August 26, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode of 'The Aging Well Podcast', Dr. Jeff Armstrong is joined by Richard Wexler, co-founder and CEO of the newly launched nonprofit APlan2Age.org, a free resource hub for families navigating the complexities of aging and caregiving. With 14 years of firsthand experience caring for four aging parents, Richard brings both personal insight and practical tools for what he calls “a national wake-up call.”Together, Jeff and Richard discuss why most families are unprepared for aging—especially when it comes to care, housing, finances, and decision-making during health crises. They explore the emotional weight of caregiving, the rising pressure on the sandwich generation, and how APlan2Age’s free Care Plan, checklists, and conversation guides can help families prepare with clarity and compassion.
Whether you’re caring for an aging loved one now or simply want to age well yourself, this episode will challenge, inform, and empower you to stop winging it—and start planning.
Learn more at https://aplan2age.org/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Welcome to the Aging Well podcast, where we explore the
science stories and strategies behind living a longer,
healthier and more purposeful life.
I am your host, Doctor Jeff Armstrong.
In this episode, I'm joined by Richard Wexler, Co founder and
CEO of a plantage.org, a nonprofit resource helping
families take action before a health crisis hits.
(00:23):
Richard has spent 14 years caring for four aging parents
and knows first hand how complexand emotionally exhausting the
caregiving journey can be. Together, we'll explore why
aging should be a family conversation, what most people
misunderstand about caregiving and care.
Planning and why now not? Later is the right time to put a
care plan in place for aging well.
(00:46):
Richard, welcome to the Aging Well podcast.
You've cared for four aging parents.
How did that experience shape your vision behind a plan to.
Age wow, it it altered my life. I mean, 20 years ago, I'm
working in the software industry, married later, two
(01:07):
small kids and we knew we had four parents in their 80s.
But I think you're so involved in your own life.
The kids were younger, the school, the homework, the
sports, the dance. My job was a long commute.
I was working many hours every day, every week.
(01:30):
And I don't think you're thinking about the fact that you
have these four parents that areaging.
And I don't think you're thinking about what's going to
happen if. And then in the summer of till
20 years ago, in the summer of O5, the phone started ringing,
(01:50):
which turned out to be 4 phone calls and each one of them was
doing pretty poorly. So we then get on this adventure
of caring for them, which lasted14 years, a last parent passing
at 96 in 2019. So I about probably six months
(02:17):
into this adventure back in O5, realized I could barely spell
the word care, left what I was doing in software, started my
first company points of life with the idea.
I better figure this out. My wife was the hands on care, I
(02:37):
was the project manager over thewhole situation, helping her,
helping the parents, finding resources, but I knew nothing.
So obviously Google was a lot different back then, but read
everything I could get my hands on.
And then some gentleman showed up at my office and said, hey,
(03:01):
once you go out there and start educating what you're learning
about, like, what do you mean? We'll go out there and talk
about what you've discovered? So I started talk talking
locally in Northern California where I was living, about the
complexities of aging and care. The guys came back a few months
(03:26):
later and said, OK, we're not done, go out there and start
educating nationally. Oh, OK.
So for 20 years been doing that and all of that.
I'm hope I'm answering your question.
All of that have has really shaped what now is a plan to
(03:48):
age. Yeah, You know, you said you had
14 years of it. I guess that's a, a double edged
sword, right? I mean, you had the opportunity
to be with your aging parents for an additional 14 years, but
it was a lot of work in that period of time.
And I think a lot of people don't really expect, you know,
when their parents get to that point that they need to care for
(04:08):
them, that it's going to be as long.
But at the same time, we're hopeful that it is long.
I would agree with you. I mean, it was 14 years.
We had physical injury, we had mental decline.
We had all of it between all four of the parents.
(04:28):
And since we were not prepared for this, I tell people it's
like you get on a roller coasterand they're in the very front
car and you're in the car behindthem, and you go up, down,
inside, the whole things that a roller coaster can do.
And you're hanging on tightly because as their health changes
(04:54):
and they continue to age, you have no idea where that front
car is going to go. And you just hope as the loving
children that you're there making the right decisions with
them so this process turns out as well as it possibly can.
(05:18):
So you've said we need a national wake up call about
aging. What exactly are we not seeing
or not saying about what aging really involves?
Wow, that's a huge topic. So for all these years that I've
been educating, once COVID had Istarted doing more online, but
before that, I was doing a lot more in person.
(05:39):
I've literally stood in front ofthousands of individuals.
And what still saddens me and frustrates me as I sit here
today, we're really not. I mean, yeah, I've been in front
of thousands of people, but we're really not that much
further ahead. Understanding what aging and
(06:00):
care means in this country than we were 20 years ago what do I
what do I mean by that? Most families are like my wife
and myself. You, you may have kids, you may
not have kids, you may be younger, you may be older.
You're involved in everything that's going on in your life.
(06:20):
Your your keeping a job, trying to keep a job, trying to make
money, trying to pay your rent, trying to pay the mortgage,
whatever the thing may be. And then all of a sudden you've
probably moved away from mom anddad.
I don't know that many people that still live 10 miles, you
know, 20-30 miles from where momand dad, where you started,
(06:45):
through someone you've fallen inlove with, just through a job,
you've moved around the country,you've moved out of the country.
And what is frustrating when I still talk to people today and I
asked them questions, I don't get an educated response about
(07:07):
what you and I are talking about.
What are the complexities if something were to happen to mom,
she fell down the stairs? What are the complexities if dad
had a stroke? Do you understand what care
means? Do you understand where care is
available? And probably the biggest
(07:28):
question of all, do you understand what care costs?
And I even ask professionals, financial planners similar
questions. And I hate to say this, but
probably over 90% of the financial planners that I've
worked with do not understand the options for care, do not
(07:51):
understand what care cost. And accordingly, they've worked
with clients for years, but they're not educating them about
this issue, though it is a huge issue that we're trying to
figure out how do we educate a country?
(08:13):
Because what's also really sad when you look at the cost of
care, pretty big number, probably over 95% of people in
this country can't afford to paysomeone else to care for a loved
1. And So what is what does that
mean? It means it's going to fall on
(08:35):
them and are they going to then pick up, move back home where
mom or dad still may be take care of them.
Are they going to move mom or dad in with them and all the
complexities that go around around that?
And most families don't have care plans in place.
(08:56):
Why is it so common for people to wait until kind of crisis
hits before they act? I think it's similar to what I
said a few minutes ago. And I use my wife.
You know, I don't think we're uneducated, dumb people, but we
weren't thinking about it. It isn't fun, you know, on the
West Coast where you live, and Ilive on the West Coast as well,
(09:19):
people will vacation in Hawaii. They'll plan every aspect of
that vacation down to the beaches.
They're going to go to the restaurants that the
convertible, they're going to rent.
On the East Coast. They do the same thing maybe
with the Bahamas. It's fun, it's exciting.
(09:40):
The last thing most people want to talk about is getting older.
I mean, think about we spend billions.
I don't have the exact number, but billions in this country on
anti aging products. We're not going to get old, but
you know we're we're going to be35 forever, but that's not
(10:05):
reality. But according together a plan,
having a conversation is something that most people I
don't want to do. This isn't fun.
This isn't comfortable. Yeah.
I think that's a big downside ofour society right now is that
we're so focused on longevity, but we're not willing to address
(10:27):
what longevity entails. So can you kind of walk us
through what makes up a strong care program or plan?
What are the essential pieces that family should be thinking
about? So it starts with this little
word called conversation, and wecounsel people on our site.
If you have brothers and sisters, before you reach out to
(10:49):
mom or dad or grandparents, you want to have a conversation with
those siblings. You simply want to find out
who's the best person to reach out.
Is it the alpha dog? The oldest?
Maybe not. Maybe it's the youngest that
seems to have the closest relationship, let's say with
(11:10):
mom. So after those first phone calls
of talking to your brothers and sisters, maybe you were home for
a few days recently and you saw changes in mom or you saw
changes in Dad or dad called youby your brother's name, which
(11:31):
startled you. So you want to reach out to the
siblings in your family. Start this conversation, a
realistic conversation. Hey, guys, you know, we were
just there. Mom's really walking
differently. Dad's struggling.
He called me by by your name, not my name.
