Late July in Washington, DC is a sweltering affair — and the denizens of our nation’s capital tend to flee en masse or avoid going outside if they can help it. So when scores of people turned up on July 29 for “The New Balancing Act,” a pair of panel discussions on how to improve the inclusivity and institutional reach of efforts to improve work-life balance, it made an impression. The presence of the standing-room-only crowd seemed to emphasize how crucial and how unanswered the questions are when it comes to making the integration of work and life a feasible reality for Americans, regardless of race, class, and — of course — gender. The conversations also drove home that issues we don’t normally associate with work-family balance, or work-life fit, or whatever you want to call it — issues like mass incarceration and the absence of a major portion of our population from work and family life, or the provision of mental health services for struggling parents and indeed all Americans — are profoundly connected to the discussion.

We are still absorbing what we learned from the dialogue at this event, which comes on the heels of three years of renewed public conversation sparked by the publication of “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” the Atlantic article by New America President and CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter. But several takeaways stand out. The first is that, as Anne-Marie pointed out in her keynote remarks, while “we still need to advance women in traditional men’s positions,” we “equally need to value the work that women have traditionally done — the work of care — and we need to value it whether women or men do it.” One of the challenges, going forward, is how to adequately value and compensate care work, and how to ensure that good care exists for children, the elderly, and all who need it. As an audience member pointed out, the United States is falling behind many northern European nations in the labor force participation of women, and clearly, the absence of affordable, high-quality and accessible care — institutional support for women’s participation, and for children’s well-being — is a major reason why.

Another key point is, as Jessica González-Rojas — Executive Director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health — put it, “Sometimes this conversation sits at an elite level because our communities are struggling to survive.” In some ways this reality is unsurprising. We know that while we’ve made progress on making debates over how to balance breadwinning and caregiving more inclusive — not just to men, but to communities of color, LGBT communities, undocumented immigrants, and others — we also have a long way to go. And yet, we were struck by the resonances, more so than the differences, among the comments of so many of our speakers. We heard how similarly both Jessica and Darby Hickey, a longtime activist for transgender rights, approach their work. They described elevating the experiences of those most urgently impacted by inequality to the center of any conversation.

We were equally struck by overlap between remarks made by panelists from different cultural backgrounds and professional points of view about how to make change happen. Both Jessica and Leroy Hughes, executive director of Concerned Black Men National, argued for a need simultaneously to dismantle structural forms of inequality that constrain families, their well-being and their choices, and to recognize the basic needs of the family as a whole. At the same time, Barbara Byrne, Vice Chairman of Investment Banking at Barclays, made an analogous case for transforming institutions like finance, considered notorious by many for its resistance to change — and its inhospitality, at the top, to the incursion of women. If younger workers demand structural changes while women (and men) at the top create structures for mentors to help women navigate the long-term obstacle course of high-pressure competition and family concerns, Barbara pointed out, things will change. Carol Joyner of the Labor Project for Working Families and Anne-Marie, hailing from the advocacy and think tank worlds, agreed: if Millennials, Baby Boomers, and men all get in on the action in a coordinated way, the landscape of work and family for Americans will be transformed.

But not for everyone, as Tyra Mariani — managing partner of Opportunity@Work — pointed out, unless we also include an even bigger institutional picture: the economy itself. Work-life concerns imply the presence of a job in the first place — and for a number of Americans in this economy, the dilemma of balance itself can seem like a luxury. As we analyze our own thoughts about where we have been and where we are going — and continue to reflect on the many questions, comments, and exchanges that emerged from our “New Balancing Act” discussions — we also want to continue to think about where work-life balance and gender equity intersect and diverge. Clearly both are mutually reinforcing areas of policy concern, advocacy, intellectual inquiry, and cultural analysis. But they are not the same, and perhaps it’s time to clarify those adjacent territorial borders. Might doing so yield unexplored possibilities for making progress for each one going forward?

At the same time, we are reminded of a recent piece in the Washington Post, mentioned at the event, which details how a number of U.S. companies are offering employees more days of paid time off in lieu of wage increases. While more paid time off certainly helps families, the either/or of the exchange seems off. To value care and to make it possible for all Americans to integrate work and life, shouldn’t it be about breadwinning and caregiving, together? Do we really have to choose one over the other?

To our minds, we need to be asking these and many, many other questions — as often and to as many people as possible. So we’re asking “New Balancing Act” panelists, other thought leaders, and you, our readers, to weigh in. When it comes to work-life balance, work and family, breadwinning and caregiving — or whatever terminology seems most relevant to you — where are you? Where do you want to be?

Liza Mundy is the Director of the Breadwinning & Caregiving Program at New America, which hosted “The New Balancing Act” earlier this summer. Video of the panelists’ conversations is available at the link. Jane Carr is a contributing editor at New America.

This post is the first in a series of contributions and we invite our readers on Medium to submit their own responses using the tag “New Balancing Act.”