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I read Dr. Biden’s memoir recently—View from the East Wing. It was such a treat to learn more about her life and to get her on Pulling the Thread.

Today, we talk about:

Also, toward the end of our chat, Dr. Biden shares which books she’s been reading and loving lately, and the book she recommends to people really going through it.

View from the East Wing

Follow Dr. Biden on Instagram

ELISE:

It's lovely to be with you. Congrats on the book.

DR. BIDEN:

Thank you.

ELISE:

And how are you?

DR. BIDEN:

I'm well. I'm well. I've just started a new job this week.

ELISE:

I heard.

DR. BIDEN:

So I'm a teacher and I've been a teacher for 40 years and I didn't want to give it up. I didn't want to give up that part of my life, but I didn't want a really structured, like going into the community college and teaching a curriculum, et cetera. So I thought I'd like to go into the prisons and work with women and teach literature and teach life skills. So this week was my first week and it was just so natural and I loved being back. I loved being back and we laughed and we talked about all different things in life and they were teaching me slang. Yeah. So I felt really good about it.

ELISE:

Yeah. We need life skills in both directions, definitely.

DR. BIDEN:

Yes.

ELISE:

All the reverse mentorship.

DR. BIDEN:

For sure.

ELISE:

Living with young children, I learn a new vocabulary every day. I have no idea what they're saying most of the time. What's the literature? What do you teach in that context?

DR. BIDEN:

Well, I decided to teach The Color Purple.

ELISE:

Amazing.

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah, so they're really excited because mostly they've had self-help books. Now what they're learning is the confidence to be disliked. So they're reading that book. So the women in the prison said they wanted literature. So I came in and they said, "Can we do a novel?" And I kept thinking what novel would be so amazing for them to learn about life or think about themselves, learn some life skills. And so I will start to teach The Color Purple.

ELISE:

That's amazing. I love it.

DR. BIDEN:

Oh, thanks.

ELISE:

The courage to be disliked. I read it. I haven't read it in a minute. Is that -

DR. BIDEN:

I have never read it.

ELISE:

You've never read it?

DR. BIDEN:

No.

ELISE:

Yeah. I mean, it's hard as a woman to be like, "I want the courage to be disliked." I feel like most of our lives revolve around how can I be like, what so much of my work is about is examining that pole to be seen as a good person. But I read that book. I do not remember it shaking me to my core or giving me any profound insights on how to shape that.

DR. BIDEN:

No, I kind of feel the same way. Yes. But it does make you think about your past and how your past influences your future and how you have to let it go and move forward. And so it makes you think about different things in your life.

ELISE:

Yeah. I can only imagine the context taking, perspective taking that you have been participating in. Obviously writing a memoir is that, right? It's deep therapy, I think. For sure. For sure. Trying to understand.

DR. BIDEN:

And that's what I did. When I first wrote it, my first draft, I sort of got everything out, all the pain, all the anger, all the hurt. And then I went back through it and I though, "You know what? I don't want to include this. I don't want to include that comment." And I went through it and smoothed it out a little bit, but it was cathartic.

ELISE:

Well, it's funny, you have this one very short scene in the book that made me laugh out loud where you are with Meghan Markle and she's telling you how much she likes to paint and draw, and you urge her to keep a journal so that she has a private place to dump all of her feelings. I would love to read your journal, Dr. Biden.

DR. BIDEN:

No one will ever read my journal, believe me.

ELISE:

You'll burn it?

DR. BIDEN:

No, I'll keep it, but it's private like all journals, I think.

ELISE:

As they should be. Well, that's what I think, we've had this conversation before. I find you to be a fascinating and singular person and yet profoundly relatable because so much of your life has been this calling into situations that you would never choose, and including putting a family back together back when you were very young, right?

DR. BIDEN:

Very young. I was 23 actually when I met Joe and I started dating Joe, 25 when we were married. So I have to say that I never anticipated having a ready-made family. I did want to have a family, but actually my childhood was so amazing and I was loved so unconditionally. And my parents had a really, truly beautiful marriage. It was truly like the Ozzy and Harriet. I mean, people don't have that nowadays, but divorce really didn't exist back then. I mean, I had a beautiful childhood. And so when I met Joe's children, Bo and Hunter, we had most of the same values. So it was a very natural thing to fall into, having dinner together. We dated, I think Joe and I may have dated one date with just the two of us. It was always the four of us. And we'd go to the movies, we'd go to the beach, I'd be at their house, I'd be making lunch.

