Latest / Butterfly Days w Tami Jorden / Year One Rewind: The Sandwich Years

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Year One Rewind: The Sandwich Years · Butterfly Days w Tami Jorden

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  speaker-0 (00:00:02)
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  Welcome to MyRealm. ⁓ I'm Tammy Jordan, and this ⁓ is Butterfly Days, ⁓ the podcast that proves you're not past your prime. ⁓ You're living in it right now because women don't have expiration dates. ⁓ Butterfly Days is a celebration ⁓ of the extraordinary potential of Gen X and Boomer women. ⁓ Throughout history, ⁓ women have shared wisdom to uplift and empower one another. ⁓ And you're about to learn hard-earned wisdom and best-kept secrets.
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  From interesting, inspiring women. ⁓ So if you're ready to embrace your butterfly season with confidence, ⁓ find joy in the present, ⁓ and create a legacy that matters, ⁓ you're in the right place. ⁓ No more holding back. ⁓ Let's spread our wings now. ⁓ Here we go!
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  speaker-1 (00:00:48)
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  Here.
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  speaker-1 (00:00:55)
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  Welcome to this anniversary edition of Butterfly Days. It's our first anniversary, and this episode highlights what some of my favorite guests have taught us about the sandwich years. Of everything we covered this year, ⁓ nothing got more response than this. Aging parents, adult children who still need you, and you somewhere in the middle, holding it all together, living the sandwich years. Nicole Smith
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  Describes becoming a caregiver as learning four new languages at once, under duress, with life and death consequences, legal, medical, financial, and caregiving. Nobody hands you a dictionary for all those. And most of us start trying to navigate in the middle of a crisis. My hope is this episode will help you not need to do that, also. So this episode is a practical one.
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  Kirsten Mao, she's awesome, will give you the sentence that actually works. Would you need a parent to accept help? Nicole will tell you what to say to a friend who's drowning in it, instead of the useless let me know if you need anything. Anna Gianone on what children actually need from us. Lauren Bain, the incomparable, who moved her parents two hours across Texas and remodeled a house in thirty days to do it.
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  If you're in it right now, this one's for you. And if you're not, you likely will be. So sister, listen anyway.
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  speaker-2 (00:02:29)
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  Becoming a caregiver is like learning four new languages simultaneously while under duress with legit life and death consequences. My favorite quote is it seems too soon until it's too late.
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  speaker-3 (00:02:41)
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  And two things jump out at me right away that I've learned from people who are greater experts than I am. ⁓ But there's two things that I would say are really important paradigm shifts that have been really instrumental and helpful for me. And one is flipping it from what do you want to get rid of to thinking of it as what's important for you to have around you? What are the things that matter to you? What's meaningful to you? ⁓ What do you want to see when you wake up in the morning? What
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  Teacup, do you want to use? And then a second thing that I learned from another one of my guests who's amazing is asking permission. I also failed at this. Greatly, I failed at this. Ask your parent. I really think we should go through the frames in the front hall closet. Are you ready to do that? ⁓ I think that's a low-hanging fruit. Yeah. Are you ready? You're not ready. Okay, fine. I understand. Do you think we could do that?
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  In a couple weeks, when I'm here to do X, Y, and Z. When might you be ready? A third pillar for me is radical acceptance. Again, this is something therapists are talking a lot about. It's around on all the socials, but how can you find radical acceptance? For you, this was your child didn't want the help. They were not in a place where they were ready to address that issue. It's the same with our parents.
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  Sometimes we're ready to attack an issue that we really see needing to be solved, but they're not. And sometimes you have to have radical acceptance. Your mom and dad. You're doing this for me, ⁓ not for you. It will help me sleep better at night. It will help me and my sister feel more at ease, knowing that there's an extra set of hands available in an emergency if we need it. Do you want me to be up at night stressed out and worried about you? I know you don't want that.
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  Because you're great parents, you love me, you care about me. Would you try this ⁓ as a gift to me? And the other thing that she talks about is the spoons theory, which is really this idea. I think they use it a lot with kids that might have ⁓ developmental differences and attention challenges. And it's understanding we only have so much capacity in an hour, in a class, in a day, in a week. And so ⁓ you have eight spoons. You've got eight spoons to spend for the rest of the day.
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  speaker-4 (00:04:59)
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  If you think about it, your parents are gonna be in their eighties by the time the kids are young and you're in the thick of it and you're in the sandwich. You are now in the sandwich years. So what do you do? How do you talk about it with your folks? The way to have the conversation I feel now is, hey, ⁓ we're now focusing on financial planning and looking to see, you know, buying insurance and savings and investments. And and I'm just curious, d have you done anything like
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  What have you done? Can you help me figure that out? And if you approach it that way, they're gonna be like, let me tell you what I did. If you approach it where you make them the teacher, not you, it just turns the whole conversation around.