(11:55):
Once that's decided, then what we call the family conversation,
That individual, not all 2345 brothers and sisters, picking up
the phone, calling mom, calling dad.
People have asked me through theyears, how do I start that
(12:15):
conversation? What do I say?
And I tell people, the last thing you want to do is pick up
the phone and go, mom, we got totalk.
I mean, you're not going to get very far.
But normally if you ask a parentfor advice, they're going to
say, sure, honey, what do you need?
(12:37):
How can I help? And then you want to find out
some basic questions. Where do they want to live as
they age? Probably 99% of people are going
to say right here in our home, then it has to you have to start
looking at it. Is that realistic?
(12:57):
And then God forbid something where to happen to them.
Who do you want taking care of you?
And then we have this care plan within our, our site of a plan
to age. And it goes through all these
different parameters that once you get involved in this
conversation, you want to find out about their health, what
(13:20):
plans they do or do not have, who they want caring for them.
Do they have an estate plan? Have they done a financial plan?
Meaning do they understand what the cost of care is?
Have they started saving and much more than than just that?
If you're enjoying the Aging Well podcast, be sure to like,
(13:42):
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(14:04):
recommending to our valued viewers and listeners.
Thank you. And now back to the podcast.
And it seems like something we decide way too late to have that
conversation. You know, it's something we
probably should be doing a lot earlier in life before parents
or even considering. Yeah, you know, I'm going to get
old here sometime. I better start thinking about
this. So yeah, you've kind of
(14:26):
mentioned the the site, The Age to the plan to Age offers a
number of free different tools and checklists and conversation
guides. Somebody visits the site.
What can they expect to find when they visit?
So the way we built it, so backing up, about a year and a
half ago, I met my future business partner that became the
(14:49):
Co founder of the site, Peter Ross, who's the Co founder and
CEO of Senior Helpers. They're one of the largest in
home care companies in the country.
And he and I kept talking for well over a year as we developed
this. And between both of us, we've
been in this industry now over 40 years.
And so we tried to, we tried to make it work for most people.
(15:13):
What do I mean by that? We're really trying.
There's the whole area of the site that's about planning
everything. We're just talking about really
trying to help people understandwhy they should plan, how they
plan, how they have these conversations.
They fill out this care plan that's actually a living
document on the site. They can download it similar to
(15:36):
an estate plan. They want to update it as things
change within the family unit. Mom or dad's health changes.
But we also realized, let's say in 10 years it's going great.
Most people would still unfortunately deal with this in
crisis. So we have, we have an area of
the site that deals with that. You're, you've already gotten
(16:00):
that text, You've already gottenthat phone call.
Mom's in the ER something's probably broken.
It's probably her hip. You've never had these
conversations. She lives four states away from
what do I need to do? Who can help?
So we have the resources built into the site to help that
(16:25):
individual and their family. And every day, every week, we
are adding more resources. We want to get to a point it's
this industry is interesting. There's a lot of resources out
there. They're scattered all over the
place. There isn't one location where
(16:48):
you can find just about everything you need.
That's what we're trying to achieve on the crisis part of
this site. So irrespective of what a family
needs, because mom broke something, dad had the stroke,
whatever it may be, they hopefully can find.
(17:10):
And you've talked about the sandwich generation where we're,
you know, you've caring individuals, caring for their
aging parents. It's kind of where you were at
and certainly more so kind of inyour situation with, you know,
younger kids at the time. So they're caring for their
aging parents while they're still trying to raise kids and
are working full time jobs. And as you mentioned, they could
(17:31):
be traveling. There's a lot of
responsibilities to go along with that.
What are some of the pressures they're facing, and how does
planning help to ease some of those burdens?
Boy, I wish we had thought aboutthis before this happened.
When this happened in our life, we had an 11 year old and we had
a 7 year old. Neither is driving and yeah, we
(17:53):
had kids a little bit later, butI'm sure there's millions of
people like us around the country.
So it's just every day I'm trying to go to work, the long
commute. I had to work to earn a living.
My wife is at her parents house,my parents house, taking care of
them and work. We're looking at each other and
(18:16):
going OK, who's going to pick upour 11 year old from school?
Is he OK to come home and be by himself?
Who's going to pick up our seven-year old from school?
She's not OK to come home and stay by herself.
Who can watch her until one of us gets home?
(18:37):
For me it was probably not till 7:00 at night.
For my wife it was probably after that.
How do we we want them having a normal life, whatever normal
means. Our daughter was into dance, our
son was into every sport in the world.
(18:57):
How do we keep that going? How do we keep them involved in
what they're doing and still be caring for the four parents?
So and can you plan for everything?
Of course not. But if you're thinking as a
family unit, especially because you realize mom and dad,
(19:20):
grandparents are getting older, it may be you that's taking care
of them. How is that going to affect your
family, your children? What should we be doing as a
family to prepare for that before that text calls, be that
(19:41):
text comes or that phone call happens?
And then there's the workplace. Who how is caregiving affecting
employees in the workplace? I'm sure that's a big burden as
well. What kind of policy changes and
kind of cultural shifts do you think might help in this
situation? So again, what's sad and
frustrating? So I was working in a large
(20:03):
corporation when this happened. After the first phone call the
next morning when I get back to work, the first thing I do is
check my company's website. And there was nothing to help me
in the situation that I was in. And what I realized I had to do.
First of all, I'm in my early 50s when this is happening.
(20:27):
The last thing I was going to dowas open my mouth to my boss, to
a Co worker that I'm dealing with 1234 older parents that are
ill because I felt severe repercussions for my job and the
safety of my job. And what's sad, in all the
(20:51):
research I still do that hasn't changed.
I'm going to again give out a very broad number.
Well over 95% of companies in this country, whether they're 10
employees, 15 employees, 10,000 employees, really are not set up
(21:11):
to help that employee when lovedones age.
You know it took forever for companies to understand
childcare. I used to work for a large
company years ago that actually had a child care location on the
premises. I've been waiting for all these
(21:33):
years to see some progressive companies out there that would
start an elder daycare on the premises.
Some place you could bring mom or dad while you work.
If they're out there. I'm not seeing them.
So to answer your question, there needs to be a lot of
(21:55):
flexibility. First of all, that employee
that's still hiding it like I did needs to feel free to go to
HR, go to the boss and say this is the situation I'm in.
Yeah, it's going to be tough because what we found in and
(22:15):
what research has found, you normally have about 20 hours
added to your normal work week. When you're dealing with a
parent, you're working 40 hours,you're working 50 hours, add 20
hours on top of that. What we see happening, then it
(22:37):
starts affecting the health of that employee who is the
caregiver for those older loved ones.
Not only the health effect, but the fact they're being pulled in
so many directions. Maybe mom does live 20 miles
away. I got to take mom to the doctor.
(22:58):
What you think maybe a couple hour process turns into 3 or 4
and all of a sudden your productivity at work is starting
to go down. And that's where the
repercussions come to your job when all of a sudden this
happened in your life and now you're not as healthy.
(23:22):
You're hitting their their healthcare products if they have
one, your employer and you're also not as productive as you
were. So part of what we're trying to
do is really get companies to understand, like childcare, this
issue is real. We have over 100 million people
(23:43):
in this country that are over 50.
I mean, think about that, over 100 million people.
And most of the people that windup caring for them have a job.
And it's not going to get any easier because we're getting
older and there's fewer young people.
Very much so, yeah. And I think that's where, you
know, I'm an academic. So, you know, I'm in the
(24:06):
university setting most of the week and most of the year.
That's where I think there's an opportunity for connections
between the university and the aging community and also
universities with the younger communities as well.
I mean, to help to kind of manage that sandwich situation
where you have older adults, youhave younger adults.
(24:27):
I mean, we have universities. My, my university just opened up
a occupational therapy program. Those kids are starving to be
working with older people. And so why can't the
universities kind of create someopportunities for, you know,
parents to drop their their parents off And again, kind of
having that, that daycare, but also having a little bit of
(24:48):
medical care as well. Kids doing the same thing.
Get kid the older populations involved with the younger
communities. I think it's.
Really a large community problemthat needs to be addressed as a
community and not just left to the individual families to
resolve. And unfortunately, right now
(25:09):
it's the families that having toresolve that.
So why is it that? Families avoid these
conversations. And how does your program help
them to get kind of past that discomfort?
So it kind of goes back to what I was talking about.
