August 13, 2025 • 47 mins
What if the biggest issues we call “senior problems” are really everyone’s problems?
In this powerful episode of 45 Forward, host Ron Roel speaks with two inspiring changemakers—Arielle Galinsky, a Harvard Kennedy School grad student and founder of The Legacy Project, and Cindy Morris, CEO of The Benson Agency and founder of Women Who Changed the World. Together, they challenge outdated thinking around ageism, caregiving, social security, and why intergenerational collaboration is key to solving our most pressing societal challenges. From Teen Vogue op-eds to policy reform, from frontline caregiving to grassroots storytelling, this conversation will open your eyes—and maybe change your future. Topics include: • Cultural and structural ageism • The caregiving crisis and workforce shortage • How women bear the brunt—financially and emotionally • The Legacy Project’s mission across 12 states • Why your Social Security decisions start now
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/45-forward--6550893/support.
In this powerful episode of 45 Forward, host Ron Roel speaks with two inspiring changemakers—Arielle Galinsky, a Harvard Kennedy School grad student and founder of The Legacy Project, and Cindy Morris, CEO of The Benson Agency and founder of Women Who Changed the World. Together, they challenge outdated thinking around ageism, caregiving, social security, and why intergenerational collaboration is key to solving our most pressing societal challenges. From Teen Vogue op-eds to policy reform, from frontline caregiving to grassroots storytelling, this conversation will open your eyes—and maybe change your future. Topics include: • Cultural and structural ageism • The caregiving crisis and workforce shortage • How women bear the brunt—financially and emotionally • The Legacy Project’s mission across 12 states • Why your Social Security decisions start now
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/45-forward--6550893/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'd always had a yearning to better understand some of
the stories. I would hear glimpses in my interactions.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
But never the full picture.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
And I lost both of my grandfathers when I was
the age of ten, and I had always built a
sense of regret for that I hadn't had the foresight
to ask them about their life stories.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
I love what Aeryel wrote.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
I have to tell you I loved it because it
was a call in Team Vogue.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Right oh, teen Vogue is reading about social security.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
In teen Vogue, here's an op ed that says, Hey,
social security is not your grandparents problem, it is your.
Speaker 5 (00:42):
Hello, everyone, welcome to forty five Forward. I'm your host,
Ron Rowell. Trends today, we often try to separate things
into generations, you know, Greatest Generation, baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials,
and so on. But my two guests today don't look
at things that way. They're very much interested in intergenerational
(01:04):
issues as I am, as have been more so as
I've focused on senior issues, recognizing you can't only separate
the generations highway. So today we're going to talk with
at length with two dynamic women leaders, Ariel Glinsky and
Cindy Morris about their perspective on what they call not
(01:25):
just ow people problems. So we're looking in lots of
things like ageism, caregiving, systemic structural problems in our society,
and lots more So, without further ado, let me introduce
you to our guests, Ariel Glinsky and Cindy Morris. Ariel
and Cindy, welcome to the show.
Speaker 6 (01:41):
Nice here, absolutely absolutely, so we have a lot to
talk about. But you know, as with any of my guests,
I always find my guests themselves interesting, and even if
you're not forty five yet, Ario, I'm interested in you know,
you've always had a dynamic journey, and Cindy s well,
I know Cindy quite well. So let's start a little
(02:03):
bit by talking just about how you got to just
give us encapsulation where you came to your current state
of affairs. So Sinny's start with you and then move
to you area.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Sure, so.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
I'm barely forty five forward, I'm forty seven, So let's
see by saying I count, but I'm sort of just counting,
And I think that that's part of the story for me,
is that I spent in a career working in nonprofits
working on that city building for them, and had the
(02:40):
privilege to do that for an aging organization that served
the people who serve older adults. So, just to be clear,
it was with an association that serves the organizations that
serve older adults. And I found out in that process
that a lot of the work that I had been
doing in gender equity, a lot of the work that
I had been doinging about immigrant rights, you know, activating
(03:03):
and building community community supports, was in fact all work
and agent as I continue to learn that, what I
really found out was that we are segmenting this issue,
partially out out of agism, quite frankly, but we're segmenting that,
and that if we really want to create supports for
(03:25):
people as the age, we need to start doing it
from the point at which they start to age, which
turns out to be roughly one second after they're bor
correct at So, you know, the with the ACES studies,
I think we'll talk about it, but the ACE studies
show that very childhood trauma determines what you look like
(03:46):
when you're eighty.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
So, so as I've continued in my own path and
my own transitions in life and my own life long learning.
What I have really committed to in my career in
this phase of it, it is to work towards building
understanding around that and raising awareness and making sure that
(04:08):
we are taking an intergenerational approach to solving and working
on every one of the issues that we work in.
When we work in nonprofits and its it sort of
has changed the way I do things. So I have
an agency, Thevents, an agency that does capacity building for nonprofits.
I lead an organization called Women Who Change the World
(04:28):
that looks at women in transition and how we can
recognize that women are in a state of transition again
from point one second after birth until point one second
before we die, and some would say that's the biggest transition.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
So that's sort of my.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Work at this point is rethinking the way we do
work so that it is more effective for people across
their life span, across their health.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Well, thank you for that, and now Ariel, let's have
listen to when your progress has been.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, well, I've always been really interested in engaging with
old adults. I'm an only child, actually was the only
child in my family for most of my life until
six years ago. Seven years ago, you know, cousin was born,
but for me, that was kind of the starting point.
I've always loved interacting with older adults, and so throughout
high school I worked in a senior community and there
(05:21):
for about four or five years and had the opportunity
to engage with many of the old adults living there,
and I had always had a yearning to better understand
some of the stories. I would hear glimpses in my interactions.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
But never the full picture.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And I lost both of my grandfathers when I was
the age of ten, and I had always built a
sense of regret for that I hadn't had the foresight
to ask them.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
About their life stories.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And so all of this said is when I worked
in the senior community, I decided to start what was
what I termed the Legacy Project and has continued to
be that to this day. But it really entailed about
twenty interviews with older adults in the community. It turned
into something that brought me so much joy as well
as the stories that came out of it. And it
happened at the tail end was during the pandemic, and
(06:11):
so the original intentionality of the program was that we would,
after the interviews, have a family gathering where all the
individuals I interviewed and their and their families came and
listened to the stories. And then the pandemic made that impossible.
