touches on in the beginning of her piece, but does not return to in her analysis. Some worry about their ability to support children financially, and many are deeply concerned about our country’s appetite for authoritarianism and the kind of future that climate change will bring.It is critical to the psychotherapeutic enterprise to recognize the influences — especially the traumas — that have shaped our feelings and behavior. But responsible therapists also do everything possible to help patients and clients loosen the hold of damaging childhood experience, and wrest from its pain the strength and wisdom to live mindfully and hopefully in the present.Most of the people I’ve worked with on this issue over 50 years — including women who as children suffered horrendous physical abuse — have said that their therapeutic experience made them far more comfortable with having children. Friends who have worked with other therapists say the same. Some do worry whether they will do a better job than their parents, but just about all welcome the opportunity and the challenge.James S. GordonWashingtonThe writer is a psychiatrist and the author of “Transforming Trauma: The Path to Hope and Healing.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Meet Rep. Greg Casar, the Texas Millennial Trying to Rebrand the Democrats

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      “We can’t bring a policy book to a gunfight,” said Representative Greg Casar of Texas, the incoming chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.Ever since they lost big in November, Democrats have talked about how much their party needs to change.Representative Greg Casar is living it.Last week, Casar, a 35-year-old Democrat from Austin, Texas, was elected as the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, becoming the youngest person ever tapped to lead the group of liberals at a moment when his party is struggling with younger voters. He’s also the first leader from Texas, a state Democrats find perennially vexing.Casar, a former union organizer, will be tasked with leading progressives through a challenging period, one that has some Democrats blaming them for tugging the party too far to the left. He believes it was centrists like Joe Manchin, the former Democrat and departing senator from West Virginia, who caused the party to water down policies that could have galvanized working-class voters. But he says progressives need to shift their message, too.I spoke by phone with Casar this week, for the second in my series of interviews with Democrats grappling with how to move the party forward. Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.JB: Why should somebody from a red state lead progressive Democrats?GC: Right now, the Democratic Party is doing really important soul-searching. As we work to regain working-class voters’ trust, as we work to bring Democrats back into the fold that decided to vote for Trump this time, I think it’s really important that progressives build a big tent.It is important for the Democratic Party leadership to be as diverse as the voters that we’re trying to bring in. We need older leadership. We need younger leadership, leadership from the South. We need leadership from the coast, but we can’t have it all from the coast.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Younger Adults Are Missing Early Warning Signs of Colon Cancer

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      The LatestColorectal cancer rates are rapidly rising among adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s, and the most common warning sign for the disease is passing blood in the stool, according to a new scientific review.Rectal bleeding is associated with a fivefold increased risk of colorectal cancer, according to the new analysis, which looked at 81 studies that included nearly 25 million adults under 50 from around the world.Abdominal pain, changes in bowel habits and anemia are other common warning signs of the disease and should not be ignored, said the researchers, who published the paper on Thursday in the journal JAMA Network Open.A light micrograph of a colon biopsy from a colonoscopy.Choksawatdikorn/Science SourceWhy It MattersColon and rectal cancer rates have risen among younger adults as rates have declined among older people, who are far more likely to get colonoscopies that can catch cancers and precancerous lesions called polyps.But though millennials born around 1990 are at almost twice the risk of colon cancer compared with people born in the 1950s, and have a risk of rectal cancer that is four times as high, young people without a strong family history of colon cancer aren’t eligible for colonoscopies until the age of 45.Doctors may also miss the warning signs. Anecdotal evidence suggests that because physicians are less likely to suspect malignancies in younger people, they may attribute a symptom like rectal bleeding to a benign condition like hemorrhoids, rather than cancer, said Joshua Demb, a cancer epidemiologist at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the paper’s lead authors.From the time younger adults first go to a caregiver with a complaint about a symptom until they receive a diagnosis can take four to six months on average, the analysis found. Because the diagnosis is often delayed, younger adults tend to have more advanced disease that is harder to treat.“We need to facilitate early detection, and one way is identifying these red flags,” Dr. Demb said.What We Don’t KnowThe causal factors driving the rise in colon and rectal cancers in younger adults were not addressed in the new analysis, and are not well understood.Colorectal cancer has long been associated with obesity, smoking, a sedentary lifestyle, high alcohol intake and diets that are rich in red meat, processed food and sugary drinks.New research exploring the rapid rise in colorectal cancer in younger adults is examining other possible causes, including environmental exposures, changes in gut bacteria and the use of some medications, such as antibiotics. More

