Sandwich Generation Living with Dr. Anita Chandra EP 477
Best of Both Worlds Podcast
Hosts Laura Vanderkam and Sarah Hart Unger sit down with geriatrician Dr. Anita Chandra to discuss the complexities of the 'sandwich generat
Key takeaways
- Dr. Anita Chandra suggests redefining the sandwich generation as having care responsibilities in more than one direction, including neighbors or extended family.
- Proactive conversations should focus on what brings parents joy to establish a baseline of their 'normal' behavior.
Main topics
- Sandwich Generation dynamics
- Proactive elder care communication
Notable quotes
Everybody is fine until they're not fine.
Conclusion
The episode offers a practical roadmap for navigating the emotional an
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Lisa, tell them about our new show. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Iwano. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 5 (0:35) I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast. The true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on an amazing guest. Speaker 3 (0:47) Ooh, I scammed him. What? I could talk to you for an hour. Speaker 5 (0:50) You're a generational yapper, like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (1:05) Hi, this is Kylie Brakeman, Angela Geratana, Speaker 3 (1:08) Jeremy Colhane, Patrick McDonald, and Speaker 2 (1:10) we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists podcast, the Speaker 3 (1:14) improvised character comedy podcast, where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft. Join us for a panel of Eurovision participants. Speaker 2 (1:22) And we do a little Halloween sometimes. Does the Pope dress up? He winks on Halloween. He gets right up next to the microphone. I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. You've never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Listen to Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Speaker 7 (1:46) like by age 11 or so, at least 70 % have a phone. Speaker 1 (1:50) I'm Dr. Joy, and this is Therapy for Black Girls. We spend our surviving middle school run getting into what's happening inside your kid's brain, the group chats, and their friendships, and what you can do about it. Speaker 3 (2:01) Your child is not doing this on purpose. Speaker 1 (2:04) That's the kind of perspective we've been pulling from the psychologists and psychiatrists who study this for a living. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (2:15) Self-care September is your reminder Speaker 4 (2:17) to slow down, check in with yourself, get off your phone, and maybe ask, why am I like this? I'm Gemma Speck, host of the Psychology of Your 20s podcast, and this month we're helping you make sense of the person that you are becoming, from setting boundaries and navigating friendships, to understanding anxiety, confidence, relationships, and attachment. Sometimes our biggest decisions, without us even realizing it, aren't driven by what we truly want, but by what will prevent us from feeling lonely or being alone. Listen to The Psychology of Your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 7 (3:07) I'm Laura Vanderkam. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. Speaker 8 (3:12) And I'm Sarah Hart Unger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer, and course creator. We are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Speaker 7 (3:21) Welcome to Best of Both Worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun. From figuring out childcare to mapping out long-term career goals, we want you to get the most out of life. Speaker 7 (3:38) Welcome to Best of Both Worlds. This is Laura. This episode is airing in mid-September of 2026. Sarah is going to be interviewing Anita Chandra, who is a geriatrician. She's going to be talking about issues many people are dealing with aging parents and things like that. Right, Sarah? Speaker 8 (3:53) Yes, we thought this was a very timely topic. I've spoken to so many friends who all of a sudden find themselves kind of in that. sandwich generation era before they really expected to be. And as you guys know, I've been dealing with some of that of my own. So this was very timely and I was so excited to have the discussion with Anita. Speaker 7 (4:12) Yeah, which I mean, among the reasons this may sound different is we are sitting here together in my office right outside Philadelphia. Why are you here, Sarah? Speaker 8 (4:20) I am here to visit my parents. So my father, I talked about it on a prior episode, but just in case anyone's new here, he had a hip replacement that went okay. But then unfortunately, several weeks later, he sustained a periprosthetic femur fracture, a known but very rare complication. And it's been a rough road since then. Definitely moving in the right direction, but it's been very tough for him, very tough for my mom. You all know that my husband managed to break his leg six days after my father did in a totally unrelated incident many states away. So it's been a lot. But yeah, definitely so glad that I could come up and see them because the last time I was here was right after the fracture happened when he was in the hospital. So that was in late June. Is he doing better? He was able to walk up and down the street with a walker yesterday, and I was very impressed to see that. So again, lots of challenges, but... it seems like on a road to some healing. Speaker 7 (5:18) Wonderful. We're glad to hear that and glad Sarah can be up here. It's a bonus that her parents live not far from me, so we're able to hang out every time she comes to see them. So we'll hear what Anita has to say. Speaker 8 (5:29) Well, I am so excited to be here today with Dr. Anita Chandra, a board-certified geriatrician who creates aging education at Dr. Anita. and co-hosts The Millennial Sandwich with her friend Zara Hanawalt, who is a parenting journalist. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. I love your show. Well, I didn't know how incredibly timely this topic was going to be, but when it came across our email, Laura and I were both very excited to have you on as it's been one of the more requested topics over the years. We'll talk about the salmon's generation as it's part of the name of your podcast, but many of the listeners... to this podcast might be finding themselves there. How would you actually define sandwich generation before we get started? Speaker 6 (6:13) Yeah, so the technical definition of the sandwich generation is taking care of aging parents and raising children. Now that I am talking about the sandwich generation a lot, I think we should redefine it as just having care responsibilities in more than one direction. I think it's a lot more broad than we really Speaker 8 (6:35) think. That makes sense because it could be an elderly uncle or a really close neighbor or anyone. So that makes sense. Okay. So assuming that many listeners are going to find themselves into some kind of sandwich situation at some point, let's talk a little bit about the proactive side of things. So let's say you are not having any aging parents, close relatives to care for, but you know that might happen at some point. Maybe your parents are in their early 60s and they're traveling the world on cruises. But you've kind of advocated for the idea of addressing some of these tougher topics while things are going well. Can you talk about what those conversations should include? Yes. So I Speaker 6 (7:15) think when everything is going great is the perfect time to start thinking about things when you're not stressed and having to make really difficult decisions and having conversations when you're worried. So yes, if you have parents who are enjoying their retirement or... still working or just themselves as you've known them for decades, this is when we really want to get to know them as people and what brings them joy in life. Those are conversations that we don't really have as children of our parents, right? We are used to, we kind of go from that parent-child role to sometimes more equal, but you're still, even my patients who are 90 have children who are 70 and they still have that parent-child communication, right? We're not really good at digging into learning more about our parents in terms of what brings them joy, what's their purpose, and how to support them as they do get older because everybody is fine until they're not fine. And I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that getting old announces itself. One day your parent will suddenly be an old person and you will know and you'll know how to treat them and how to talk to them like an old person. And as we grow up, we kind of say that's not at all what happens. Sometimes it shows up out of nowhere. You really just jump into the fire of being in the sandwich generation. Speaker 8 (8:51) Sounds very important to have these conversations. And I like the idea about focusing on the things that bring them joy or like I'm extrapolating that to also think like, what are their goals? Like, how do they want to age? What do they want to do with the rest of their lives? What are some specifics that we should be asking these people about? Speaker 6 (9:07) I think when we think about having these conversations with parents, people are imagining this big sit down conversation when you bring up that you're getting older and what are your goals? Instead, I really encourage. weaving it into your normal conversation. So a lot of us, maybe you call your mom on the way home from work, or maybe you meet up weekly for dinner, kind of including into your normal conversations, notice what they're enjoying and doing on a day-to-day basis, and also notice what they aren't doing anymore. So maybe you have a parent who always loved to golf, and that was their hobby. They did that every Saturday with their buddies, and you're noticing, my dad is... not golfing anymore and he hasn't really mentioned it. But if you're noticing those changes, that's where you have the opportunity to ask why and make an observation and open that conversation to see the why is really important. Maybe it's because that friend moved away who they used to golf with, or maybe it's because they're nervous about their stability. Really getting to the heart of why their behaviors or interests have changed can help you understand what's. normal or what's something to dig a little bit deeper on. That makes sense. Speaker 8 (10:22) Is there also a role for sitting down and actually having that more formalized meeting? I mean, my own experience is that at one point my parents did say, hey, we have these documents and here's a copy of them and this is what we want. And they had done a little work themselves. However, there might be lots of people who don't go through the work of answering those questions about advanced directives and things like that. Is there a resource or place where you can look for those more formalized questions that many of us just don't really want to ask? Yeah, Speaker 6 (10:53) absolutely. I think when people think about having those conversations, we're talking about, like you said, advanced directives, estate planning, finances, those types of things. That's really important to sit down and have a conversation. And it's also a little bit easier to have those conversations because you can normalize those a little more and you can say, we want to have all of our things in order. Maybe I say, my husband and I are figuring this out for ourselves. I want to know what you would want in that situation. And that's a really different conversation than what I'm thinking about is when I meet people in the hospital, it's usually at the worst time to meet an older adult in the hospital because it's typically when something has gone wrong, right? They either had a fall or they're confused or. Any number of things, if you're admitted to the hospital, probably something has not gone the way you thought it was going to go. And what I'm interested in then, I rarely ask about estate planning or if they have their, I might ask if they have an advanced directive, but what I really want to know, and as an adult child of an aging parent, what I would want to know from you is what do they do on a day-to-day basis and what are they hoping to continue doing? So things. that are non negotiables for some people say your mom is a gardener, and she looks forward all winter to the spring so she can get out in the garden and get back to gardening. And now she has this hip fracture. And her goal might be getting back into the garden. And I need to know that because my recommendations are going to be based on what she wants to do. Now if you told me my mom wants to watch Jeopardy in her recliner every night, that's her goal. Okay, maybe I'm not going to talk to you so much about getting rehab. And my recommendations might be a little bit different because every person's goal to age well looks differently. So I don't know the older adult. And as