So it led me to craft a book with the stories,
and that was basically, in essence, what created the model
for the Legacy Project, which continued when I was at
(06:32):
Toughts and still to this day. And then simultaneously, my
grandmother had Louis Baudy dementia and I was on the
care team for my grandmother and I witnessed within the
span of a year her cycling in and out of
seven different care facilities because they didn't provide continued care
as her as her condition continued to worsen, and really
(06:53):
saw just how broken our long term care system is
in the United States as it relates to affordability, as
relates to accessibility, as relates to caregiver burden, really every
element needs reform. And so, in tandem with my work
with intergenerational programming as well as this personal experience, just
drove a desire for me to dedicate my career to
(07:15):
gerontology and policy wise, specifically on the long term care
financing and caregiving policy issue areas so since then, I
haven't looked back and have been focusing on that pathway,
stettying it all throughout school, trying to get every angle
from working in policy environments on Capitol Hill, on the
Senate Committee on Aaging and on ways and means, from
(07:36):
working on nonprofit side, and then like the American Society
on Aging, and then also training to become a certified
nursing system myself so I could work in nursing home
community and better understanding the perspectives of administrators as well
as individuals who live in those communities. And so all
that said is that's a little bit about me, and
that's how I do this pathway.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
Well, it's just as I thought. The two of you
are just as interesting as the subject itself. So thank
you for your stories. So and you, you've you've talked
about sort of seamlessly as you've gotten into these your
areas of interest, intergenerational interests. But it's not so easy,
and both of you, I'm sure have encountered a lot
(08:17):
of structural problems. I mean, our society is not geared.
It is geared, and I understand you know there's certain
you know, there's certain benefits to looking at things, you know,
in what I call a technological way, you know, with
specifying certain interests and trying to narrow them down. So
aging becomes that. But as you to point out, that's
(08:39):
not the way it really works. But how do you
deal with that? I mean, I guess looking at it,
it seems like one of the biggest barriers is just
how we fund things and how we you know, create
programs and policies, and how people apply for grants and
how people look at, you know, things. So talk a
little bit about sort of about the structural problems you've
encountered and embracing it generational activities, multi generational activity.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
I think my favorite thing that I saw recently was
a license plate from the state of Florida, and it's
said on the bottom where they always put like little
quotes about the state. Is it something to the effect
of we care about our children.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
I really like it. So let me just say I
also care about children. However, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Ironic that in a state where they have one of
the fastest growing aging communities in the country, population of
older adults exceeds the number of children living in the state.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Isn't it fascinating?
Speaker 4 (09:34):
That they are still saying we care about our children
instead of we care about people at everywhere across the
life span. Now that's not a very good tagline, and
I get that, but when we talk about right at
the very core of this, there is a systemic agism
to how we talk about what people need. That gets
(09:57):
coupled then because we internalize that, right, and so as people,
we think, well, we are supposed to have this sort
of figured out by a certain age, and so we
don't give ourselves the grace to continue to learn, evolve,
transition change.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
And you are breeding.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Mental health issues there, You are breeding behavioral health issues there.
And you know, if we can't fix it internally and
we can't fix it externally, where the heck are we
supposed to start?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Right that those systems and those.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Structures that we have built that say, in a state
in which we have more old people than young people,
we still care about only the young people.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
We have a problem. Right.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
I feel like that's the story a reel. I don't
know how you feel about it, but that's sort of
my take on that.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, I mean, I one hundred percent incur that I think.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
There's a cultural problem, and I think there's tangible, there's
there's you know, barriers of funding and data collection and
whatnot that I can speak to as well. But I
do agree with you. I see a lot in my
work with the Legacy Project. There's a lot especially for
at the start of the project, before olders and youngers kind.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Of come in to partake.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Is this hesitancy, right, because for so long there's these
strong generational tensions that really exist amongst older young adults,
and I think it's so perpetuated so strongly by these
a lot of the ages rhetoric that we see in
the media that's just kind of accepted as norm and
so it just creates this this wedge and then the
(11:41):
real fears right amongst younger adults of you know, we're
kind of left with all of these issues, and there's
this false sense of blame for two older adults, right,
like social security is not going to be there for us, Well,
who's to blame? Climate change is worsen, Well, who's to blame?
Speaker 6 (11:54):
Right?
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So I think there's there's a lot of that. There's
an intergenerational kind of conflict that exists, and that's why
I think introder are so important because it can really
cross divides, right, Like, there's so much that both olders
and youngers can learn from one another, but especially from
young people.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
If I want to change XYZ issue, well, let me
talk to someone who's already worked on these issues for
so long, and how can we work collectively? Pairing my
new ideas with what they've done before and kind of
practices that they've seen work can not work.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So I agree with you there.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I think that's a real cultural change that's going to
be hard to overcome, and it's a barrier to intergenerational
programming being effective and being scalable. I will say I
also think that there's like funding issues and data collection
issues that make it so challenging. There's no standardized national
way in which intergenerational programs are measured, and in part
that's my design, right because a lot of the programs
(12:45):
focus on unique populations that have.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Their own unique needs.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
But it would be nice if that there was some
type of standard metric that every intergenerational program was asking
their participants, because then we would be able to cultivate
a national data collection that would really done and straight
to lawmakers, to individuals and congress state legislators that there
is a need to invest heavily in these types of
programs as a way to address just so much of
(13:09):
the polarization and socialization issues that we are facing in
today's society. And so I think that is a problem.
It's a hard thing because so many intergenerational programs are grassroots,
So how do you cultivate a national conversation on that?
And then I will say, I mean that just compounds
with the funding piece. There's one foundation, Eisner that basically
(13:32):
pays like, provides grants solely intergenerational programming. There's no other
grant making organizations that solely do that, And so how
we're intergenerational programs getting their funding And oftentimes what it
means is you're pitching to funders grant making organizations that
actually have different focus areas, and so you're kind of
changing your focus as a result of that, and it
(13:54):
almost hinders you from doing everyday operations of really connecting
generations at it's core. And so all that's to say
is I think there's a lot of there's a lot
of really real challenges, But at the same time, there's
a lot of good work happening on the community level
that I think is trying to overcome some of these barriers.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
Well, on that note, we have a lot more to
talk about, but I'm going to take a quick break, Folks,
don't go away. We'll be talking much more with Cindy
Morris and Arion Glinski. Leus that don't go anywhere.