It was a very natural transition. I think that they wanted a mommy. They wanted to be like the other kids. And I like to say that I fell in love with the boys before I fell in love with Joe because they were so easy to love and so warm and welcoming and hugging. And I don't know, it sounds idyllic, but actually it was.

ELISE:

Yeah. And also so incredibly hard, right? Because I don't think any 25... And you took it incredibly seriously. You were proposed to five times. I mean, that's a reluctance that I feel like shows up throughout your life, both a very clear understanding of boundaries. I feel like you could teach a masterclass, but also this reluctance, this really needing to be called forward, really needing to feel like it's the right thing. Where does that come from for you?

DR. BIDEN:

Well, I felt when Joe kept asking, I had to be 100% sure because I loved the boys so much and I felt that they had already lost one mother through a tragic accident and I could not bear for them to be hurt and lose another mother through divorce. So it had to be till death do us part, and now it's 50 years later. So it worked, but I had to be a hundred percent sure.

ELISE:

Yeah, no, I think that's incredibly understandable, even though I'm sure he was a very enticing and prospect and very fun and -

DR. BIDEN:

Charming.

ELISE:

Charming, yes.

DR. BIDEN:

Romantic, all those things.

ELISE:

Yes. He is a delicious person, I think, regardless of politics.

DR. BIDEN:

Oh, I'll tell him you called him that. I love that.

ELISE:

With great taste in ice cream. But yeah, I can only imagine, and it's interesting. Obviously, I've been watching Hunter and his re-emergence, and I think I'm as taken by him as so many others. He's brilliant and wise and funny and obviously exceptionally sensitive, which is the fate of so many people who suffer with addiction.

DR. BIDEN:

He was my most sensitive child, and I always said that. And I'm so proud of him now in that he's come out and tried to help other people with addiction. And it was just like the other day when I saw Presley Gerber had died in a rehab and I was watching morning television and oh my God, I got such a lump in my throat because I thought, oh my God, that could have been my son. But Hunter, it took a while, but he's sober. He has been for eight years. He's remarried. He has a beautiful little child, Beau that he named after his deceased brother. And now he's sort of emerged really, I think. I love that he wants to help other people. He's an artist. He writes, he wrote a book. I mean, he really has come into his own.

ELISE:

Yeah. In the book, I thought this was very moving and as someone who's... I mean, I don't know that any of us are, if it's not in our immediate family, it is in our extended family. I feel like this is -

DR. BIDEN:

It's in so many families.

ELISE:

So many families. Yeah. And so I say this as someone who loves a lot of people with this disease, and I worry profoundly about some of them. And you express a regret. You write, "Generationally, I was raised to stay stoic and contained. Regardless of how bad it looked, I believe that Hunter would get it together on his own. That's something I regret now, not having tried sooner to talk about it. A lot of people knew how dire the situation had become, but they didn't say anything and I didn't ask. For years, nothing was spoken aloud about Hunter's addiction, not its effect on him and the family, and not even the grief that had surely compounded the situation. But it's funny how things unsaid sometimes have a way of making themselves heard." I'm curious about this because it wasn't a big part of your platform. Did you feel like doing that would be exposing for Hunter or that it would show that you were favoring him in some way even though it's been universal?

DR. BIDEN:

It was so traumatic for his daughters. I saw what they went through and it was truly painful with the divorce and then the addiction, and I just couldn't do it to them. I could not trigger them. And that was important to me because they leaned on us a lot, the girls did, like Nana, where is our father? Nana, we have to get help. Nana, we have to have an intervention. I mean, they came to us because they had parents who were hurting and couldn't help them. And half the time, they didn't know where Hunter was, nor did we. So I just couldn't do that to them too, that it was so public. Everything was so public, and to bring that out and the girls were in college and it just wasn't fair.

ELISE:

Yeah. Now that you think about it, is there a version where you feel like you could have found a way or do you just feel like you couldn't open that door?

DR. BIDEN:

I don't know. There was a lot of pain. You have to remember, and I know this may sound selfish, but I was grieving. I mean, I had a really hard time after Beau's death, as you can hear my voice, as did Joe. I mean, we all did. We were all suffering. And so I think we were all trying to just hold on and think of all the layers of life we had. I mean, we had our family life and trying to help everyone through that. I had a full-time job as a teacher. Joe was, of course, vice president and then president. We had campaigns. I mean, there were so many layers of life, and we were just trying to hold on and make it through. So could we have done more? I don't know. Hunt wasn't at the time willing to do more. I mean, he would've had to be a part of it and he wasn't willing to be a part of it.

He was somewhere, he was in a rehab or he was somewhere we didn't even know where he was. So I don't know. It's hard to go back.