It's just not you don't. You're a loving son.
You're a loving daughter. You're, you know, you maybe you
don't live near a mom or dad, but you're still close to them.
(25:33):
The last thing you want to thinkabout it is them aging, them
getting sick, them having a severe fall, or maybe a
combination thereof. So you try not to think about
it. You just don't want to deal with
it. And so when you don't deal with
it, I don't like my wife and myself.
(25:55):
You're not having these conversations you're not having.
You're not being me upfront withyour loved ones.
I mean, part of what we need to start understanding.
And I talk about even people look at me like I'm a little
crazy. Even the grandchildren, let's
say someone's grandchild, their late 20s, thirty years old,
(26:20):
they've gotten themselves a verygood job.
The grandparents don't know exactly what they're making, but
the rumors are in in the family.The little Johnny's doing really
well, making a very good, very good salary.
So something happens to Grandma or something happens, you know,
irrespective of what age she is,if she gets to a point where she
(26:44):
needs care and she can't afford it, she's probably placing a
call to that grandson who would have no idea that a call like
that is coming. You know, Johnny, I'm going to
need care. It's going to be 7, eight, $9000
a month. Could you possibly help me with
(27:07):
that cost? So we need to get, first of all,
I love your idea about the community and I'd love to speak
more about that. But from a family unit, we need
even that younger grandchild that's working to understand
when something happens. This potentially could encompass
(27:30):
the whole. Family.
So what else should they be thinking about when it comes to?
Finances one more time please. What else should they be
thinking about when it comes to finances and probably when
should we really start thinking about those financial plans?
And I truly believe, and This iswhy we're doing what we're
calling a national conversation on aging.
(27:51):
We need the youngest folks in the family that are, that have a
job, that are starting to make money to understand they really
should be working with someone from a financial perspective,
financial advisor, financial planner, forever.
And so we're talking young, we're talking late 20s,
(28:13):
thirties. Obviously it gets even more
important as you age, but forever, there's been this long
word that's talked about in the financial industry called
retirement saving for retirement.
And what we're trying to help people understand, there's this
small letter word that starts with AC2 words care and cost.
(28:38):
And we want people to understandfrom that young age.
I know it's not fun. I know it's not great.
I know it's not something you want to think about, but we need
to start saving for care and it's cost.
Just to throw out some numbers so people understand.
If you're going to move mom to an assisted living, assuming mom
(29:02):
agrees to that, the average rentaround the country just to get a
room is about 5000 a month. And then if she needs care,
they're going to be different, different levels of care at
different cost added on top of that 5000.
If you're in the bigger cities, San Francisco, LA, New York,
(29:24):
Chicago, Dallas, you're probablytalking about a base rent that
could be 6, seven, $9000 a monthif mom were to start having
severe memory issues and you wanted to move her to a memory
care community and they're out there.
(29:45):
Was talking to a gentleman in Boston last week and he told me
the average cost to move some just the average monthly rent
for a room in a memory care community in the Boston area is
over $15,000. That's community living.
Most people think if something happens to mom we'll move
(30:09):
somewhat into her house. It can't cost that much.
The average dollar amount aroundthe country is $40.00 an hour.
In the larger cities it's pushing 50.
So when you talk about you live in Baltimore, mom's still in the
(30:31):
family home in Houston and she needs 24 hour care because you
can't move there and get there. That bill for 24 hours a day
bringing someone in the home, 20, nine, $30,000.
And that's when people look at me and think I'm crazy.
(30:53):
But that's what it costs. Yeah.
And the reality of a lot of thistoo, is that you have to plan
well ahead of the emergency to get into these places because
there's tremendous waiting liststo get into memory care
facilities in these, you know, senior facilities.
You just can't say, OK, let's golook around and see if we can
find you, you know, place to move in next month.
(31:16):
I'm not sure if you know, go ahead.
Are there statistics on how longthe the waiting period is for
getting into those I? Mean and it's there's the five
star assisted livings down to the lower one.
Some of the lower ones don't have the waiting list that as
you go up the chain, but I've seen waiting lists that are two
(31:39):
years long. So you're precisely right.
That's why this conversation andunderstanding this issue when
you moms. I'm picking at age late 70s,
early 80s. You're starting to see some
difficulty with mobility. You're starting to see some
(32:01):
memory issues before it gets worse.
And this is hopefully at the latest before crisis.
Having these conversations. If mom says, you know what, we
have the pool, we have the garden, I can't do that anymore,
maybe I should move someplace. To your point, it's something we
(32:25):
need to be thinking about earlier, especially if in the
area where mom lives. You're talking about a long
waiting list. And then go back to the numbers
I threw out a little while ago. We have over 100 million people,
50 and older, and one of the questions I ask all the time is
(32:48):
how are we going to house and how are we going to care for all
those people? And how does care planning
really intersect with emotional,relational, and even spiritual
well-being? The clients you work with.
It's it's not going to be that really tough journey my wife and
(33:09):
I had Hopefully that roller coaster that I talk about will
be a little more straight, not as curvy, not upside down.
You're you're this family unit as I talked about.
You love mom, you love dad. You don't want these horrific
(33:31):
things happen happening to them,but there is a huge emotional
bag and stress on the whole family as moms and dads and
grandparents age. We we we as a nation have to
(33:52):
start understanding. Yeah, we'd love to be 35 like I
talked about forever, but we're aging.
You know, I, when I, I was doingsome educational meetings
probably 10-15 years ago and I remember when I was doing that
information had just come out that is born 10 or 15 years ago,
(34:18):
could possibly see life past 120years of age.
So first of all, people want to retire at 65 or 70.
And I look at people and go, areyou prepared to live another
30-40, fifty years? And that's kind of insane to
(34:44):
think about, but it's real. And then emotionally,
spiritually, how that affects that whole family.
There was a client that I dealt with years ago in in California.
He passed away about 10 years ago.
He passed away at 117 and he didn't start having adverse
(35:10):
effects until he was 115. So that's not that much of an
abnormal. It isn't that abnormal.
I'm dealing with a client right now that in six months we'll be
100. So this is real and the family
has to understand all that. My goal is 120 and I want to be
(35:34):
where, you know, I'm kicking until I'm, you know, right about
120 and have a shortest period of time possible in that you
know, what we call the 4th age, that period of decline and
decrepitude. I mean, if life would be perfect
for me, I'd be 120, go out for arun, come back, sit in my
recliner, pop a beer and fall asleep and just wake up.
(35:56):
There you go. That would be.
That would be awesome. But with that in mind, I, you
know, you're looking at, OK, I'ma, I'm a professor, I'm 62.
How many more years can I continue to keep teaching?
I mean, if I could teach all therest of my life and be
productive, that'd be great. I don't think they'd want to
keep me around that long becausemy salary would be tapping out a
(36:17):
little bit too high. But you know, looking at
optimistically at life, you're looking at at least probably 40
years in retirement. And that's a long time to have
to be kind of cashing out from your, you know, IRA and, you
know, your retirement accounts. Yeah, that's why I told people,
(36:38):
OK, 70 you retire. Awesome, congratulations.
Are you really set up just to live, just to pay the everyday
bills, whether you rent, whetheryou own?
Are you set up? And then I know I don't want to
bring this up people, but if this little tiny word care were
(36:58):
to happen, are you set up for that?
As you know, when I talk to older moms and dads over the
years, a lot they say to me, I don't want to be a burden on my
kids. But then if I ask him who, who
do you expect to take care of you?
And this isn't a sexist comment,it's the truth.
(37:21):
They'll usually say my daughter or my daughter-in-law.
For some reason guys can't care,which is crazy.
But this becomes a huge on the daughter or daughter-in-law.
So it's understanding, yeah, youmay make it to 90, you may make
(37:43):
it to 99, almost 100. Do you have the money to live
that long? And if something were to happen
to you, who's going to take careof you?
How are you going to pay for? It yeah, I've been very
fortunate. My in laws planned very well
ahead. They kind of went into a more
continuous care retirement community.
(38:05):
And when my father-in-law got Alzheimer's disease and
Parkinson's, you know, they werein a position to be able to be
cared for and it was paid for. And my mother-in-law was close
by. And, you know, situations are
just really worked out well for them.
She's 94 right now and still in a good situation.
And my dad and his wife planned pretty well and she did very
(38:26):
well financially. And I think it was also
fortunate that my dad kind of died unexpectedly.