Speaker 7 (14:24):
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(14:46):
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Speaker 5 (15:07):
So welcome back to forty five Forward, folks, where my
mission is to make your second half of life even
better than the first. We're talking today with Cindy Morris
and Ariel Glenski about intergenerational issues, policies and practices, and
cultural issues. So before the break, we were talking about
some of these cultural barriers, not just in terms of
policy and the way we fund things. And one of
(15:29):
the things I've noted is that, as you pointed out, Cindy,
the Florida there mora older put people there than younger people,
and Florida really is just a little ahead of the
nation as a whole, right, I think I think it's
something like around by twenty thirty four, around that the
same time that the Social Security Trust Funds may become insolvent,
(15:54):
the number of people over sixty five will in fact
exceed the number of people under eighteen. Far is just
a little ahead of the nation as a whole, and
it is an issue, you know, for us in New York. Here,
I've been working as Cyndy with ARP and one of
the things they note is that whenever their issue is
(16:14):
about getting funding for programs for older residents, they're always
faced with like, well, if we do that, where do
we cut you know elsewhere? And to your point, Cindy,
no one ever says about giving aid for children, like, oh,
what are we cut to give aid to children?
Speaker 8 (16:30):
You know?
Speaker 5 (16:30):
So there's this real lack of recognition of the spectrum
of life. You know, we talk about the spectrum, and
we think we think of autism, but it's really it's
a spectrum of lots of different things. In life to
talk about how things have changed and to date myself
a little bit. When I was in college, what was
the what was the saying of us, all of us
(16:50):
in the student revolution, never trust anyone over thirty? Like okay,
well that's a little outdated. Yeah, when you talk about adeism,
I think we implicitly know it's everywhere and it's endemic.
But let's talk about some specific examples. And one of
the issues that actually connected me to Ariel and Cindya
(17:13):
is the issue of social security, something that people think
about in terms of especially younger people. Ariel, you wte
a very dynamic essay or incisive essay about why younger
people should care about social security. So let's talk about
this issue as as an example of why intergenerational collaboration
is important. So either one you start, Sindy will start
(17:36):
with you, and then go back.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
To Ario cor So I'm going to use myself as
the example, and I think that's an easy way to
do this. I had my first son and I decided
to take a little bit of time off to care
for him.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
I took one year to be a mom. It has
taken me twelve years.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
It took me twelve years to recover the loss in
social security from that one year that I took to
care for him that my spouse did not take.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Right, the impact of social security.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Is not understood by most people when they are young,
and so they don't make decisions around it. However, most
people living on social security are dependent on social Security.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
For many of them, it is their only source of income.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
We make decisions in our teens, twenties, thirtiecis, and eies
that impact what we will earn as our social security
for the rest of our lives, starting in our sixties
or seventies, depending on when we're going to get access.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Right, if we do not.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Understand how social security comes to us, we can't make
smart choices. Don't understand that again when we are twenty,
when we are thirty, we are going to make choices
that have very long term impacts ourselves. Compound this, right,
like I'm an upper middle class, white educated woman right now,
(19:08):
Compound this by somebody who is not any of those things,
and we recognize, we have to recognize that there are
even bigger considerations that need to happen on that education front.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
If you want to take a whole nother level to
think about this. Think about this.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
As women, we carry the burden and the privilege of
caregiving for the most part, and that means that systemically
we will earn less social security than our male counterparts.
Add that to the fact that we earn less in
the workplace, it just keeps adding up, right, the issues
with understanding how social security impacts us. It just keeps
(19:48):
getting layered upon layered upon layered. And so I loved
what Ariel wrote. I have to tell you a I
loved it because it was.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
A call and team who, right, who in Team Vogue
is reading about social security?
Speaker 4 (20:05):
In Team Vogue, here's an op ed that says, Hey,
social security is not your grandparents problem, it is yours,
and let's talk about this and let's begin to understand
those impacts. And I just think, right, we as women
are often told we don't talk about money. We don't
(20:26):
educate ourselves about money, we don't talk about it with
our cohorts, we don't talk about it with our friends,
we don't talk about it at the workplace, and we
should not ask for more of it in the workplace
because that's not our place, right. And so we are
in a system in which because we don't talk about money,
we don't talk about social security, and we are shooting
(20:46):
ourselves in the foot in the long run. And so
I sort of love having an intergenerational conversation about this
because Ariel, your generation of women are talking about things
that my generation didn't talk about.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Yeah, Arel, so let's talk about it. So I'm just
curious when you proposed that a piece to teen vote
or did they suggest it. I mean, what was people's
reaction to.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I mean, in large part, it was an outlet for
me to communicate how I felt during you know, the
start of this presidential administration and seeing the news of
this was even before anything about this federal bill that
just passed. This was back in kind of I wrote
(21:35):
it back in April timeframe, and it was a response
of ACL is potentially getting eliminated or dismantled and spread
across all these different agencies, which in effect is taking
away the people who are concentrating on this work. Right,
we are seeing in real time that the priorities for
(21:56):
aging populations are not being you know, not front and center.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
In fact, we are taking away so many of the programs.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
And the people that are working on these issues.
Speaker 9 (22:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
The White House Conference on Aging was supposed to be
this year, not this year, right, There's been no conversation
on that.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
So all of these things.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I felt like we were seeing so much in the
media about how higher education was being impacted. We are
seeing so much as to you know, how immigration in
terms of like how that's impacting our communities, all of
which are so important.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
But what I was not seeing, especially.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
On social media, was all these aging programs potentially being
eliminated and you know, what's the impact of that. And
so having conversations with a lot of my peers at school,
this was not top of mind for anybody, nor.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Did they have any idea. What ACL did. For me,
it was I needed.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
It was a response, but it was also a way
to communicate that this is something that you should always
care about, but like especially in this moment, to fight
back for these changes, right. Aging Always believe this aging policy,
aging reform should not be solely with older adults in
the rooms. It should be an intergenerational conversation because everyone
has a stake in this. Everyone's first of all is aging.
(23:07):
But youth are already impacted by you know, the broken
systems that we have. Youth caregivers. There's millions of youth
caregivers as as you know we've discussed, and they're already
being implicated by the fact that there's not more caregiving
supports and the lack of funding, right, and so all
of these reasons were kind of drove me to communicate
(23:28):
in this article, and I will say I got a
very positive response. A lot of you know, of my peers,
my colleagues across aged bands read it and we're ignited
to at least learn more about it, which in large part, Cindy,
to your point, it's about public education.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Most people don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
That Medicare doesn't cover long term care.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Most people don't know that they would have to spend
down their assets to receive Medicaid LTSS right. Most people
don't know how reliant they would be on Social Security.
