2024: The Year I Became Part of the Sandwich Generation
This week’s post comes from Cristina Livadary, Mana CEO and member of the “sandwich generation”:
One Sunday in January of this year, I was with my three year old daughter at a birthday party when my cell phone rang. It was my husband, who told me our four month old son was having difficulty breathing, and they were rushing to the emergency room.
On the long drive to the hospital, I couldn’t help but think of how many hospitals I’d been in during the first weeks of 2024. My father had extended stays at two separate hospitals in Northern California over the holidays. I had just spent the previous week with him, preparing to say goodbye, while my husband took care of the kids. And now, I was driving to see my infant son hooked up to ventilators.
My story is one of millions of stories that can be told of the sandwich generation - named for the generation who finds themselves sandwiched between the obligation of caring for their aging parents and young children. As I look back on the last few months, I think about how the term “sandwich” does so very little to illustrate the complex decisions, feelings, and emotions one undergoes. Sandwich? No. More like a sloppy joe…
I’m a financial planner. One could argue that I’m probably better off than most as I’ve been schooled on various financially-related planning topics: estate planning, medicare, long term care. But even I wasn’t prepared for one of the heaviest months of my life. I never want anyone to go through what my family and I did. With that in mind, I’ve come up with five practical pieces of advice that I humbly offer to anyone out there who is or might find themselves in this situation:
1: Start a conversation about aging with your parents and your family, do it early and often.
In my 30s, I knew my parents were getting older, but my parents had a very hard time acknowledging it themselves. Neither of my parents ever wanted to talk about death or think about a time in the future when they weren’t able to make decisions. As my 30s progressed, it became harder and harder to pay attention to my aging parents - who lived several hundred miles away - because I was growing a family of my own while also launching and then running Mana with Stephanie, all in the middle of the Covid pandemic.
Talking about death - and/or a time in life when things might be different - is hard. Change is hard, especially as we get older and more set in our ways. But change is inevitable, and the best way to plan for it is to start the conversation early. Even though I was able to discuss some plans with my parents, if I could do it all over again, I’d be more steadfast in my effort to have regular conversations with them, to learn about how they would like to think about the end of their lives. I would focus on acknowledging and validating their emotions throughout. I would also bring more of my own family into the conversation, with the hope that doing so would break down the social barriers some of us feel when thinking or speaking about our own eventual passing. Instead of one big conversation, that would naturally feel uncomfortable and painstaking, I would break it up into a series of smaller conversations. One conversation could center around their preferences for caretaking, another around the various pros/and cons of different senior living communities, another could be about the type of health care they’d like to receive if either of them ended up in the hospital indefinitely.
When these conversations in my family started, I remember shutting down, because every conversation resulted in conflict. In his book Build the Life You Want, author and Harvard professor Arthur C. Brooks writes about the importance of family conversation and moving through conflict, together. “Acknowledging family conflict is good, because it improves communication and gives you opportunities to solve problems.” In fact, Brooks cites evidence that shows that it’s better for your overall life happiness to have a clear family policy of speaking for yourself and listening to others.
There is no doubt about it: these conversations are heavy, which is why breaking them up into smaller conversations might ease their weight. If you have no idea where or how to start, I’d point you to The Conversation Project’s Conversation Starter Guide, which provides a beautiful framework to help everyone talk about their wishes for care through the end of life, so those wishes can be understood and respected.
2. Get comfortable talking about money.
Even with my background in financial services and financial life planning, the conversations about money with the various members of my family were still hard to have. Everyone is continually dealing with their own internal stories around money and life, which brings added challenge to financial discussions. An additional layer of complexity was added because I am part of a blended family - both my mother and stepfather had previously been married and had children from their respective marriages, some of whom were part of the money conversations as well. As financial planner and writer Carl Richards says, money = feelings. Even so, just because conversations around money are very emotionally charged doesn’t mean that we should avoid them.
After several years of urging, my sisters and I pooled our efforts to get my parents to create an estate plan. If you want a deeper explanation on what a simple estate plan entails, I’d highly recommend reading our recent blog post. Although I knew reviewing their estate plan every couple of years was important, life got in the way. Like many families I know, we had to restate the estate plan in the last few weeks of my dad’s life because things had changed so much. If I could do it over again, I would set time aside each year to review their estate plan and make sure it still aligned with their wishes. I would do this before things got urgent and my parents had less mental and physical capacity to help review.
Like many families in California, the biggest asset my parents have is their house. My dad bought this house in the 1970s. My mom, my sister and I lived there throughout my childhood. My mom and dad lived there until my father’s passing in January. Naturally, the price of this small California bungalow - situated smack dab in the Silicon Valley - is worth thirty times more than his original purchase price. Conversations about the house and what to do with it were always the most contentious. To make matters worse, Proposition 19 in California has made the math on inheriting your parents’ home a bit less straightforward.
In future posts, we promise we'll dive into the math of inheriting assets, but for now we’ll say that the the tax realities of inherited assets, coupled with the complexities of a family’s structure (ie. children from different marriages, etc) make an already tricky subject very complex to discuss. If I could go back in time, I’d have multiple conversations with my parents and other family members around these questions:
Should something happen to one of you which would cause you to need to move into a different living situation, would you both want to move?