ELISE:

No, I totally understand. And I think that what you all have collectively experienced is so both singular and profound and so relatable because you can touch the tragic parts of most people's experience. President Biden lost two children. You lost one worrying that Hunter would die.

DR. BIDEN:

Yes.

ELISE:

Is it very, I'm sure you have PTSD. Very real. Very real.

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah.

ELISE:

Caretaking President Biden multiple times, right? Because I don't know that people remember that he almost died from a hemorrhagic brain bleed from an aneurysm.

DR. BIDEN:

Yes. Two aneurysms actually.

ELISE:

He had two?

DR. BIDEN:

Two. Because a lot of times when you have one aneurysm, you have a mirror aneurysm on the other side. So one was about to burst, and that's why he had all the pain and everything. And the second one was scheduled. So he was out of work for, I think, seven months. He was out of the Senate because he was in Walter Reed after these operations and trying to get better.

ELISE:

Yeah. And this is one of those moments where we can reflect on how... I know it feels like we're not making any progress, and yet we've made so much progress. My mom almost died from an aneurysm when I was in high school and actually have an aneurysm that will be repaired laparoscopically. So what they do now is so different than even what my mom experienced in 98 or what you experienced in the '80s. I don't even know if I'll spend the night in the hospital.

DR. BIDEN:

Really?

ELISE:

Yes. Mine's very small. It was months.

DR. BIDEN:

They cut his head literally.

ELISE:

They don't do that necessarily. Yes.

DR. BIDEN:

Down his head.

ELISE:

Yeah.

DR. BIDEN:

Oh my gosh.

ELISE:

Yes. No, they'll repair it with a stent through my femoral artery. They'll drop in a stent.

DR. BIDEN:

Oh, I'll have to keep in touch with you and see how you do.

ELISE:

Oh, I'll be great. I'm a minimalist, but I will be great. It was caught on screening. I'm sure everyone in the family is screened, so mine is not at the point of near rupture, but it is amazing how they can take care of these things now, which would've been... Well, he almost died.

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah, he almost died. I mean, he was so close to dying.

ELISE:

Last rights close. I love that story.

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah.

ELISE:

No, he's not dying. Turn around and leave.

DR. BIDEN:

I was so angry. And for those who are listening, we rushed Joe to the hospital and he was in the hospital room, and I had to go home because our kids had not come home from school yet, and I couldn't have little Ashley, who's like, what, six, come home and not find anybody there. So I rushed home. Hunter was in high school. Bo is a first year Penn, and I got them situated, and I went back to the hospital. And as I walked back down the hallway, there was a nurse outside and sitting there doing her charts, and she said, "Wait a minute, you can't go in the room." I said, "What do you mean? Why can't I?" She said, "The priest is in there giving him last rights." I said, "What do you mean last rights?" I pushed the door open. I went in and I said to the priest, "Get out.

Get out of here. He is not going to die." I think the priest was so shocked, he just turned around and walked out of the room. But I was determined. I couldn't believe that God could take away my children's mother and then take away their father. And so he was not going to die.

ELISE:

Your life too is so interesting, I think, probably to me and to so many people, because I know you're a woman of faith whose faith has wavered, but you've had these moments, these miraculous moments that feel almost like interventions. You could even say that when President Biden won, the way that everything turned so quickly and suddenly it was happening after it seemed like it absolutely was not.

DR. BIDEN:

Oh

ELISE:

Yeah. Yeah, this intervention and then these moments where it's like, what?

DR. BIDEN:

Divine intervention.

ELISE:

Yeah, divine intervention in both ways. These incredibly... I think anyone listening, regardless of how they may vote, would say that leaving office and then getting a stage four cancer diagnosis at his age is after his service is not fair. I don't understand that.

DR. BIDEN:

No, I don't understand it either. And I think it wasn't just the stage four prostate cancer, which by the way, for any of your listeners, I mean, if a man has that, they do have surgery, they have all kinds of treatments, you can live and they can eradicate it. The problem with Joe's cancer is that it metastasized. It is now in his bones. And because of that, he has a lot of pain and they put him on hormone therapy, which makes you very tired. So there are a lot of complications. So like you're saying, the caregiving has returned. I think a lot of your listeners probably are caregivers. I want to say that I think it's one of the hardest things in life because things happen so unexpectedly every day. You have to be on top of medicines and doctor visits and how someone's feeling and their diet and their exercise.