I used to I worked for a few senators offices
in my home district in Massachusetts, and the amount of
people that would call if their Social Security was a
day late because they were relying on those paychecks, Like
it is a critical lifeline, and for younger people to
(24:08):
be aware and have the cognizance of that is so critical.
So all of us to say is it's a growing
part of my desire to get more younger people into
the spaces of aging policy, because I think our perspectives
important to also get young people to care about this
and be educated about the issues of caregiving and social
security and long term care, because we will be implicated
if we aren't already, we'll be implicated in the future.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
You already are implicated that you know, affected by it was,
as you point out, Sindy, that social security is you know,
a good portion of a lot of the financial security
to the extent that we have it of older people.
And when you start cutting that or impacting that, guess
who has to pick up the mantle or you know,
the shortfall. It's the younger generation and specifically their kids.
Speaker 8 (24:54):
Often.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
I remember, you know, having conversation when I was with
some people from ARP. You were on a college campus
talking about SOB security, and there was a table there
and we're tabling and people are sort of walking by,
and then we engaged in conversations and we said this specifically, said,
what happens if your parents' social securities cut? Who do
you think is going to pick up the pieces? And
(25:15):
they kind of looked at us like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
I know. My sons are nineteen and sixteen.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
And when my older son about three years ago, he
and I were on a solo mom kid trip and
we were walking through an airport and he very insightful,
he said, what do.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
You think the biggest issue is in the world? Right?
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Like sixteen year old asked me this question, and I
said caregiving. And obviously he was expecting us to say
something about climate change, hunger, war, genocide, like we can
go down the list, right, and I said, we do
not create solid plans to provide caregivers. That is what
(26:02):
creates a space to limit people's ability to rise up
past any of those other issues.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
If we do not have.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Social security, if we do not have strong Medicaid and
snap supports.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
If we do not have like these cuts.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
That we are seeing right now, that will immediately impact
the generation below to stand up and have to care
for their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
When they have to do that, what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (26:33):
It means they can't afford to one broad in their
own careers and grow professionally because they are having to
spend time taking care of other people. And two, it
means that they are going to have to give up
the money that they would be able to use to
do things like buy the home for themselves, one day
care for their own children, save up for college for
(26:55):
their own children. Though it just gets over and over again.
I have a young person who lived with me for
quite some time. He couldn't go to college because his
responsibility when he wasn't living with me was to pay
rent for his mother.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Right.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
That carries through over and over again, and it is
to me the crisis of caregiving is so real and
because people don't know their caregiving, they don't know the word,
they don't recognize themselves as caregivers, they don't understand the
implications of that on themselves long term.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
But I think we need to accept that it's a crisis.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
It's internalized as such an individual.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Problem in the United States by no means do people
think right, there's fifty million plus caregivers. This is obviously
a massive issue, and yet very few people see it as.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
A collaborative community effort.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
It's often seen as I have to deal with this
on my own, and that's that I think contributes largely
to why there's so little supports or conversation on it.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Doesn't that just get to the very loneliness caregiving. That
that's an interesting point.
Speaker 5 (27:59):
Yeah, and there's no question that the burden is largely
on women younger or older. Nevertheless, from my perspective, it's
also it's part of a structural problem. So we don't
it's to your conversations earlier, mar we just don't value
certain things as cultural values, so caregiving is not really valued.
Speaker 8 (28:20):
You know.
Speaker 5 (28:21):
It's sort of like, well, it's really okay, you got
to do it. But I remember, you know, when I
had to take a break in my career because my
wife and I had twin sons and we were both older,
and like, there weren't grandparents in the picture really, so
I said, well, I've got to take parental leave, you know,
and people were like, you're going to take parental leave?
(28:42):
I was like, yeah, you know, what do you think
my wife is going to think, you know, take care
of twins by yourself. No, but there was there were
consequences to that, very subtle, implicit, not basically voiced, but
like Ron has made made a decision to that will
impact his career that he's not not quite as serious
(29:07):
as he should be about advancement, you know, So it
was subtle, it was not that significant, but it was significant.
And so it goes to this point that which I
like to talk about. We need to take it to
another quick break. But when we come back with the break,
I like to talk to you folks a little bit
more broadly about caregiving because this is a big issue.
I agree with you, Cindy, it is a crisis. We
(29:28):
use that word, you know, sort of casually, but it's
in fact the case. So folks, we have much more
to talk about on next sevenent with Darrie All and Cindy.
So don't go anywhere right back.
Speaker 8 (29:42):
Do you like what you're hearing? Well, We've got plenty
more where that came from. Head over to forty five
forward dot org, where you'll find a full archive of
over two hundred episodes of the forty five Forward podcast,
all hosted by Ron. Each week, Ron talks with fascinating guests, experts, advocates,
(30:07):
and everyday folks, sharing insights and stories to help you
live a better, fuller life in your second half. We
cover everything from health and care giving to careers, relationships,
and finding purpose. Whatever helps you move forward with clarity
and confidence. That's forty five Forward dot Org. Check it
(30:30):
out and keep moving forward. Forty five Forward.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
Welcome back to forty five Forward, folks. I'm your host
Ron Rowell. Once again. We're talking with Cindey Morrisonnariol Kolinski.
Cinne Morris is the CEO of the Benson Agency. Arielle
is a student graduate student can they right for master's
student at the Harvard It's Kennedy School. We've been talking
a lot about intergenerational issues, an issue that is close
(31:04):
to my heart as well as Ariel's and Cindy's. We
were talking before the break about caregiving, and I want
to broaden about that because I think that a lot
of these issues around intergenerational policies and practices and deal
with the fact that we don't really know how to
care for each other as a society, and we kind
of take it for granted. It becomes, you know, a
(31:25):
family issue, a family responsibility, as if we're all kind
of adamized marbles rolling around and together without any connection.
Even though we throw around phrases like it takes a village,
it does. So talk about from your perspectives, folks, about caregiving.
You know your younger Carl, but you're, as you know,
quite familiar.