What would you like to happen to the house after one of you has passed?
In an ideal world, how would you want the house handled after both of you pass away?
If a blended family, are there special considerations for the kids vs the stepkids in what will be inherited?
Would any of the inheriting children want to live in the home as their primary residence after parents have moved out? If so, how will finances be arranged to accomplish this (eg. will the child moving into the house have the funds available to pay the other siblings their share of the inheritance)?
Although these discussions may result in hurt feelings for some, I assure you that talking through the wishes of your parents is so much better than attempting to interpret their wishes after a time when they cannot make decisions.
3. The stages of mental and physical decline can be rapid, so cultivate awareness for your parents’ stage of aging often by checking in.
Over the past few years, I’ve witnessed the lives of friends and neighbors get completely derailed because of a parent’s health emergency. Almost always, it was unexpected and the child(ren) need to pause their lives to address the new - often extreme - health needs of one or both parents. We all lead busy lives, and so many of us are also tending to the lives of our children, so these emergencies hit hard. I wanted to recommend some ways to check in on the status of your parents’ health. As you go through it, if you find that the answer to any of these is no, I’d highly recommend making time to think about next steps:
Can my parents perform all activities of daily living (ADLs) and/or instrumental activities of daily living?
Activities of daily living are activities related to personal care. They include:
bathing or showering
dressing
getting in and out of bed or a chair
walking
using the toilet
driving
eating
Instrumental Activities of Daily Living are activities related to independent living. They include:
preparing meals
managing money
shopping for groceries or personal items
performing light or heavy housework
using a telephone.
In addition to having difficulty performing any of these activities, you may notice that your parent(s) are suffering from cognitive decline. Some signs of this might include having trouble remembering to eat or drink, inability to dress appropriately for the weather or occasion, struggling to bathe regularly or thoroughly, experiencing incontinence issues, or forgetting to take their medications. Witnessing these changes can be incredibly difficult on many levels, which brings me to the next point…
4. It’s important to have a plan before you notice your parent(s) beginning to exhibit more signs of needing extra care.
I wish I had ironed out a plan before this happened to my parents, elements of the plan would include:
Should I find my parent(s) in need of immediate help, do I have a temporary game plan while I get the long term care plan in place? It takes time (and a lot of paperwork) to move someone into a long term care facility, so it’s important to also have a plan in place for who and where care will be administered for your parents during this transitional period.
Are you planning on having, or do you have young children who will need your time, love and attention? If you plan on taking care of your parents or will at least need to be with your parents temporarily as you sort out long term care options, who will take care of the children? Do you and that caretaker (be it a partner or other family member) need to establish a plan for this?
Finally, if one or both of your parents are healthy and well for the time being, what’s the trigger that would cause them to change their living situation? Who will pay for that (for both the short and long term)?
5. What questions have you always wanted to ask your parents but never had the time or energy to ask?
My reflection on what I wish I would have done differently isn’t just about the money and health conversations I wish I had, it’s also about some of the questions I didn’t get to ask.
In late 2019, my parents made what was to be their last visit to LA. My documentarian husband insisted on interviewing both of my parents in front of the camera. He asked them to talk about some of their favorite stories from their childhood, what their parents were like, what they remember being like when they were kids. This was such a pleasant discovery for the whole family when my dad passed, and it’s also a good reminder for me to keep asking these questions of my mom.
A week ago, a friend of mine sat across the table from my mom and, out of genuine curiosity, asked her questions about her life. They sat there for an entire hour, my mom was fully engaged. The next morning, my friend wondered out loud why she had never had the patience to ask the same questions of her own parents, both of whom are still living.
If you are lucky enough to still have your parents around, let this be your reminder that now is the time to ask any questions about your life, their life, and everything else in between. Whether it's a voice memo, video recording or humble phone call, you will never regret having it.
The path to becoming part of the sandwich generation has taught me invaluable lessons about the importance of proactive communication, financial planning, and compassionate caregiving. Starting difficult conversations early, revising estate plans regularly, and maintaining awareness of parents' health are essential practices. Furthermore, cherishing moments with loved ones and asking meaningful questions help create lasting connections and memories. Despite the challenges, embracing these principles can navigate the complexities of caring for both aging parents and young children with grace and resilience. This journey is ever-evolving. We at Mana are committed to serving our clients facing the realities of this generation. You can expect more resources and posts on the challenges faced by the sandwich generation in the months ahead.
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Stephanie Bucko and Cristina Livadary are fee-only financial planners based in Los Angeles, California. Stephanie is the Chief Investment Officer and Cristina is the Chief Executive Officer at Mana Financial Life Design (FLD). Mana FLD provides comprehensive financial planning and investment management services to help clients grow and protect their wealth throughout life’s journey. Mana FLD specializes in advising ambitious professionals who seek financial knowledge and want to implement creative budgeting, savings, proactive planning and powerful investment strategies. As fee-only fiduciaries and independent financial advisors, Stephanie and Cristina never receive commission of any kind. Stephanie and Cristina are legally bound by their certifications to provide unbiased and trustworthy financial advice.