It's like a whole new job on top of your already job of being a mother and a grandmother and a great-grandmother and a teacher and an advocate for women's health. I mean, it just is another layer that is really hard and emotional and new in a way that, I don't know, aging, we don't know enough about aging in this country, and I really feel like we should have this national conversation on aging. If something happens when you're 83 or 84, is it normal? Is this a normal thing or is it something you should call your doctor about? We don't know that. Or if you're not sleeping or whatever it is, there are no answers. We need to have more research and funding for more answers, especially in my view, for women.

ELISE:

Yes. Well, that certainly, and I think that it's interesting. I come from a medical family, and so I immediately felt defensive of President Biden's doctors because often when you're older, the treatment is worse than the disease, right? So for most men who will get prostate cancer, it's almost inevitable. Sometimes it's better to just let it do its thing. It's not going to do anything at that stage. Yes. But I do think to that larger point you're making, and I want to put caretaking in a parking lot because it's such a huge thing. I feel like it's research, but it's also just a complete aversion to aging and death in this country and a phobia. So it's like we don't want to see it. We don't want to think about it. We definitely don't want to talk about it.

DR. BIDEN:

Don't write a

ELISE:

Will.

DR. BIDEN:

We don't want to have all that stuff. I mean, you don't know how many... Well, mostly I'm talking to women. Women don't have a will or they don't know the finances of the family. They don't know about trust. I mean, these are things we need to educate ourselves about and take care of. I mean, dying is part of life, but you should prepare for it, not hide it. And people are afraid to talk about it for sure.

ELISE:

And then you see it. I look at the culture right now, and to me, it feels how... Freud would talk about how there was Thanatos and Eros, love of death, love of life. And we're seeing this, I'm not even just talking about politics, but this death drive on one hand, this unbounded death drive, which is often paired with this immortality quest of these technocrats and whatnot who are terrified. It's such a strange mask psychological concern where instead it's like, "No, guys, this is it. This is what we have to care for." So it feels to me like one of the keys culturally that we have to turn is this gentle loving confrontation with reality that even the most powerful people in the world can get sick and need care. And I don't know why that's so hard.

DR. BIDEN:

And we have to give them grace.

ELISE:

Yes.

DR. BIDEN:

We have to give them grace. And I don't know, I think the expectations for leaders are so high, which they should be because they're leaders, but then they have to realize that they age too and give them grace.

ELISE:

I know. Trust me. I hear you. I feel you on that.

DR. BIDEN:

Thanks, Elise.

ELISE:

Yeah. It's amazing because I feel like as time goes on, everyone's perspective starts to shift and change around everything and tomorrow will feel differently than we do today. But when you think about the end and what had to have felt like a total betrayal, and you'd write about how you wrote your first draft and it felt angry. How have you processed that?

DR. BIDEN:

Well, one was through writing. I mean, that was a great help. I was a writing teacher most of my life, so it felt a very natural process to me. And then I had to let it go. I had to let it go because look, the one thing about Joe's cancer that really sort of awakened me was that Jill, you can't hold onto these grudges or these feelings because look at Joe's life. I mean, he has stage four cancer. It was a wake-up call. You have to start appreciating the good things in life every day, the joy in life. You can't keep holding onto things. I think that really changed my perspective a lot about, I don't know, just how I see things, how I wake up every day. I wake up and say And pray and exercise and do things for myself and try to find the joy in life and not focus on the negativity because it just eats you up inside and it's not healthy.

ELISE:

No, it's not healthy. Do you feel like you have gotten to a place, and maybe this isn't the appropriate word even, but of a place almost of forgiveness within the acceptance of forgiveness? And I know there's no generalized target for that except probably feeling like, oh man, we feel like we were really trying to do a service here of a lifetime.

DR. BIDEN:

I'm trying. I'm a Philly girl, so I'm really trying on this forgiveness thing, but I can't say -

ELISE:

You're not fully there.

DR. BIDEN:

100%, but I'm trying.

ELISE:

Well, thank you for that answer because I think if you were like, yes, I'd be like, is that true? But you write about coming from a generation where everything was different, right? There was -

DR. BIDEN:

Oh, so different.

ELISE:

Yeah. An expectation that you would, and you're the oldest child.

DR. BIDEN:

Yes, of five girls. Yes.

ELISE:

My mom is an oldest of seven.

DR. BIDEN:

Oh, seven girls?

ELISE:

Five girls, two boys. Youngest are two baby boys who were almost of a different generation at that point.