Speaker 8 (31:45):
With this already.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
You talk about young caregivers, which I think we take
for granted, but I think now a third of family
caregivers are millennials. So we usually think about people more
than their fifties and fifties taking care of their parents
in their sixties and seventies and eighties. Although now, as
Cindy knows quite well, we have sandwich generations, right. We
(32:07):
have you know, people in the middle taking care of
older parents and younger kids, and then we have people
who are older in their sixties and seventies taking care
of people in their nineties. So it's what I call
a club sandwich. So let's talk about, you know, what
are the some of the thoughts you have about solutions
to this, and we'll sort of go from caregiving broadly,
(32:28):
and then also, as you mentioned a we have long
term care issues. You know, there are specifically problems. So
let me start with you this time, Ariel, and then
go back to Cindy.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah, I mean, I'm going to start the high level
again as I did before.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I think it starts with a culture change. I think it.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Starts with making caregiving a sexy thing, making caregiving something.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
That is appreciated and valued.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
The other day I was looking at one of my
colleagues LinkedIn pages and for the first time ever, I
saw that he that that on someone's LinkedIn page, they
had a two year period where it said caregiving break. Like,
that's amazing, right, But it's so not normalized, right. No
one everyone feels like they have to do caregiving on
top of on top of being you know, employed, being
(33:19):
in school, whatever it might be. But it's not something
that's glamorized enough for you want to put on your
LinkedIn page. And so I thought that was really really
impressive and something that we just need to make more
than norm right. So many people are caregivers. There's there
are some wonderful organizations like Care Across Generations and National
Caregiving Alliance that are doing great work in terms of
uplifting people's stories and the stories of caregivers and why
(33:41):
it's so critical that there are supports, but.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
There's more work to be done.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
We need we need non traditional voices to speak about this, right,
people who aren't in the health policy space, people who
are reaching mass audiences, and I think, for example, the
recent movie that came out Bradley Cooper's caregiving.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Documentary I think is a step in.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
The right direction, right because it's reaching a mainstream audience
from a celebrity talking about how difficult it is to
be a caregiver. That's I think the high level what
needs to happen on the you know, policy changes ways
in which we can appreciate caregiving responsibilities is by providing
caregiver credits, by making sure that that while it exists
(34:22):
in some form and some state waivers and in some
like guide models and whatnot, it doesn't exist on amounts
of scale.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
So how can we make sure.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
You know that if someone's doing this as a full
time job, that they're getting compensated and have a means
to get compensated, right, And so I also think that
goes hand in hand with making sure that communities have
sufficient respites resources.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
And actually I'm finishing up a paper right now.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I did focus on caregiving with a professor at TUFFS
and a lot of this is focused on what is
the missing resources that exist for caregivers right now in
the United States and specifically a mass choose which is
our focus area, and a lot of people don't feel
like they have community and even if that exists on
an online basis. There's twenty two million older adults, older
(35:10):
Americans that don't have broadband access to be able to
reach those internet communities. If they don't have respite care,
then they can't go to senior communities senior centers to
find in person support. So how can we better reach
these caregivers so they don't feel as isolated? And I
think that's on a more personal level. What needs to
happen in a you know, on a state and city
and local level.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Yeah, I'll throw in the plug also for Hilarity for Charity.
Their website, we are hfc dot org offers a ton
of resources for caregivers.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
And it's really one of the.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Things that I think that we don't necessarily really talk
about deeply enough in there is the professionalization of caregiving
as a career right that you know, not only are
we billing it as.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
A low paying job. Right.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
What we're seeing right now with what is happening to
immigrants in our country, we are losing an entire workforce.
I saw recently a message from Honor who acquired home
Instead that they are losing a large number of employees
due to TPS pulling back work permits for people. And
(36:24):
so we are systemically as a country right now not
dealing with the fact that we have a shortage of
professional professional caregivers. We are not building it as a career.
We are limiting it to a low paying job, and
we are removing the rights for people who had those
(36:45):
jobs to take those jobs and continue to work in
those jobs. These are systems that are building upon the
crisis that we are talking about here. And if we
don't respond, if we don't if we don't start to
build out solutions for that, if we don't start to
(37:06):
provide funding from governments to senior living and care centers
to professionalize their staff, we're going to lose that staff
over and over again. We're going to lose that staff.
And it takes a lot of training to be a
good paid caregiver. It takes a lot of training to
be a family caregiver. You're lucky if you get any
but it takes a lot of training to be a
(37:26):
paid caregiver. And so we invest in the training and
then we have the turnover. I think I read recently
that sixty percent of nurses leave the profession within two
years because largely because of.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
The environment that it is in working in that space, Well,
what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (37:44):
It means that we have gone That is people who
have gone through years of schooling, taken an exam, past
the exam, and it is still worth it to them
to leave the industry because of the environment that they
are being forced to work in. Imagine what that means
for agiver who doesn't even have access to the education
that that nurse went through. We're just not solving.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
I just wanted to add Sindy, some of what you
brought up percolated some additional thoughts for me. I think
there's absolutely in terms of paid caregiving right What's something
I'm deeply concerned about right now in the current administration
is impact on immigration and the fact that twenty eight
percent of the American direct care workforce is made up
of immigrants, and whether it's you know, individuals really not
(38:30):
being able to go to work, or just the fear
of you know, the fact that I think the Trump
administration repealed the sensitive location so individuals can no longer
are safe within healthcare settings. I'm deeply concerned that those
sentiments will cause a dip in the caregiving workforce, and
that is not being paired with domestic solutions to fill
(38:52):
those roles. And so the care crisis that's already exacerbated,
I fear is.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Going to only get worse.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
And then I will also say, I think a positive
potential solution, and something that I'm starting to see larger
employers do is to really embed caregiving as a benefit
to employees, so providing resources for training how to be
a caregiver, providing flexibility to take time off to be
a caregiver, Allowing for non flexible I mean for non
(39:20):
traditional hours of working, so you can take your mother
to a doctor's appointment or what have you. I think
there's actually a very large part that's not being talked
about enough in terms of how employers can support caregivers
and also allow individuals to pursue the career in which
they want to.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
And I think in terms of these caregiving benefits or credits,
you know, again sort of broadening spectrum, saying listen, these
can be used for childcare or elder care, you know,
because you could be affected by either one of them.
So having that flexibility to use it, you know, for
wherever you are and you know, in life spectrum is important.