You know, we we visited from I guess it was little over about a
year and a half ago, Christmas time got to see him.
Excuse me. And you know, they went home and
a couple weeks later she called me on a Sunday morning.
(38:46):
So he he didn't wake up last night and it was a shock, but it
was no burden of expense to themand everything else.
And she's in great health right now.
And my mom was probably not at all well prepared, but was not,
it was in a situation where she declined rather rapidly.
And we were all able to kind of pull together in the end and and
(39:11):
manage things pretty well. But a huge amount of that burden
went on to my youngest sister. And God bless her for the work
she did in those final, you know, months of my mom's life.
But do you have any personal stories or from your own
experience or from families you've helped?
It really kind of highlight how how important this work is and
how it matters so much. It goes around what you were
(39:33):
just talking about, what I've seen personally and what I've
seen professionally. If there are multiple siblings,
I really, really encourage people to get on the same page.
And a comment you just said. If one person winds up with the
(39:53):
responsibility of taking care ofmom or taking care of dad, maybe
they live 5 miles down the street where brothers and
sisters have moved away. What I've seen a lot is a
brother. Usually a brother.
Maybe halfway across the countryor all the way across the
country, calling that younger sister every week.
(40:16):
Have you done that? Have you done this?
Why aren't you doing that? Why aren't you thinking about
this isn't work? And as you just said, the person
that's actually there and caringfor mom and dad when that
brother who lives 2000 miles away has shown up once or twice
(40:40):
doesn't understand the challenges usually female is
going through. Though I would really encourage
people understand what this is like.
Don't sit there and demand your sister do or brother do this or
(41:00):
don't do this. Understand what they're going
through. Understand the situation for
health or finances that mom and dad are in.
So these conversations are realistic and helpful instead of
(41:21):
the opposite. And do you find families that
the older adult assumes that a certain child is going to pick
up the burden of caring for them?
And when the time comes, that child's like I, I can't do this.
I have, you know, I have a couple kind of kids or I have a
job or I'm, you know, a couple states away.
Why not, you know, my older brother here who's closer and
(41:44):
everything else you're here. How do you address those
situations? You're exactly.
Right. And unfortunately, again, it's
usually the daughter. So mom lives in Houston, the
daughter lives in Denver. She's married, she has a
partner, she's got two or three kids, she's got a job.
And now, then, and then there's this misconception.
(42:05):
So mom broke her hip. Well, I'll fly down there.
I'll be there for four or five days because I can take that
much time off work and mom will be fine.
And people don't understand as people get into their 80s and
break a hip, many, many times that winds up aching them
(42:26):
because the physical therapy is very demanding.
What you understand, they resistthat.
They wind up staying in bed. They get all the complications
from that. And a family doesn't understand
how mom went from a broken hip passing away.
And there's this misconception that if I'm there for four or
(42:48):
five days, mom will be fine. She'll be getting the coffee off
the third shelf and life will bethe same.
People have to understand I tellthis story about myself. 10
years ago, we were doing some work to our house.
I was the idiot on a ladder at 8:00 in the morning cleaning out
(43:09):
the attic when I got into an argument with the latter.
Fell about 10 feet, broke a femur.
So of course, I thought two or three months I was 60, two or
three months, I'll be fine. It took about 8.
I wasn't in my 80s. So understand if something like
(43:29):
that happens to mom, she's not going to be OK in four or five
days. All right, so we're going to
shift gears here a little bit and ask you the question.
And we ask of all of our guests,what are you doing personally to
age well? So what I'm doing personally, I
actually have a final condition I've had for a while, so I try
(43:50):
to stay very active. I'm out usually at the gym three
days a week when it's beautiful like today.
If I'm not at the gym, I'm usually out taking minimum A2
mile walk. The community that I live in, we
do have a golf course. So if I'm not walking, I'm out
golfing. I'm just trying to stay as
(44:13):
active, keeping this body movingfrom a physical perspective.
And then at 72, now running a plan to age, trying to keep this
active, having conversations with great people like yourself
and then just talking to folks all over the country on a daily
(44:38):
basis and hopefully keeping thisoiled and things spinning up
there. So yeah, the the the top part of
my body works well for for yearsto come.
Do you have any habits or tricksyou like to do to kind of keep
the mind sharp? Yeah, this is going to sound
really crazy that sometimes I will talk to myself.
(45:02):
I do a lot of driving to go to locations and I'm by myself in
the car. I will play games out loud with
myself in the car trying to remember things, looking at
license plates, looking at different makes of models of
cars. And I do it on purpose just to
keep everything up here moving instead of sitting in 1/2 hour
(45:27):
or hour drive in total silence. I started this probably about 20
years ago when I got into this industry because I was seeing
the effect on other people. And I said to myself, what can I
do to hopefully keep myself moving forward and and loosen?
(45:49):
That's a good idea. I I do that, but I never did it
intentional like you do. I mean, it's just something that
kind of done the pass the time when I've had long drives.
So I'll have to keep doing that and hopefully keep my mind
sharp. So what is the one step you'd
encourage someone to take today,even if they feel overwhelmed?
(46:09):
So what if you're the older people, the loved ones in the
family? Reach out to at least one of
your adult children. Have a conversation, let them
know what you're thinking, let them know what's going on.
Let them know as we talked about, we'd still love to live
(46:32):
in this house if we can. Let them know, you know, if
something happens to me, we wantX or Y.
If you're the younger adult children from 30s, forties, 50s,
we've seen 70 year olds taking care of their 95 year old
parents. Reach out to them.
It's that same conversation in reverse, understanding how
(46:58):
they're doing, what they want. It's it's first of all, it's
engaging for that older individual to have that
conversation. And it also really enlightens
the adult children. It'll start the premise of the
plan that we're talking about because we're trying as hard as
(47:22):
we can. And it's it's, it's a big thing
to do to alleviate this crisis for families.
So you don't get that packed. You don't get that phone call
from the ER and go. What do I do now?
I think it would be important toto engage the third generation
(47:44):
as well. I think sometimes as grandkids
can get left out of the the conversation and you know,
equally it's as important for the grandchildren to understand
what grandma's plans are and youknow, what they can do to kind
of help out as well. We agreed because what we'll
see, 50 year old mom winds up taking care of her 80 year old
(48:04):
parents and mom's kids. All of a sudden their life
changes because Mom's asking them to do things they've never
had to do before because Mom is leaving for a few days, a few
weeks to go take care of grandma.
Maybe they just need to come andtake care of Mom's house.
What are the plans? Take care of the dog, whatever
(48:25):
it may be. But you're exactly right.
So we need to engage that whole family unit.
And I think something else we don't consider, you mentioned
the 70 year old caring for their94 year old parent.
Sometimes that 70 year old can run into health issues that take
them away or put them in a more precarious situation.
(48:48):
And now you have the third generation is having to deal
with the 2 upper generations. And I've seen that.
And we don't think about that I've.
Seen that 70 year old that's having health issues because
they've been caring for their 95, maybe it started when mom
was 93 and it's two years into it and they're suffering the
consequences because that 70 year old hasn't really taken
(49:12):
care of themselves. They're overweight, they have
died to be diabetes, whatever the case may be, and they're
suffering. And now the family, as you just
said, has two individuals, mom who may be 7273 and her older
mom as well. Was there anything we missed
(49:32):
talking about today? Not really if I if I can just
tell people. Please check out a plan to age.
The 2 is actually the number 2. So a plan to age dot org.
We're A501-C3 nonprofit. So we are, I mean our goal is
(49:54):
pretty simple, just trying to help people in the end of July,
July 29th and then each quarter after that, we're going to start
having the national conversationon aging.
It is going to cover all the subject matter we just talked
(50:15):
about. We're going to have experts in
their field providing the education on these calls.
I've been able to educate thousands.
I have a small goal of educatingmillions.
So we are literally trying to get America to understand what
(50:38):
does it mean to age, What does it mean to need care?
What are the options? What's it cost?
What's an estate plan? Why is that important?
What are the different documents?
Why should I be saving for thesecosts and so much more and just
trying to do a little part well I.
(51:00):
Appreciate the work that you're doing.
And I think we need to see a lotmore of this conversation.