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      What to Do With an Inheritance

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      A sudden windfall while grieving can be an emotional minefield, particularly for younger adults. Experts share ways to handle it wisely.Michael Hay knew his mother was financially secure, but he didn’t fully know her situation until she was admitted to a hospital in August and he was granted her power of attorney. Even then, it wasn’t until his mother’s unexpected death, about a month later, that Mr. Hay understood that he and his two sisters were about to inherit a sum that would make a real difference in their lives.Nine months later, Mr. Hay, 47, says he’s still processing the shock of suddenly losing his 78-year-old mother while gaining an inheritance he wasn’t prepared to receive.“I still call it ‘my mom’s money’ even though it’s legally in my name,” said Mr. Hay, who works at a tech start-up and lives in Madison County, N.Y.Mr. Hay’s reaction to his sudden wealth is not unusual. “It is a big shock both emotionally and financially, and I don’t know that anyone is ever prepared,” said Kathryn Kubiak-Rizzone, founder of About Time Financial Planning in Rochester, N.Y. She recommends that beneficiaries not make any financial decisions for the first six months because they’re likely to still be grieving.Research shows that more adult children may find themselves unexpectedly inheriting wealth over the next two decades. The silent generation, or people born roughly between 1928 and 1945, and its successors, the baby boomers, are expected to transfer significant wealth to members of Generation X and millennials over the next 20 years, according to the Wealth Report, a publication from Knight Frank, a London global property consultant.Federal Reserve figures show that half of all inheritances are less than $50,000, but with boomers reaching 80 and beyond, members of their family may begin to inherit more wealth. More than half of millennials who are anticipating an inheritance from their parents or another relative expect to gain at least $350,000, according to a survey by Alliant Credit Union in Chicago. (Whether they actually receive that much is another question.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Honey, I Love You. Didn’t You See My Slack About It?

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      Some couples are using professional project-management software to maintain their relationships. Why does it bother other people?Ben Lang didn’t expect to get so much hate just for being organized. For the past three years, he and his wife, Karen-Lynn Amouyal, have been using Notion, a popular software tool, to optimize their household and relationship. His version of the tool, commonly used by businesses to manage complex projects, functions like a souped-up Google Doc, with sections for a grocery list, to-do lists and details of upcoming trips.More unusual is a section Mr. Lang, a venture capital investor who previously worked at Notion, created about principles (“what’s important to us as a couple”). Another section, called “Learnings,” outlines things the couple have discovered about each other, such as their love languages and Myers-Briggs test results. There’s a list of friends they want to set up on dates. They also maintain a log of memories from their date nights. Mr. Lang, 30, was so proud of the creation that last month, he started promoting a template of the setup to others. “My wife and I use Notion religiously to manage our day-to-day life,” he wrote on X. “I turned this into a template, let me know if you’d like to see it!”The internet responded with a venomous outrage. “People have told me my wife is cheating on me, people have told me I have a dead body in my basement, people have told me I’m autistic,” he said.But his approach isn’t entirely unusual, especially among people who work in the tech industry and want to manage their personal lives the same way they manage their professional lives. For a class of young workers, it’s only rational to apply the tools of the corporate world to their relationships and families. Businesses have goals and systems for achieving them, the thinking goes. They get things done.Anastasia Alt, 35, uses Kanban boards — a visual tracking system where tasks progress from left to right — in Trello, a project management tool, for “literally everything.” This includes work at Yana Sleep, her e-commerce start-up, but also planning trips and events with her partner. The two of them also have a dedicated Slack work space, named after a mash-up of their surnames with a logo created using the artificial intelligence software Midjourney. She acknowledged, in jest, that some of her systems were “a little psychopathic,” but said she’s always been an optimizer.Ms. Alt said the Slack work space has emotional benefits for her relationship, too: freeing up their text messages and in-person conversations for the fun stuff.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Are You Having a Millennial Mom Midlife Crisis?