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah. Same with my

ELISE:

Family. Yeah. So different parents, what they say. My mom is a trial run. Yes. And the culture has changed. So you sort of acknowledge this profound suffering, the isolation of deep grief, wanting to protect the privacy of those around you, yet also people can sense a chasm. How does Dr. Biden have it? What's happening? The persona of stoicism, calm, collectedness versus how do you really feel? Do you regret not showing more or do you feel like it's kind of no one's business?

DR. BIDEN:

No, I feel that I have a role to play in the family and especially after my parents died. I took over as the sort of mother of five girls and my mother was very stoic. I think I only ever saw her cry once in my lifetime. And we all leaned on my mom. And so I have become that person for my sisters. And I think I have become, within our nuclear family, I think I'm that person for my granddaughters and my grandson. So that's my role. And so I don't regret it. I think someone in the family has to be that person. We all just can't show our emotions or fall apart. Yeah.

ELISE:

Do you get your turn? Do you have a great therapist?

DR. BIDEN:

I don't have any therapist. I've never gone to therapy.

ELISE:

Wow.

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah. But I have four sisters.

ELISE:

And SoulCycle, right?

DR. BIDEN:

And SoulCycle, yes. Yeah.

ELISE:

That's amazing.

DR. BIDEN:

Sometimes I have God up there who listened to me or sometimes, I don't know. Sometimes when things are tough, I go to Bo's grave and talk to him. So he's a good listener.

ELISE:

I want to talk about Bo. I interviewed Rachel Goldberg Poland, Hirsch's mom, and she was, I don't know if you read her memoir. It's so devastating. And she talks about, it was so incredibly moving to talk to her because she talks about, and she's closer, you've had more years, but she talks about how she loves Hirsch more every day. It's an expanding love. Do you feel that way? I felt like that was so relatable. I can completely... He's not a distant memory.

DR. BIDEN:

I don't think I could have loved him anymore. So I don't feel like there was room to love more because I feel like I just loved him totally, as I feel like I love all my children and grandchildren. I mean, it's not the same. You don't feel the same about each one every single day. I mean, things happen, relationships shift, but they're your kids and your grandkids. I don't know.

ELISE:

Yeah. My kids always ask me who my favorite is, and I'm like, "It just really depends." Minute by minute, it shifts.

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah, it is. Exactly. It's not the same one every day.

ELISE:

Sometimes they realize that

DR. BIDEN:

When they're parents. That's exactly right.

ELISE:

You shared a really beautiful moment, which was a note that he wrote to Naomi that I don't know if it was read at her wedding where he wrote, "Naomi, I've learned through my life experience that faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. Faith has always carried me. I know it will carry you." Which is so beautiful. And you write about your loss of faith in the wake of his death and then finding it again. But what happened? I mean, I can imagine what happened. I'm going to ask you what happened, but I also feel like anyone listening is like, "I get that."

DR. BIDEN:

Well, I mean, we always went to church as a family. I think all of my children, and Joe goes faithfully to church every weekend. And so I felt that we had a deep faith, but then when Beau got sick with brain cancer, I would pray. I was praying so much and I never, ever, ever believed that Beau would die. I just didn't. I could never give up that hope. And I think as a mother, I mean, you can't give up that hope. And after he died, I mean, I did lose my faith because I could not believe that God would let him die. And so I lost my faith for a couple years. And then Joe and I were at a church in South Carolina and we were attending a church service and a woman came up to me. I was sitting in the front pew and she came up and she kneeled down and it was the pastor's wife in the middle of the service.

And she said, "Jill, I want to be your prayer partner." And I though, "Prayer partner, what is she talking about?" So I started to pray with her. And I felt like this was an intervention, as you say, God's intervention with me to say, "Hey, Jill, you've had enough time. It's time to come home." And that was like four years later after Beau's death. So I have my prayer partner, Robin, and to this day, every week there we are texting one another. Sometimes we call. I went to her birthday one year. It's just, I don't know, like you're saying, it's an intervention.

ELISE:

And when you have a loss of faith, what does that feel? Because I am deeply spiritual, but I didn't grow up in a religious tradition, so I don't have church, et cetera. Yeah. So what does that mean? You're like, this is just a random material universe and there's no magic. The magic is gone.

DR. BIDEN:

No, I didn't go. It was just empty. It just felt so empty. Yeah. I felt empty because I think one relies on God in tough times and you don't want to always rely on God in tough times. I mean, I thank him. I'm grateful for all that I have. I thank him for my health and my kids. I mean, the things that happen every day, I do thank God every day, but without him there, it felt empty.

ELISE:

Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. And you write about this, but you feel his presence, you go and visit him, you are in conversation with him.

DR. BIDEN:

Yes. Yeah. He's in my life every day, just like my other children.