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  speaker-3 (00:05:41)
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  ⁓ And she said of her own volition, I think this is it for me. I think I just don't want to be driving anymore. I know. We were like, ⁓ thank you, thank you, thank you. ⁓ Now it's been hard, but yesterday I did ask her, How are you feeling about this? What how's it going? Are you feeling still able to go do the things you want to do? And she said, Well, actually, it's been kind of fun. I have a bunch of what I like to call my little chariots.
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  My friends that come over and pick me up and take me to church or take me to Trader Joe's and ⁓ actually it's been kind of nice. Like I've had time to spend with friends in a way that I didn't before.
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  speaker-2 (00:06:16)
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  You've gotta build your team and find your people because you are not alone. That's the one thing everybody thinks they're it alone in caregiving and you're not there's fifty, sixty million people caregiving. The bar
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  speaker-3 (00:06:27)
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  move is asking for help, which I think speaking for us that are in sandwich generation, you know, you're like this, I'm sure I'm like this. ⁓ We think I can do this myself. I got it. I can figure it out. Well, maybe, but why? ⁓ Don't do that to yourself.
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  speaker-2 (00:06:41)
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  If you really want to help and you really are intent on helping, then say something specific. Cause if you just say to a caregiver, How can I help? Then it's the onus is on them is to figure out something. So if you say, Can I bring you a meal? Can I take the kids in carpool? Can I pick up the prescription at the pharmacy? Can I do some laundry for you? Can I take the dog for a walk? If you're comfortable, can I sit with your person? You think you have
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  speaker-5 (00:07:05)
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  child in your back pocket by being that Disneyland parent. Yeah. That Disney parent, whatever. But you know, it's just temporary because eventually your child's gonna grow up. Eventually your child will be able to make his or her own ⁓ opinion about who you are as a parent. At the end of the day, you can buy love. Comes within your heart. Yeah. Love is in the heart. You can buy love grows within.
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  speaker-0 (00:07:28)
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-5 (00:07:30)
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  There was a worker that came in and I was telling him the backstory and he was helping me like do plumbing or something. And he he didn't speak complete English, but it didn't matter. But I think the reason I say that is because even in the broken English, it was more powerful to me in a way. But he was like, You're blessed. And I was like, I know, I know. And he's like, No, no, no. You're gonna be blessed because of what you're doing for your parents. I was like, What do you mean? He breaks out some scripture about honoring thy mother and thy father, and I am like balling on the floor holding like watchbook.
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  I was like, What is that? I didn't know that And I was like, it made me feel so like it was so sweet.
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  speaker-2 (00:08:06)
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  ⁓ You had your childhood friends, you had your motherhood friends, now you have your daughterhood friends.
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  speaker-1 (00:08:12)
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  Nicole said six words that I haven't been able to shake. It seems too soon ⁓ until it's too late. Help those stay with you. ⁓ That's the whole thing, isn't it? ⁓ Every one of these women told a version of the same story, the conversation they wished they'd had earlier, the document they wished they'd signed, the help they wished they'd accepted before the crisis made the decision for them. So
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  If you take one thing out of this letter, let it be Kirsten's. Don't lead with what you want them to give up. Lead with what matters to them and what they want to keep. And if you need them to accept help, try telling them the truth that they're doing it for you, that it would help you sleep at night. Would you do it as a gift to me? As a doula, I'll tell you what I see. The families who talk early are not spared the grief.
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  They're spared the regret. Those are different things, and only one of them is optional. So this is my benediction for you. May you be spared regret because you chose to find the words to bridge the fears earlier rather than later. May you honor yourself and your loved ones by choosing respectful honesty, and may you know the extraordinary peace of walking your loved ones home and
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  Knowing you didn't need to be perfect to have done right by then. And remember, as always, ⁓ I am rootin' for you.
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  speaker-0 (00:09:51)
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  ⁓ I'm so grateful you listened to this episode. I hope it was a real value to you.
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  If there's a sister in your life who needs this message, ⁓ please share it, just like women have done to lift each other up over the centuries and across cultures. ⁓ Women lifting each other is so important. ⁓ It's why I do this work. ⁓ And to avoid FOMO and keep up leveling your own life, ⁓ make sure you don't miss the next episode. ⁓ You may be losing hormones, but your life has given you powerful perspective.
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  speaker-1 (00:10:18)
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  Next.
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  speaker-0 (00:10:26)
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  I believe you have something to give that no one else does, ⁓ that the world needs. ⁓ So remember, I'm rooting for you. Let's go.