(39:59):
I think my experience too, is that one of the
problems is that in terms of looking at issues like
caregiving in terms of costs and benefits, we need what
I call a higher math. You know, we look at
you know, like direct impactsy well, that's widen the lens,
look at you know, what is the impact of not
having good caregiving. We've done some studies, you know, they
(40:19):
look at you know, employee absenteeism and you know, and
things like that. But being able to look at the
societal benefit of having good support systems for overall productivity,
overall welfare, you know, and the ability to pursue happiness.
It requires a support system beyond voting. You know, it's
(40:40):
not just about that. So, you know, I wanted to
just shift a little bit because I think one of
the things that you folks are bringing out is kind
of the importance of the personal stories that come about.
So I wanted to talk a little bit more about,
first of all, the Legacy project but that you've been
doing Ariel, and then shift to Cindy. I've got some
(41:00):
other questions for you about stories. But so I'm sorry,
we'll take another very quick break, but don't go anywhere,
folks will be talking much more. We have a lot
more to get to with Ariye Allen Sidey, so don't
go away.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Caring for a loved one can feel overwhelming.
Speaker 9 (41:16):
That's why we created Caregiving nav dot com, your personal
guide through the complex world of caregiving. It's a free,
interactive website built around the Caregiving Navigator Book, with tools
designed to make your journey easier. Whether you're planning ahead,
managing care right now, or navigating a crisis, you'll find
(41:37):
step by step advice, trusted resources, and over a dozen
downloadable checklists. From legal planning to home safety, from medical
decisions to emotional support, it's all here, all in one place.
Just visit caregiving nav dot com because you're not alone
on this path, and the help you need is just
(41:59):
a click away.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
Folks were coming back now with Cindy Morris and Ariel Galensy.
It's Ron ro Will from forty five forward. I want
to just we just have a few minutes left. I
wanted to sneak in some more from Ariel about her
legacy project. So go ahead, Ariel, give us some quick
notes about where that's going.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah, quick summary.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
So the Legacy Project, as I mentioned, it started as
a Passion initiative really took foot in terms of a
student college based organization when I was a sophomore at
Tufts and alongside two of my fellow co founders who
also went to Toughs with me, we connected college students
at our university with older adults in Medford and Summerville,
(42:45):
Massachusetts for intergenerational interviews and storytelling over the course of
an academic year. We've quickly realized that other schools, other
students wanted to do this work and that framework didn't
exist for them, and so we got in corporate read
it filed to become a you know, a nonprofit, and
we've expanded to We're now in twelve states at different
(43:07):
colleges and universities and continuing to grow, and really our
mission is to uplift these life histories of both olders
and youngers, to really emphasize the cogenerational element of it,
the mutual benefit, to combat.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Socializlation and loneliness.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
And we have a new program evaluation tool measuring that
which is wonderful, and then also to really provide hopefully
inspired some younger adults to go into the field of gerontology,
whether that's in clinical medicine, which is a lot of
the students that partake in our program, or whether that's
being a journalist and writing more about aging issues or
you know, it really.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Runs the gamut. But we it's been an exciting.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Growth over these past few years, and I just see
us continuing to grow.
Speaker 5 (43:50):
So, Sindy, you're involved in Women Who Change the World,
you know, I would encourage each of you, everyone out
there to check out Cindy's LinkedIn because they're replete with
stories and they're great stories. One of them I love
was you're having lunch with herman every Friday, which is
you know, it's sort of a it's not a family caregiving,
(44:11):
but it sort of says a lot about you know,
the need for connection, you know, and every generation. Let me,
I know you were coming to close to the end.
Before we get to that, I just wanted to very
quickly let people know how they can get touch with
your contact each one of us. The arel you start
and then I'll finish up with Cindy. People want to
reach you and learn more about your work, but it's
(44:33):
the best way to do that.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah, Well, you can find me on LinkedIn, very active
on LinkedIn. R el Glenski. You can also look up
the Legacy Project Legacy projectink dot org and there you
have my emails directly listed on there as well as
our organizational email. So please reach out if you're interested
at all, either personally about the policy issues or about
the Legacy Project.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
And probably the easiest reach me is.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
Also through LinkedIn, or you can access us through the
Bensin Agency, which is the beentsinagency dot com.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
My email is.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
There are also Women Who Change the World, which is
an organization that we started specifically to talk about women
having lifelong learning and women having permission to be in
transition throughout their entire lives. So you can also go
to that website and there you can actually register for
our newsletter and we'll share some of these stories and
(45:29):
we'll share what's going on, and we offer monthly workshops
and programming so that people can kind of get together,
and we'll be launching sort of a whole lot of
new information coming out of that in the coming months
as well.
Speaker 5 (45:44):
All right, any any final thoughts before you both have
to zip off.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Ron, I'm just grateful for this opportunity and grateful that
you've connected Cindy and I there's a lot more work
to be done in this area.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
This was super fun.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
I do it again anytime, So thank you so much
and happy to do this. Anybody who's listening to this,
I think the thing that I would want you to
take away is to have these conversations right and to
recognize that the work you are doing, paid or unpaid,
is vital well. And I mean it when I say
(46:20):
it is both a burden and a privilege, and it
is okay to feel both parts of that. And so
I hope that as people who are listening to this
think about how do I hold on to the privileged
part and how do I talk about the burden parts
so that we can create systemic change.
Speaker 5 (46:36):
And let me just offer my last word, which is
that I think that the women, especially in caregiving and
looking at these intergenerational issues, are the ones who are
taking the lead. And I would I would exhort my
male colleagues to step up and be partners in this process.
That doesn't happen. You need to be part of this process.
People know, I have a Caregiving Navigator book, and I'm
(46:58):
so involved in caregiving. And when I go to these
groups and we talk, I look around the room and
my first question is where are the men? So step up,
guys and join this conversation. So, once again, folks, this
is Ron Royal forty five Forward. Thank you for spending
this time with me. I'll we'll be back next week
(47:19):
with another episode, so until then, keep moving forward. Forty
five Forward
I'd always had a yearning to better understand some of
the stories. I would hear glimpses in my interactions.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
But never the full picture.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
And I lost both of my grandfathers when I was
the age of ten, and I had always built a
sense of regret for that I hadn't had the foresight
to ask them about their life stories.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
I love what Aeryel wrote.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
I have to tell you I loved it because it
was a call in Team Vogue.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Right oh, teen Vogue is reading about social security.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
In teen Vogue, here's an op ed that says, Hey,
social security is not your grandparents problem, it is your.