ELISE:

Yeah. No, I completely understand that. And also just the why him? The sort of bargaining, I've done that in my own life of not him, take someone else. He's

DR. BIDEN:

Such a beautiful person. I mean, he was so young and funny and smart and kind. Yeah. Why him?

ELISE:

Yeah. And I never met him. He seemed so resolved as a person, so whole, particularly considering what they went through. Yeah. And I would imagine that for Hunter, having gone through what they went through as little boys, how old were they when their mom died?

DR. BIDEN:

I think, what was it, four and five?

ELISE:

Was it -

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah.

ELISE:

And they were in the hospital for a while, right?

DR. BIDEN:

Yes. Yeah.

ELISE:

Yeah. And this is before you, but I know how strong, how intensely loving that your whole family is, but what a trauma.

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah.

ELISE:

I mean, unbelievable, right? A hole that's very hard to fill. Yeah. I want to talk about community college. I want to talk about your devotion, and you write about it, grounding you outside of a bubble, and that seems to be the other bubble you want to burst, which is we were not in a bubble, friends. We were watching. We were as involved in everything that happened as everyone else. No one was protecting anyone or no one was in a delusional state. I feel like that can never be stated enough. We don't need to spend time there, but just as a voter, I would say in observing what was happening, that your husband is the only person who has beaten President Trump.

DR. BIDEN:

Yes.

ELISE:

Plain and simple, Republican or Democrat or Independent.

DR. BIDEN:

And he can't get over it.

ELISE:

Yeah. But you have devoted your career to teaching not in exalted fancy places, but with people who are often mid-career or experiencing an interrupted life. Can you talk a bit about why you're so called? And I want to just generally talk about the importance of vocational and community colleges.

DR. BIDEN:

Oh

ELISE:

My gosh.

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah. I loved, loved teaching in the community college. Before that, I taught English in the high schools. I was a remedial reading teacher. I actually taught in a psychiatric hospital for five years.

ELISE:

Wow.

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah. And then somebody said to me, "Come teach a community college, you'll love it." And I applied and I got the job and every day I felt like I was on cloud nine. I mean, I loved teaching adults. And so I taught when I was second lady because I said, "I'm going to keep this career." And people said, "Oh no, you can't do that." And I said, "Yes, I can. Watch me." And then as first lady, they said, "Well, you can't keep teaching." And I said, "Yes, I can, and let's figure this out." And I loved teaching adults. I loved helping people get ahead in life. I could teach them the skills that they needed. I did a lot of workforce training. I taught a lot of nurses and cops and education. People wanted to be teachers. It was just, I loved the job. And I started a women's group at the community college.

I taught in Virginia because I saw so many older women returning to school and I thought, oh my gosh, they need so much help with technical skills. They all were scared to death of math. They just didn't know how to navigate the system. So I started the women's retention group, and then a lot of the younger girls, women in the college said, "Hey, Dr. B, we need help too." So it was help with life. It wasn't so much how do you develop this paragraph? What's the theme? It was like, "Hey, Dr. B, I don't have money to buy tires for my car. What am I going to do?" Or, "Hey, my kid's sick. How do I finish out this semester?" I mean, there's so many things that... I mean, I had over 40 female faculty members say, "Hey, give me a couple of these students." We did four or five every semester, and then they would continue on.

And I'm still in touch with a lot of the women that I mentored, and it was just really a beautiful relationship, one of trust and friendship. And that's why I continue on now that I feel like I'm not done. I still want to help women get a job, make their lives better, know how to find strength within themselves to solve problems, to carry on, to figure it out because life is so damn hard. And if you can help somebody else get over something, then grab their hand and pull them through. And that's how I feel today, and that's how I felt all those years teaching, and that's why I loved it so much.

ELISE:

I think that when we think about our current crisis, those are polycrises in this world and in this country, and we think about what's happening to specifically poor boys and men, the manosphere, the adolescence of sphere, but the way that they're preyed on. And you look at the developing world, you look at the drivers towards equity and towards building wealth and stability, and it's always education, and yet there has been this consistent effort. I was just looking for this line, this professor at Stanford, he wrote this book called Churn, his name's Claude Steele. He has this line, "A big way that poverty undermines schooling is to make it seem irrelevant to one's life." And it feels like that's such a cultural pressure that school is girly and gay and dumb and you don't need it because of AI, and it just continues to pull the rug out from all of us.