And it's one of the things that I think we have the opportunity
in this podcast to highlight. And we've had a number of
different guests that are approaching this from different
perspectives. And it's kind of nice to see,
you know, your service is all kind of beginning to dovetail,
(51:21):
but just keep doing what you're doing and just keep aging well
and helping others to age well as well.
You too. Thank you for listening.
I hope you benefited from today's podcast and until next
time, keep aging well.
Welcome to the Aging Well podcast, where we explore the
science stories and strategies behind living a longer,
healthier and more purposeful life.
I am your host, Doctor Jeff Armstrong.
In this episode, I'm joined by Richard Wexler, Co founder and
CEO of a plantage.org, a nonprofit resource helping
families take action before a health crisis hits.
(00:23):
Richard has spent 14 years caring for four aging parents
and knows first hand how complexand emotionally exhausting the
caregiving journey can be. Together, we'll explore why
aging should be a family conversation, what most people
misunderstand about caregiving and care.
Planning and why now not? Later is the right time to put a
care plan in place for aging well.
(00:46):
Richard, welcome to the Aging Well podcast.
You've cared for four aging parents.
How did that experience shape your vision behind a plan to.
Age wow, it it altered my life. I mean, 20 years ago, I'm
working in the software industry, married later, two
(01:07):
small kids and we knew we had four parents in their 80s.
But I think you're so involved in your own life.
The kids were younger, the school, the homework, the
sports, the dance. My job was a long commute.
I was working many hours every day, every week.
(01:30):
And I don't think you're thinking about the fact that you
have these four parents that areaging.
And I don't think you're thinking about what's going to
happen if. And then in the summer of till
20 years ago, in the summer of O5, the phone started ringing,
(01:50):
which turned out to be 4 phone calls and each one of them was
doing pretty poorly. So we then get on this adventure
of caring for them, which lasted14 years, a last parent passing
at 96 in 2019. So I about probably six months
(02:17):
into this adventure back in O5, realized I could barely spell
the word care, left what I was doing in software, started my
first company points of life with the idea.
I better figure this out. My wife was the hands on care, I
(02:37):
was the project manager over thewhole situation, helping her,
helping the parents, finding resources, but I knew nothing.
So obviously Google was a lot different back then, but read
everything I could get my hands on.
And then some gentleman showed up at my office and said, hey,
(03:01):
once you go out there and start educating what you're learning
about, like, what do you mean? We'll go out there and talk
about what you've discovered? So I started talk talking
locally in Northern California where I was living, about the
complexities of aging and care. The guys came back a few months
(03:26):
later and said, OK, we're not done, go out there and start
educating nationally. Oh, OK.
So for 20 years been doing that and all of that.
I'm hope I'm answering your question.
All of that have has really shaped what now is a plan to
(03:48):
age. Yeah, You know, you said you had
14 years of it. I guess that's a, a double edged
sword, right? I mean, you had the opportunity
to be with your aging parents for an additional 14 years, but
it was a lot of work in that period of time.
And I think a lot of people don't really expect, you know,
when their parents get to that point that they need to care for
(04:08):
them, that it's going to be as long.
But at the same time, we're hopeful that it is long.
I would agree with you. I mean, it was 14 years.
We had physical injury, we had mental decline.
We had all of it between all four of the parents.
(04:28):
And since we were not prepared for this, I tell people it's
like you get on a roller coasterand they're in the very front
car and you're in the car behindthem, and you go up, down,
inside, the whole things that a roller coaster can do.
And you're hanging on tightly because as their health changes
(04:54):
and they continue to age, you have no idea where that front
car is going to go. And you just hope as the loving
children that you're there making the right decisions with
them so this process turns out as well as it possibly can.
(05:18):
So you've said we need a national wake up call about
aging. What exactly are we not seeing
or not saying about what aging really involves?
Wow, that's a huge topic. So for all these years that I've
been educating, once COVID had Istarted doing more online, but
before that, I was doing a lot more in person.
(05:39):
I've literally stood in front ofthousands of individuals.
And what still saddens me and frustrates me as I sit here
today, we're really not. I mean, yeah, I've been in front
of thousands of people, but we're really not that much
further ahead. Understanding what aging and
(06:00):
care means in this country than we were 20 years ago what do I
what do I mean by that? Most families are like my wife
and myself. You, you may have kids, you may
not have kids, you may be younger, you may be older.
You're involved in everything that's going on in your life.
(06:20):
Your your keeping a job, trying to keep a job, trying to make
money, trying to pay your rent, trying to pay the mortgage,
whatever the thing may be. And then all of a sudden you've
probably moved away from mom anddad.
I don't know that many people that still live 10 miles, you
know, 20-30 miles from where momand dad, where you started,
(06:45):
through someone you've fallen inlove with, just through a job,
you've moved around the country,you've moved out of the country.
And what is frustrating when I still talk to people today and I
asked them questions, I don't get an educated response about
(07:07):
what you and I are talking about.
What are the complexities if something were to happen to mom,
she fell down the stairs? What are the complexities if dad
had a stroke? Do you understand what care
means? Do you understand where care is
available? And probably the biggest
(07:28):
question of all, do you understand what care costs?
And I even ask professionals, financial planners similar
questions. And I hate to say this, but
probably over 90% of the financial planners that I've
worked with do not understand the options for care, do not
(07:51):
understand what care cost. And accordingly, they've worked
with clients for years, but they're not educating them about
this issue, though it is a huge issue that we're trying to
figure out how do we educate a country?
(08:13):
Because what's also really sad when you look at the cost of
care, pretty big number, probably over 95% of people in
this country can't afford to paysomeone else to care for a loved
1. And So what is what does that
mean? It means it's going to fall on
(08:35):
them and are they going to then pick up, move back home where
mom or dad still may be take care of them.
Are they going to move mom or dad in with them and all the
complexities that go around around that?
And most families don't have care plans in place.
(08:56):
Why is it so common for people to wait until kind of crisis
hits before they act? I think it's similar to what I
said a few minutes ago. And I use my wife.
You know, I don't think we're uneducated, dumb people, but we
weren't thinking about it. It isn't fun, you know, on the
West Coast where you live, and Ilive on the West Coast as well,
(09:19):
people will vacation in Hawaii. They'll plan every aspect of
that vacation down to the beaches.
They're going to go to the restaurants that the
convertible, they're going to rent.
On the East Coast. They do the same thing maybe
with the Bahamas. It's fun, it's exciting.
(09:40):
The last thing most people want to talk about is getting older.
I mean, think about we spend billions.
I don't have the exact number, but billions in this country on
anti aging products. We're not going to get old, but
you know we're we're going to be35 forever, but that's not
(10:05):
reality. But according together a plan,
having a conversation is something that most people I
don't want to do. This isn't fun.
This isn't comfortable. Yeah.
I think that's a big downside ofour society right now is that
we're so focused on longevity, but we're not willing to address
(10:27):
what longevity entails. So can you kind of walk us
through what makes up a strong care program or plan?
What are the essential pieces that family should be thinking
about? So it starts with this little
word called conversation, and wecounsel people on our site.
If you have brothers and sisters, before you reach out to
(10:49):
mom or dad or grandparents, you want to have a conversation with
those siblings. You simply want to find out
who's the best person to reach out.
Is it the alpha dog? The oldest?
Maybe not. Maybe it's the youngest that
seems to have the closest relationship, let's say with
(11:10):
mom. So after those first phone calls
of talking to your brothers and sisters, maybe you were home for
a few days recently and you saw changes in mom or you saw
changes in Dad or dad called youby your brother's name, which
(11:31):
startled you. So you want to reach out to the
siblings in your family. Start this conversation, a
realistic conversation. Hey, guys, you know, we were
just there. Mom's really walking
differently. Dad's struggling.
He called me by by your name, not my name.
(11:55):
Once that's decided, then what we call the family conversation,
That individual, not all 2345 brothers and sisters, picking up
the phone, calling mom, calling dad.
People have asked me through theyears, how do I start that
(12:15):
conversation? What do I say?
And I tell people, the last thing you want to do is pick up
the phone and go, mom, we got totalk.
I mean, you're not going to get very far.
But normally if you ask a parentfor advice, they're going to
say, sure, honey, what do you need?
(12:37):
How can I help? And then you want to find out
some basic questions. Where do they want to live as
they age? Probably 99% of people are going
to say right here in our home, then it has to you have to start
looking at it. Is that realistic?