Speaker 5 (00:42):
Hello, everyone, welcome to forty five Forward. I'm your host,
Ron Rowell. Trends today, we often try to separate things
into generations, you know, Greatest Generation, baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials,
and so on. But my two guests today don't look
at things that way. They're very much interested in intergenerational
(01:04):
issues as I am, as have been more so as
I've focused on senior issues, recognizing you can't only separate
the generations highway. So today we're going to talk with
at length with two dynamic women leaders, Ariel Glinsky and
Cindy Morris about their perspective on what they call not
(01:25):
just ow people problems. So we're looking in lots of
things like ageism, caregiving, systemic structural problems in our society,
and lots more So, without further ado, let me introduce
you to our guests, Ariel Glinsky and Cindy Morris. Ariel
and Cindy, welcome to the show.
Speaker 6 (01:41):
Nice here, absolutely absolutely, so we have a lot to
talk about. But you know, as with any of my guests,
I always find my guests themselves interesting, and even if
you're not forty five yet, Ario, I'm interested in you know,
you've always had a dynamic journey, and Cindy s well,
I know Cindy quite well. So let's start a little
(02:03):
bit by talking just about how you got to just
give us encapsulation where you came to your current state
of affairs. So Sinny's start with you and then move
to you area.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Sure, so.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
I'm barely forty five forward, I'm forty seven, So let's
see by saying I count, but I'm sort of just counting,
And I think that that's part of the story for me,
is that I spent in a career working in nonprofits
working on that city building for them, and had the
(02:40):
privilege to do that for an aging organization that served
the people who serve older adults. So, just to be clear,
it was with an association that serves the organizations that
serve older adults. And I found out in that process
that a lot of the work that I had been
doing in gender equity, a lot of the work that
I had been doinging about immigrant rights, you know, activating
(03:03):
and building community community supports, was in fact all work
and agent as I continue to learn that, what I
really found out was that we are segmenting this issue,
partially out out of agism, quite frankly, but we're segmenting that,
and that if we really want to create supports for
(03:25):
people as the age, we need to start doing it
from the point at which they start to age, which
turns out to be roughly one second after they're bor
correct at So, you know, the with the ACES studies,
I think we'll talk about it, but the ACE studies
show that very childhood trauma determines what you look like
(03:46):
when you're eighty.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
So, so as I've continued in my own path and
my own transitions in life and my own life long learning.
What I have really committed to in my career in
this phase of it, it is to work towards building
understanding around that and raising awareness and making sure that
(04:08):
we are taking an intergenerational approach to solving and working
on every one of the issues that we work in.
When we work in nonprofits and its it sort of
has changed the way I do things. So I have
an agency, Thevents, an agency that does capacity building for nonprofits.
I lead an organization called Women Who Change the World
(04:28):
that looks at women in transition and how we can
recognize that women are in a state of transition again
from point one second after birth until point one second
before we die, and some would say that's the biggest transition.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
So that's sort of my.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Work at this point is rethinking the way we do
work so that it is more effective for people across
their life span, across their health.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Well, thank you for that, and now Ariel, let's have
listen to when your progress has been.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, well, I've always been really interested in engaging with
old adults. I'm an only child, actually was the only
child in my family for most of my life until
six years ago. Seven years ago, you know, cousin was born,
but for me, that was kind of the starting point.
I've always loved interacting with older adults, and so throughout
high school I worked in a senior community and there
(05:21):
for about four or five years and had the opportunity
to engage with many of the old adults living there,
and I had always had a yearning to better understand
some of the stories. I would hear glimpses in my interactions.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
But never the full picture.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And I lost both of my grandfathers when I was
the age of ten, and I had always built a
sense of regret for that I hadn't had the foresight
to ask them.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
About their life stories.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And so all of this said is when I worked
in the senior community, I decided to start what was
what I termed the Legacy Project and has continued to
be that to this day. But it really entailed about
twenty interviews with older adults in the community. It turned
into something that brought me so much joy as well
as the stories that came out of it. And it
happened at the tail end was during the pandemic, and
(06:11):
so the original intentionality of the program was that we would,
after the interviews, have a family gathering where all the
individuals I interviewed and their and their families came and
listened to the stories. And then the pandemic made that impossible.
So it led me to craft a book with the stories,
and that was basically, in essence, what created the model
for the Legacy Project, which continued when I was at
(06:32):
Toughts and still to this day. And then simultaneously, my
grandmother had Louis Baudy dementia and I was on the
care team for my grandmother and I witnessed within the
span of a year her cycling in and out of
seven different care facilities because they didn't provide continued care
as her as her condition continued to worsen, and really
(06:53):
saw just how broken our long term care system is
in the United States as it relates to affordability, as
relates to accessibility, as relates to caregiver burden, really every
element needs reform. And so, in tandem with my work
with intergenerational programming as well as this personal experience, just
drove a desire for me to dedicate my career to
(07:15):
gerontology and policy wise, specifically on the long term care
financing and caregiving policy issue areas so since then, I
haven't looked back and have been focusing on that pathway,
stettying it all throughout school, trying to get every angle
from working in policy environments on Capitol Hill, on the
Senate Committee on Aaging and on ways and means, from
(07:36):
working on nonprofit side, and then like the American Society
on Aging, and then also training to become a certified
nursing system myself so I could work in nursing home
community and better understanding the perspectives of administrators as well
as individuals who live in those communities. And so all
that said is that's a little bit about me, and
that's how I do this pathway.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
Well, it's just as I thought. The two of you
are just as interesting as the subject itself. So thank
you for your stories. So and you, you've you've talked
about sort of seamlessly as you've gotten into these your
areas of interest, intergenerational interests. But it's not so easy,
and both of you, I'm sure have encountered a lot
(08:17):
of structural problems. I mean, our society is not geared.
It is geared, and I understand you know there's certain
you know, there's certain benefits to looking at things, you know,
in what I call a technological way, you know, with
specifying certain interests and trying to narrow them down. So
aging becomes that. But as you to point out, that's
(08:39):
not the way it really works. But how do you
deal with that? I mean, I guess looking at it,
it seems like one of the biggest barriers is just
how we fund things and how we you know, create
programs and policies, and how people apply for grants and
how people look at, you know, things. So talk a
little bit about sort of about the structural problems you've
encountered and embracing it generational activities, multi generational activity.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
I think my favorite thing that I saw recently was
a license plate from the state of Florida, and it's
said on the bottom where they always put like little
quotes about the state. Is it something to the effect
of we care about our children.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
I really like it. So let me just say I
also care about children. However, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Ironic that in a state where they have one of
the fastest growing aging communities in the country, population of
older adults exceeds the number of children living in the state.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Isn't it fascinating?