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      Mothers have been exhausted since the beginning of time, but some difficulties are specific to the millennial generation.There was dog urine on the carpet, vomit on her blouse and a queasy 7-year-old to look after, but Dr. Whitney Casares had just a few spare moments to clean up and change so she could resume the keynote presentation she had been giving when the school nurse called.Dr. Casares, 42, a pediatrician in Portland, Ore., tried to clean up both messes and race back to her computer. “But I was completely unnerved and underperformed,” she said. “When my husband” — who hadn’t picked up when the school called — “and younger daughter came home a few hours later, the first words out of their mouths were ‘Didn’t you get anything for dinner?’ and ‘Why does it smell so bad in here?’”In that moment, said Dr. Casares, the author of “Doing It All: Stop Over-Functioning and Become the Mom and Person You’re Meant to Be,” she related to a Taylor Swift lyric: “I did all the extra credit, then got graded on a curve.”It has always been exhausting to be a mother, but each generation has had its particular pressures and ways of coping. Boomer moms didn’t expect motherhood to be anything but difficult, though the lack of social awareness around anxiety and depression meant most would never openly discuss it. Generation X moms had to prove that they could do everything men could do — and then come home and work a second shift. Some Gen Xers were children of divorce, manifested an ironic detachment from their troubles and were prescribed Prozac to deal.And then came millennial moms, the women raised on “You go, girl!” in the 1980s and ’90s and who today are in their 30s and early 40s. On average, they enrolled in college in higher numbers than men, married later and delayed having children, sometimes to prioritize careers and other times because — with student debt and less wealth than previous generations — it felt impossible not to.Still, it seemed like some things had worked out in their favor. Perhaps they could juggle work and motherhood more successfully. Maybe their male partners, if they had them, would be more attuned to gender imbalances at home.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      As ‘Sex and the City’ Ages, Some Find the Cosmo Glass Half-Empty

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      As the show became more widely available on Netflix, younger viewers have watched it with a critical eye. But its longtime millennial and Gen X fans can’t quit.Most weeks, hundreds of people board a “Sex and the City” themed bus in Manhattan that takes them to the show’s most recognizable sites: Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment, her favorite brunch spot, a sex shop in the West Village. The tour usually ends with — what else? — a Cosmopolitan.“It never gets old,” said Georgette Blau, the owner of On Location Tours. It’s a three-and-a-half-hour entry into an aspirational world many of the riders had been watching for decades, she said.Twenty years since the series finale of “Sex and the City” aired, a new generation of television watchers has grown into adulthood. After all of the episodes were released on Netflix this month, media watchers wondered how the show — and Carrie’s behavior — might hold up for Gen Z.Would they be able to handle the occasional raunchiness of the show, the sometimes toxic relationships? Were the references outdated? “Can Gen Z Even Handle Sex and the City?” Vanity Fair asked. (For its part, Gen Z seems to vacillate between being uninterested and lightly appalled about what they consider to be a period piece.)The show had a very different effect on its longtime fans, many of them a generation or two older. When it aired, “Sex and the City” changed the conversation around how women dated, developed friendships and moved about the world in their 30s and 40s.Even if some of the show’s character arcs aged poorly, many of its original fans still relate to Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda, no matter how unrealistic it may have been to live on the Upper East Side with a walk-in closet full of Manolo Blahniks on the salary of a weekly newspaper columnist.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More