(12:57):
And then God forbid something where to happen to them.
Who do you want taking care of you?
And then we have this care plan within our, our site of a plan
to age. And it goes through all these
different parameters that once you get involved in this
conversation, you want to find out about their health, what
(13:20):
plans they do or do not have, who they want caring for them.
Do they have an estate plan? Have they done a financial plan?
Meaning do they understand what the cost of care is?
Have they started saving and much more than than just that?
If you're enjoying the Aging Well podcast, be sure to like,
(13:42):
subscribe or follow on your favorite platform so you will
never miss an episode. And if you find our
conversations helpful, please share the podcast with a friend
because aging is something we'reall doing and we're better at
doing it together. And support our guests in this
podcast financially by visiting the affiliate links in the
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for discounts on products we have vetted and feel comfortable
(14:04):
recommending to our valued viewers and listeners.
Thank you. And now back to the podcast.
And it seems like something we decide way too late to have that
conversation. You know, it's something we
probably should be doing a lot earlier in life before parents
or even considering. Yeah, you know, I'm going to get
old here sometime. I better start thinking about
this. So yeah, you've kind of
(14:26):
mentioned the the site, The Age to the plan to Age offers a
number of free different tools and checklists and conversation
guides. Somebody visits the site.
What can they expect to find when they visit?
So the way we built it, so backing up, about a year and a
half ago, I met my future business partner that became the
(14:49):
Co founder of the site, Peter Ross, who's the Co founder and
CEO of Senior Helpers. They're one of the largest in
home care companies in the country.
And he and I kept talking for well over a year as we developed
this. And between both of us, we've
been in this industry now over 40 years.
And so we tried to, we tried to make it work for most people.
(15:13):
What do I mean by that? We're really trying.
There's the whole area of the site that's about planning
everything. We're just talking about really
trying to help people understandwhy they should plan, how they
plan, how they have these conversations.
They fill out this care plan that's actually a living
document on the site. They can download it similar to
(15:36):
an estate plan. They want to update it as things
change within the family unit. Mom or dad's health changes.
But we also realized, let's say in 10 years it's going great.
Most people would still unfortunately deal with this in
crisis. So we have, we have an area of
the site that deals with that. You're, you've already gotten
(16:00):
that text, You've already gottenthat phone call.
Mom's in the ER something's probably broken.
It's probably her hip. You've never had these
conversations. She lives four states away from
what do I need to do? Who can help?
So we have the resources built into the site to help that
(16:25):
individual and their family. And every day, every week, we
are adding more resources. We want to get to a point it's
this industry is interesting. There's a lot of resources out
there. They're scattered all over the
place. There isn't one location where
(16:48):
you can find just about everything you need.
That's what we're trying to achieve on the crisis part of
this site. So irrespective of what a family
needs, because mom broke something, dad had the stroke,
whatever it may be, they hopefully can find.
(17:10):
And you've talked about the sandwich generation where we're,
you know, you've caring individuals, caring for their
aging parents. It's kind of where you were at
and certainly more so kind of inyour situation with, you know,
younger kids at the time. So they're caring for their
aging parents while they're still trying to raise kids and
are working full time jobs. And as you mentioned, they could
(17:31):
be traveling. There's a lot of
responsibilities to go along with that.
What are some of the pressures they're facing, and how does
planning help to ease some of those burdens?
Boy, I wish we had thought aboutthis before this happened.
When this happened in our life, we had an 11 year old and we had
a 7 year old. Neither is driving and yeah, we
(17:53):
had kids a little bit later, butI'm sure there's millions of
people like us around the country.
So it's just every day I'm trying to go to work, the long
commute. I had to work to earn a living.
My wife is at her parents house,my parents house, taking care of
them and work. We're looking at each other and
(18:16):
going OK, who's going to pick upour 11 year old from school?
Is he OK to come home and be by himself?
Who's going to pick up our seven-year old from school?
She's not OK to come home and stay by herself.
Who can watch her until one of us gets home?
(18:37):
For me it was probably not till 7:00 at night.
For my wife it was probably after that.
How do we we want them having a normal life, whatever normal
means. Our daughter was into dance, our
son was into every sport in the world.
(18:57):
How do we keep that going? How do we keep them involved in
what they're doing and still be caring for the four parents?
So and can you plan for everything?
Of course not. But if you're thinking as a
family unit, especially because you realize mom and dad,
(19:20):
grandparents are getting older, it may be you that's taking care
of them. How is that going to affect your
family, your children? What should we be doing as a
family to prepare for that before that text calls, be that
(19:41):
text comes or that phone call happens?
And then there's the workplace. Who how is caregiving affecting
employees in the workplace? I'm sure that's a big burden as
well. What kind of policy changes and
kind of cultural shifts do you think might help in this
situation? So again, what's sad and
frustrating? So I was working in a large
(20:03):
corporation when this happened. After the first phone call the
next morning when I get back to work, the first thing I do is
check my company's website. And there was nothing to help me
in the situation that I was in. And what I realized I had to do.
First of all, I'm in my early 50s when this is happening.
(20:27):
The last thing I was going to dowas open my mouth to my boss, to
a Co worker that I'm dealing with 1234 older parents that are
ill because I felt severe repercussions for my job and the
safety of my job. And what's sad, in all the
(20:51):
research I still do that hasn't changed.
I'm going to again give out a very broad number.
Well over 95% of companies in this country, whether they're 10
employees, 15 employees, 10,000 employees, really are not set up
(21:11):
to help that employee when lovedones age.
You know it took forever for companies to understand
childcare. I used to work for a large
company years ago that actually had a child care location on the
premises. I've been waiting for all these
(21:33):
years to see some progressive companies out there that would
start an elder daycare on the premises.
Some place you could bring mom or dad while you work.
If they're out there. I'm not seeing them.
So to answer your question, there needs to be a lot of
(21:55):
flexibility. First of all, that employee
that's still hiding it like I did needs to feel free to go to
HR, go to the boss and say this is the situation I'm in.
Yeah, it's going to be tough because what we found in and
(22:15):
what research has found, you normally have about 20 hours
added to your normal work week. When you're dealing with a
parent, you're working 40 hours,you're working 50 hours, add 20
hours on top of that. What we see happening, then it
(22:37):
starts affecting the health of that employee who is the
caregiver for those older loved ones.
Not only the health effect, but the fact they're being pulled in
so many directions. Maybe mom does live 20 miles
away. I got to take mom to the doctor.
(22:58):
What you think maybe a couple hour process turns into 3 or 4
and all of a sudden your productivity at work is starting
to go down. And that's where the
repercussions come to your job when all of a sudden this
happened in your life and now you're not as healthy.
(23:22):
You're hitting their their healthcare products if they have
one, your employer and you're also not as productive as you
were. So part of what we're trying to
do is really get companies to understand, like childcare, this
issue is real. We have over 100 million people
(23:43):
in this country that are over 50.
I mean, think about that, over 100 million people.
And most of the people that windup caring for them have a job.
And it's not going to get any easier because we're getting
older and there's fewer young people.
Very much so, yeah. And I think that's where, you
know, I'm an academic. So, you know, I'm in the
(24:06):
university setting most of the week and most of the year.
That's where I think there's an opportunity for connections
between the university and the aging community and also
universities with the younger communities as well.
I mean, to help to kind of manage that sandwich situation
where you have older adults, youhave younger adults.
(24:27):
I mean, we have universities. My, my university just opened up
a occupational therapy program. Those kids are starving to be
working with older people. And so why can't the
universities kind of create someopportunities for, you know,
parents to drop their their parents off And again, kind of
having that, that daycare, but also having a little bit of
(24:48):
medical care as well. Kids doing the same thing.
Get kid the older populations involved with the younger
communities. I think it's.
Really a large community problemthat needs to be addressed as a
community and not just left to the individual families to
resolve. And unfortunately, right now
(25:09):
it's the families that having toresolve that.
So why is it that? Families avoid these
conversations. And how does your program help
them to get kind of past that discomfort?
So it kind of goes back to what I was talking about.
It's just not you don't. You're a loving son.
You're a loving daughter. You're, you know, you maybe you
don't live near a mom or dad, but you're still close to them.
(25:33):
The last thing you want to thinkabout it is them aging, them
getting sick, them having a severe fall, or maybe a
combination thereof. So you try not to think about
it. You just don't want to deal with
it. And so when you don't deal with
it, I don't like my wife and myself.