DR. BIDEN:

But that's why workforce development is so important. If you don't love academics, there's other pathways and there's so many great careers out there, they just have to know about them. And then because when they get into these workforce development classes and get certificates and get these great jobs, I mean, one of the things that would always amaze me is when I would go meet with, I don't know, people who were the steel workers or people who were carpenters or welders or had these IT specialties, and here I am, 40 years teaching with a doctorate, and they were making so much more money than I was making. I was like, "Wow, I'm in the wrong field." I mean, because money is so important to people, I think it raises their self-esteem and academics just isn't for everybody. And look at the number of women in college now and in graduate ed, I mean, there's so many more women than men in the classrooms.

And so men have to see the value, I think. Young boys, we have to, in the high school, show them the importance of education at all levels, not just academics, but all kinds of pathways to find a really good paying job that they'll love, because that's what it's all about.

ELISE:

Well, and yeah, the feeling of self-worth and self-esteem. I don't know if you've ever been in conversation with Temple Grondin about vocational and technical schools, but she's autistic. What she writes about or sort of hammers about is, and this again, it goes to the work that your administration did around infrastructure, but that we prioritize, and I'm a verbal thinker and you're a verbal thinker, but that our world is so organized around verbal thinkers, including people who are really good at algebra, and then the system weeds out everyone who thinks spatially and visually and might be technically brilliant or really good at infrastructure, that they fail algebra.

DR. BIDEN:

All kinds of learners.

ELISE:

Yes, but they might be amazing at geometry. I'm terrible at geometry. Me too. Yeah, I don't see it. We won't go there. I bet I'm not a great parallel parker. I bet maybe you struggle.

DR. BIDEN:

Oh, I'm a good parallel parker, but guess what? I no longer park.

ELISE:

You don't? Just as a rule?

DR. BIDEN:

Service.

ELISE:

Oh, right. You've lost your ability to drive.

DR. BIDEN:

But I was a good parallel parker, and we had a big car because we had two dogs always, and I would have the dogs in the back, and I had to learn how to parallel park.

ELISE:

Yeah. My spatial understanding is very poor compared to, for example, my husband who've trained to become an architect. We just see the world in very different ways, but I read a lot more than he does. I want to talk about books because... And I just want to just shout out, we're not going to talk about this at length, but I laughed out loud when you just dropped... Well, you wrote very painfully and beautifully about what's happened to the East Wing and how it's like a beautiful bird laid bare. And then you have this amazing, I don't know if you remember this even, because it's been a minute, Robert Frost. "So Eden sank to grief, so Dawn goes down today. Nothing gold can stay.”

DR. BIDEN:

Elise, you are the only person that has interviewed me, and I've had many, many who has picked that up. Good for you.

ELISE:

Thank you. Good for you. Really?

DR. BIDEN:

Yes.

ELISE:

Wow.

DR. BIDEN:

It shows me what kind of reader you are.

ELISE:

I pay close attention.

DR. BIDEN:

You do. You do.

ELISE:

I do.

DR. BIDEN:

Only person to ever mention that in any interview.

ELISE:

That made me laugh. Well played.

DR. BIDEN:

Thank you.

ELISE:

But let's talk about books for a minute because I know you're an avid reader and an introvert. Oh my gosh. What have you loved lately? What do you love? Obviously you love poetry, but what do you like to read?

DR. BIDEN:

Right now, I'm reading Kin. Have you heard of that one?

ELISE:

Yes.

DR. BIDEN:

It took me a minute because I've been caregiving to be able to concentrate. But once I got into that book, I mean, I really look forward to reading that. I love The Correspondent.

ELISE:

I loved that book.

DR. BIDEN:

I loved, oh my gosh, Elizabeth -

ELISE:

Strout.

DR. BIDEN:

Strout. Oh my God, I love every book she writes. I love her to death. I love Ann Patchett. I love this book that I recommend to people who are going through a tough time and need a little calm in their lives. And someone recommended it to me. It's called Raising Hare, H-A-R-E. It's by a British author, her first novel. And it's during COVID and she finds an actual rabbit, and it's a real relationship. I mean, it's just so beautiful and the imagery and just nature, and it keeps me calm when I needed it in my life.

ELISE:

Does anything bad happen to the rabbit?

DR. BIDEN:

Oh, you know what? No.

ELISE:

Oh, good.

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah, because I thought to myself, I don't think I can bear it if something happens to the rabbit, honestly. And so I did have to speak because I thought if something bad happens to the rabbit, I just can't bear it.

ELISE:

I'm with you. I'm with you.

DR. BIDEN:

So anyway, it's a very calming book.