(25:55):
You're not having these conversations you're not having.
You're not being me upfront withyour loved ones.
I mean, part of what we need to start understanding.
And I talk about even people look at me like I'm a little
crazy. Even the grandchildren, let's
say someone's grandchild, their late 20s, thirty years old,
(26:20):
they've gotten themselves a verygood job.
The grandparents don't know exactly what they're making, but
the rumors are in in the family.The little Johnny's doing really
well, making a very good, very good salary.
So something happens to Grandma or something happens, you know,
irrespective of what age she is,if she gets to a point where she
(26:44):
needs care and she can't afford it, she's probably placing a
call to that grandson who would have no idea that a call like
that is coming. You know, Johnny, I'm going to
need care. It's going to be 7, eight, $9000
a month. Could you possibly help me with
(27:07):
that cost? So we need to get, first of all,
I love your idea about the community and I'd love to speak
more about that. But from a family unit, we need
even that younger grandchild that's working to understand
when something happens. This potentially could encompass
(27:30):
the whole. Family.
So what else should they be thinking about when it comes to?
Finances one more time please. What else should they be
thinking about when it comes to finances and probably when
should we really start thinking about those financial plans?
And I truly believe, and This iswhy we're doing what we're
calling a national conversation on aging.
(27:51):
We need the youngest folks in the family that are, that have a
job, that are starting to make money to understand they really
should be working with someone from a financial perspective,
financial advisor, financial planner, forever.
And so we're talking young, we're talking late 20s,
(28:13):
thirties. Obviously it gets even more
important as you age, but forever, there's been this long
word that's talked about in the financial industry called
retirement saving for retirement.
And what we're trying to help people understand, there's this
small letter word that starts with AC2 words care and cost.
(28:38):
And we want people to understandfrom that young age.
I know it's not fun. I know it's not great.
I know it's not something you want to think about, but we need
to start saving for care and it's cost.
Just to throw out some numbers so people understand.
If you're going to move mom to an assisted living, assuming mom
(29:02):
agrees to that, the average rentaround the country just to get a
room is about 5000 a month. And then if she needs care,
they're going to be different, different levels of care at
different cost added on top of that 5000.
If you're in the bigger cities, San Francisco, LA, New York,
(29:24):
Chicago, Dallas, you're probablytalking about a base rent that
could be 6, seven, $9000 a monthif mom were to start having
severe memory issues and you wanted to move her to a memory
care community and they're out there.
(29:45):
Was talking to a gentleman in Boston last week and he told me
the average cost to move some just the average monthly rent
for a room in a memory care community in the Boston area is
over $15,000. That's community living.
Most people think if something happens to mom we'll move
(30:09):
somewhat into her house. It can't cost that much.
The average dollar amount aroundthe country is $40.00 an hour.
In the larger cities it's pushing 50.
So when you talk about you live in Baltimore, mom's still in the
(30:31):
family home in Houston and she needs 24 hour care because you
can't move there and get there. That bill for 24 hours a day
bringing someone in the home, 20, nine, $30,000.
And that's when people look at me and think I'm crazy.
(30:53):
But that's what it costs. Yeah.
And the reality of a lot of thistoo, is that you have to plan
well ahead of the emergency to get into these places because
there's tremendous waiting liststo get into memory care
facilities in these, you know, senior facilities.
You just can't say, OK, let's golook around and see if we can
find you, you know, place to move in next month.
(31:16):
I'm not sure if you know, go ahead.
Are there statistics on how longthe the waiting period is for
getting into those I? Mean and it's there's the five
star assisted livings down to the lower one.
Some of the lower ones don't have the waiting list that as
you go up the chain, but I've seen waiting lists that are two
(31:39):
years long. So you're precisely right.
That's why this conversation andunderstanding this issue when
you moms. I'm picking at age late 70s,
early 80s. You're starting to see some
difficulty with mobility. You're starting to see some
(32:01):
memory issues before it gets worse.
And this is hopefully at the latest before crisis.
Having these conversations. If mom says, you know what, we
have the pool, we have the garden, I can't do that anymore,
maybe I should move someplace. To your point, it's something we
(32:25):
need to be thinking about earlier, especially if in the
area where mom lives. You're talking about a long
waiting list. And then go back to the numbers
I threw out a little while ago. We have over 100 million people,
50 and older, and one of the questions I ask all the time is
(32:48):
how are we going to house and how are we going to care for all
those people? And how does care planning
really intersect with emotional,relational, and even spiritual
well-being? The clients you work with.
It's it's not going to be that really tough journey my wife and
(33:09):
I had Hopefully that roller coaster that I talk about will
be a little more straight, not as curvy, not upside down.
You're you're this family unit as I talked about.
You love mom, you love dad. You don't want these horrific
(33:31):
things happen happening to them,but there is a huge emotional
bag and stress on the whole family as moms and dads and
grandparents age. We we we as a nation have to
(33:52):
start understanding. Yeah, we'd love to be 35 like I
talked about forever, but we're aging.
You know, I, when I, I was doingsome educational meetings
probably 10-15 years ago and I remember when I was doing that
information had just come out that is born 10 or 15 years ago,
(34:18):
could possibly see life past 120years of age.
So first of all, people want to retire at 65 or 70.
And I look at people and go, areyou prepared to live another
30-40, fifty years? And that's kind of insane to
(34:44):
think about, but it's real. And then emotionally,
spiritually, how that affects that whole family.
There was a client that I dealt with years ago in in California.
He passed away about 10 years ago.
He passed away at 117 and he didn't start having adverse
(35:10):
effects until he was 115. So that's not that much of an
abnormal. It isn't that abnormal.
I'm dealing with a client right now that in six months we'll be
100. So this is real and the family
has to understand all that. My goal is 120 and I want to be
(35:34):
where, you know, I'm kicking until I'm, you know, right about
120 and have a shortest period of time possible in that you
know, what we call the 4th age, that period of decline and
decrepitude. I mean, if life would be perfect
for me, I'd be 120, go out for arun, come back, sit in my
recliner, pop a beer and fall asleep and just wake up.
(35:56):
There you go. That would be.
That would be awesome. But with that in mind, I, you
know, you're looking at, OK, I'ma, I'm a professor, I'm 62.
How many more years can I continue to keep teaching?
I mean, if I could teach all therest of my life and be
productive, that'd be great. I don't think they'd want to
keep me around that long becausemy salary would be tapping out a
(36:17):
little bit too high. But you know, looking at
optimistically at life, you're looking at at least probably 40
years in retirement. And that's a long time to have
to be kind of cashing out from your, you know, IRA and, you
know, your retirement accounts. Yeah, that's why I told people,
(36:38):
OK, 70 you retire. Awesome, congratulations.
Are you really set up just to live, just to pay the everyday
bills, whether you rent, whetheryou own?
Are you set up? And then I know I don't want to
bring this up people, but if this little tiny word care were
(36:58):
to happen, are you set up for that?
As you know, when I talk to older moms and dads over the
years, a lot they say to me, I don't want to be a burden on my
kids. But then if I ask him who, who
do you expect to take care of you?
And this isn't a sexist comment,it's the truth.
(37:21):
They'll usually say my daughter or my daughter-in-law.
For some reason guys can't care,which is crazy.
But this becomes a huge on the daughter or daughter-in-law.
So it's understanding, yeah, youmay make it to 90, you may make
(37:43):
it to 99, almost 100. Do you have the money to live
that long? And if something were to happen
to you, who's going to take careof you?
How are you going to pay for? It yeah, I've been very
fortunate. My in laws planned very well
ahead. They kind of went into a more
continuous care retirement community.
(38:05):
And when my father-in-law got Alzheimer's disease and
Parkinson's, you know, they werein a position to be able to be
cared for and it was paid for. And my mother-in-law was close
by. And, you know, situations are
just really worked out well for them.
She's 94 right now and still in a good situation.
And my dad and his wife planned pretty well and she did very
(38:26):
well financially. And I think it was also
fortunate that my dad kind of died unexpectedly.
You know, we we visited from I guess it was little over about a
year and a half ago, Christmas time got to see him.
Excuse me. And you know, they went home and
a couple weeks later she called me on a Sunday morning.
(38:46):
So he he didn't wake up last night and it was a shock, but it
was no burden of expense to themand everything else.
And she's in great health right now.
And my mom was probably not at all well prepared, but was not,
it was in a situation where she declined rather rapidly.
And we were all able to kind of pull together in the end and and
(39:11):
manage things pretty well. But a huge amount of that burden
went on to my youngest sister. And God bless her for the work
she did in those final, you know, months of my mom's life.
But do you have any personal stories or from your own
experience or from families you've helped?
It really kind of highlight how how important this work is and
how it matters so much. It goes around what you were
(39:33):
just talking about, what I've seen personally and what I've
seen professionally. If there are multiple siblings,
I really, really encourage people to get on the same page.
And a comment you just said. If one person winds up with the
(39:53):
responsibility of taking care ofmom or taking care of dad, maybe
they live 5 miles down the street where brothers and
sisters have moved away. What I've seen a lot is a
brother. Usually a brother.
Maybe halfway across the countryor all the way across the
country, calling that younger sister every week.
(40:16):
Have you done that? Have you done this?
Why aren't you doing that? Why aren't you thinking about
this isn't work? And as you just said, the person
that's actually there and caringfor mom and dad when that
brother who lives 2000 miles away has shown up once or twice
(40:40):
doesn't understand the challenges usually female is
going through. Though I would really encourage
people understand what this is like.
Don't sit there and demand your sister do or brother do this or
(41:00):
don't do this. Understand what they're going
through. Understand the situation for
health or finances that mom and dad are in.
So these conversations are realistic and helpful instead of
(41:21):
the opposite. And do you find families that
the older adult assumes that a certain child is going to pick
up the burden of caring for them?
And when the time comes, that child's like I, I can't do this.
I have, you know, I have a couple kind of kids or I have a
job or I'm, you know, a couple states away.
Why not, you know, my older brother here who's closer and
(41:44):
everything else you're here. How do you address those
situations? You're exactly.
Right. And unfortunately, again, it's
usually the daughter. So mom lives in Houston, the
daughter lives in Denver. She's married, she has a
partner, she's got two or three kids, she's got a job.
And now, then, and then there's this misconception.
(42:05):
So mom broke her hip. Well, I'll fly down there.
I'll be there for four or five days because I can take that
much time off work and mom will be fine.
And people don't understand as people get into their 80s and
break a hip, many, many times that winds up aching them
(42:26):
because the physical therapy is very demanding.
What you understand, they resistthat.
They wind up staying in bed. They get all the complications
from that. And a family doesn't understand
how mom went from a broken hip passing away.
And there's this misconception that if I'm there for four or
(42:48):
five days, mom will be fine. She'll be getting the coffee off
the third shelf and life will bethe same.
People have to understand I tellthis story about myself. 10
years ago, we were doing some work to our house.
I was the idiot on a ladder at 8:00 in the morning cleaning out
(43:09):
the attic when I got into an argument with the latter.
Fell about 10 feet, broke a femur.
So of course, I thought two or three months I was 60, two or
three months, I'll be fine. It took about 8.
I wasn't in my 80s. So understand if something like
(43:29):
that happens to mom, she's not going to be OK in four or five
days. All right, so we're going to
shift gears here a little bit and ask you the question.
And we ask of all of our guests,what are you doing personally to
age well? So what I'm doing personally, I
actually have a final condition I've had for a while, so I try
(43:50):
to stay very active. I'm out usually at the gym three
days a week when it's beautiful like today.
If I'm not at the gym, I'm usually out taking minimum A2
mile walk. The community that I live in, we
do have a golf course. So if I'm not walking, I'm out
golfing. I'm just trying to stay as
(44:13):
active, keeping this body movingfrom a physical perspective.
And then at 72, now running a plan to age, trying to keep this
active, having conversations with great people like yourself
and then just talking to folks all over the country on a daily
(44:38):
basis and hopefully keeping thisoiled and things spinning up
there. So yeah, the the the top part of
my body works well for for yearsto come.
Do you have any habits or tricksyou like to do to kind of keep
the mind sharp? Yeah, this is going to sound
really crazy that sometimes I will talk to myself.
(45:02):
I do a lot of driving to go to locations and I'm by myself in
the car. I will play games out loud with
myself in the car trying to remember things, looking at
license plates, looking at different makes of models of
cars. And I do it on purpose just to
keep everything up here moving instead of sitting in 1/2 hour
(45:27):
or hour drive in total silence. I started this probably about 20
years ago when I got into this industry because I was seeing
the effect on other people. And I said to myself, what can I
do to hopefully keep myself moving forward and and loosen?
(45:49):
That's a good idea. I I do that, but I never did it
intentional like you do. I mean, it's just something that
kind of done the pass the time when I've had long drives.
So I'll have to keep doing that and hopefully keep my mind
sharp. So what is the one step you'd
encourage someone to take today,even if they feel overwhelmed?
(46:09):
So what if you're the older people, the loved ones in the
family? Reach out to at least one of
your adult children. Have a conversation, let them
know what you're thinking, let them know what's going on.
Let them know as we talked about, we'd still love to live
(46:32):
in this house if we can. Let them know, you know, if
something happens to me, we wantX or Y.
If you're the younger adult children from 30s, forties, 50s,
we've seen 70 year olds taking care of their 95 year old
parents. Reach out to them.
It's that same conversation in reverse, understanding how
(46:58):
they're doing, what they want. It's it's first of all, it's
engaging for that older individual to have that
conversation. And it also really enlightens
the adult children. It'll start the premise of the
plan that we're talking about because we're trying as hard as
(47:22):
we can. And it's it's, it's a big thing
to do to alleviate this crisis for families.
So you don't get that packed. You don't get that phone call
from the ER and go. What do I do now?
I think it would be important toto engage the third generation
(47:44):
as well. I think sometimes as grandkids
can get left out of the the conversation and you know,
equally it's as important for the grandchildren to understand
what grandma's plans are and youknow, what they can do to kind
of help out as well. We agreed because what we'll
see, 50 year old mom winds up taking care of her 80 year old
(48:04):
parents and mom's kids. All of a sudden their life
changes because Mom's asking them to do things they've never
had to do before because Mom is leaving for a few days, a few
weeks to go take care of grandma.
Maybe they just need to come andtake care of Mom's house.
What are the plans? Take care of the dog, whatever
(48:25):
it may be. But you're exactly right.
So we need to engage that whole family unit.
And I think something else we don't consider, you mentioned
the 70 year old caring for their94 year old parent.
Sometimes that 70 year old can run into health issues that take
them away or put them in a more precarious situation.
(48:48):
And now you have the third generation is having to deal
with the 2 upper generations. And I've seen that.
And we don't think about that I've.
Seen that 70 year old that's having health issues because
they've been caring for their 95, maybe it started when mom
was 93 and it's two years into it and they're suffering the
consequences because that 70 year old hasn't really taken
(49:12):
care of themselves. They're overweight, they have
died to be diabetes, whatever the case may be, and they're
suffering. And now the family, as you just
said, has two individuals, mom who may be 7273 and her older
mom as well. Was there anything we missed
(49:32):
talking about today? Not really if I if I can just
tell people. Please check out a plan to age.
The 2 is actually the number 2. So a plan to age dot org.
We're A501-C3 nonprofit. So we are, I mean our goal is
(49:54):
pretty simple, just trying to help people in the end of July,
July 29th and then each quarter after that, we're going to start
having the national conversationon aging.
It is going to cover all the subject matter we just talked
(50:15):
about. We're going to have experts in
their field providing the education on these calls.
I've been able to educate thousands.
I have a small goal of educatingmillions.
So we are literally trying to get America to understand what
(50:38):
does it mean to age, What does it mean to need care?
What are the options? What's it cost?
What's an estate plan? Why is that important?
What are the different documents?
Why should I be saving for thesecosts and so much more and just
trying to do a little part well I.
(51:00):
Appreciate the work that you're doing.
And I think we need to see a lotmore of this conversation.
And it's one of the things that I think we have the opportunity
in this podcast to highlight. And we've had a number of
different guests that are approaching this from different
perspectives. And it's kind of nice to see,
you know, your service is all kind of beginning to dovetail,
(51:21):
but just keep doing what you're doing and just keep aging well
and helping others to age well as well.
You too. Thank you for listening.
I hope you benefited from today's podcast and until next
time, keep aging well.
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