ELISE:

Okay. I'll include links to all of these books in the show notes. Maybe you need a book club. I saw President Obama's doing a book podcast. Authors need help. He's doing... We need people reading. All right.

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah,

ELISE:

For sure. I know we're at the very end, but as a caregiver, and I feel like this was another moment in the book where you expressed, maybe not regret, but when you think about this, and it's kind of amazing, I know you had skin cancer, is that accurate? But you have been this durable totem in your family, right? What would you like to see happen? Is it just conversation and acknowledging what caregiving entails? What do you think we need?

DR. BIDEN:

Like I said, I think we need a conversation, a national conversation about it. People need to be aware of just what it takes, how much support people need. If you know someone who is a caregiver and you just drop off a note, a little hand bouquet of flowers, just say, "I'm thinking about you. I know what you're going through. I know how tough this is." And we need legislation. I mean, we gave money to caregivers in the military. There's so many children because of the war who are... We've forgotten that with Iraq and Afghanistan, so many kids who are at home still taking care of their wounded warrior parents while the other parent goes out to work. We don't remember them. We don't think about them anymore. And I think we have to just be cognizant of what people are going through because now we're in another war.

I know. And it's not like people aren't recognizing that. I think they're like, "We can't deal with everything in front of us and then being in a war II." And I think we can't forget the role of our military, and we need to say what they're doing and still celebrate them. And I think that's been lost a little bit. So there's so much more to do. There just is. There's so much more to do.

ELISE:

Yeah.

DR. BIDEN:

We got to inspire the youth to do it, right? We're handing everything to them.

ELISE:

Yes.

DR. BIDEN:

Come on, step up. I find as I travel around the country, I see amazing things that they see the problems that they can't fix at the moment, but they realize there will be an opportunity. So stay involved, stay passionate, keep moving forward, and I do see that.

ELISE:

Yeah. I think we're getting a crash course, unfortunately and fortunately, in the importance of government and what it can and what it can't do in positive and negative ways. And then also I think there is a vast empowering of people if we can understand how to use it. So we really chose an interesting time to be alive.

DR. BIDEN:

Isn't that like be careful what you -

ELISE:

What you wish for?

DR. BIDEN:

Yes. Be careful of the times you live in or something. Oh, may you live in interesting times. I think it's an old Chinese proverb or something.

ELISE:

Yes. I know. It's wild. When you think about coming into this form and saying, "I guess I'm going to take..." I mean, you in particular, this wild ride, probably not what you expected.

DR. BIDEN:

Yes. Mary Oliver, what are you going to do with your one wild and precious life? And it's been a journey. It's had a lot of ups and it's had a lot of downs, but it's been such a great journey.

ELISE:

Yeah. I've loved being with you. I feel like when I met you, you were at such a fascinating point. I remember you had gone to a grandchild's graduation and you were laughing. I think that you had gotten a standing ovation and you hadn't been out. It was very early, and President Biden was like, "Are they clapping because I'm still alive? What is happening? Do they miss me?"

DR. BIDEN:

Yeah. What's going on here?

ELISE:

What is happening? But that was a moving... I think there was a little bit of catharsis in that for the country too.

DR. BIDEN:

Oh, thanks.

ELISE:

All right. Well, have a great day with Willow and good luck. I'm very -

DR. BIDEN:

Oh, here she is. Look, she's passed out.

ELISE:

Oh, trust me. I noticed. I've been watching her just chill back there and congrats on the new job.

DR. BIDEN:

Oh, thank you.

ELISE:

I'm sure you'll share at some point. I hope we all get to hear about it.

DR. BIDEN:

Oh, thank you.

ELISE:

Well, that was fun to spend some time with Dr. Biden, who is someone who, when you meet her, will insist that you call her Jill. But the fact that that honorific was debated, she was mocked in op-ed for using the honorific of Dr. Biden because she's not a medical doctor. She has an advanced degree in education, which she earned in her mid-50s. And so her point, which I think is very well taken, is I worked really hard. I think she went to night school effectively to earn that degree. We would never do that to a man, nor is she professing to be a medical doctor, friends. But anyway, I love her various iterations of self-invention and that she has seen her life as an unfolding project and is someone who is just continually applying herself. I think that that's very admirable. We didn't talk about this in today's conversation, but she was married very young before President Biden, college boyfriend, which ended in divorce, which had never happened in her family.

And she didn't get a fair shake in the settlement, and so he had built and owned a bar. And so one of the sort of through lines of the book and of her life is the importance of financial independence for women and being able to rely on yourself. So Dr. Biden, it is. All right, friends. Thanks for hanging. I will see you next time.

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