Speaker 4 (09:34):
That they are still saying we care about our children
instead of we care about people at everywhere across the
life span. Now that's not a very good tagline, and
I get that, but when we talk about right at
the very core of this, there is a systemic agism
to how we talk about what people need. That gets
(09:57):
coupled then because we internalize that, right, and so as people,
we think, well, we are supposed to have this sort
of figured out by a certain age, and so we
don't give ourselves the grace to continue to learn, evolve,
transition change.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
And you are breeding.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Mental health issues there, You are breeding behavioral health issues there.
And you know, if we can't fix it internally and
we can't fix it externally, where the heck are we
supposed to start?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Right that those systems and those.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Structures that we have built that say, in a state
in which we have more old people than young people,
we still care about only the young people.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
We have a problem. Right.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
I feel like that's the story a reel. I don't
know how you feel about it, but that's sort of
my take on that.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, I mean, I one hundred percent incur that I think.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
There's a cultural problem, and I think there's tangible, there's
there's you know, barriers of funding and data collection and
whatnot that I can speak to as well. But I
do agree with you. I see a lot in my
work with the Legacy Project. There's a lot especially for
at the start of the project, before olders and youngers kind.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Of come in to partake.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Is this hesitancy, right, because for so long there's these
strong generational tensions that really exist amongst older young adults,
and I think it's so perpetuated so strongly by these
a lot of the ages rhetoric that we see in
the media that's just kind of accepted as norm and
so it just creates this this wedge and then the
(11:41):
real fears right amongst younger adults of you know, we're
kind of left with all of these issues, and there's
this false sense of blame for two older adults, right,
like social security is not going to be there for us, Well,
who's to blame? Climate change is worsen, Well, who's to blame?
Speaker 6 (11:54):
Right?
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So I think there's there's a lot of that. There's
an intergenerational kind of conflict that exists, and that's why
I think introder are so important because it can really
cross divides, right, Like, there's so much that both olders
and youngers can learn from one another, but especially from
young people.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
If I want to change XYZ issue, well, let me
talk to someone who's already worked on these issues for
so long, and how can we work collectively? Pairing my
new ideas with what they've done before and kind of
practices that they've seen work can not work.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So I agree with you there.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I think that's a real cultural change that's going to
be hard to overcome, and it's a barrier to intergenerational
programming being effective and being scalable. I will say I
also think that there's like funding issues and data collection
issues that make it so challenging. There's no standardized national
way in which intergenerational programs are measured, and in part
that's my design, right because a lot of the programs
(12:45):
focus on unique populations that have.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Their own unique needs.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
But it would be nice if that there was some
type of standard metric that every intergenerational program was asking
their participants, because then we would be able to cultivate
a national data collection that would really done and straight
to lawmakers, to individuals and congress state legislators that there
is a need to invest heavily in these types of
programs as a way to address just so much of
(13:09):
the polarization and socialization issues that we are facing in
today's society. And so I think that is a problem.
It's a hard thing because so many intergenerational programs are grassroots,
So how do you cultivate a national conversation on that?
And then I will say, I mean that just compounds
with the funding piece. There's one foundation, Eisner that basically
(13:32):
pays like, provides grants solely intergenerational programming. There's no other
grant making organizations that solely do that, And so how
we're intergenerational programs getting their funding And oftentimes what it
means is you're pitching to funders grant making organizations that
actually have different focus areas, and so you're kind of
changing your focus as a result of that, and it
(13:54):
almost hinders you from doing everyday operations of really connecting
generations at it's core. And so all that's to say
is I think there's a lot of there's a lot
of really real challenges, But at the same time, there's
a lot of good work happening on the community level
that I think is trying to overcome some of these barriers.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
Well, on that note, we have a lot more to
talk about, but I'm going to take a quick break, Folks,
don't go away. We'll be talking much more with Cindy
Morris and Arion Glinski. Leus that don't go anywhere.
Speaker 7 (14:24):
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(14:46):
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Speaker 5 (15:07):
So welcome back to forty five Forward, folks, where my
mission is to make your second half of life even
better than the first. We're talking today with Cindy Morris
and Ariel Glenski about intergenerational issues, policies and practices, and
cultural issues. So before the break, we were talking about
some of these cultural barriers, not just in terms of
policy and the way we fund things. And one of
(15:29):
the things I've noted is that, as you pointed out, Cindy,
the Florida there mora older put people there than younger people,
and Florida really is just a little ahead of the
nation as a whole, right, I think I think it's
something like around by twenty thirty four, around that the
same time that the Social Security Trust Funds may become insolvent,
(15:54):
the number of people over sixty five will in fact
exceed the number of people under eighteen. Far is just
a little ahead of the nation as a whole, and
it is an issue, you know, for us in New York. Here,
I've been working as Cyndy with ARP and one of
the things they note is that whenever their issue is
(16:14):
about getting funding for programs for older residents, they're always
faced with like, well, if we do that, where do
we cut you know elsewhere? And to your point, Cindy,
no one ever says about giving aid for children, like, oh,
what are we cut to give aid to children?
Speaker 8 (16:30):
You know?
Speaker 5 (16:30):
So there's this real lack of recognition of the spectrum
of life. You know, we talk about the spectrum, and
we think we think of autism, but it's really it's
a spectrum of lots of different things. In life to
talk about how things have changed and to date myself
a little bit. When I was in college, what was
the what was the saying of us, all of us
(16:50):
in the student revolution, never trust anyone over thirty? Like okay,
well that's a little outdated. Yeah, when you talk about adeism,
I think we implicitly know it's everywhere and it's endemic.
But let's talk about some specific examples. And one of
the issues that actually connected me to Ariel and Cindya
(17:13):
is the issue of social security, something that people think
about in terms of especially younger people. Ariel, you wte
a very dynamic essay or incisive essay about why younger
people should care about social security. So let's talk about
this issue as as an example of why intergenerational collaboration
is important. So either one you start, Sindy will start
(17:36):
with you, and then go back.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
To Ario cor So I'm going to use myself as
the example, and I think that's an easy way to
do this. I had my first son and I decided
to take a little bit of time off to care
for him.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
I took one year to be a mom. It has
taken me twelve years.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
It took me twelve years to recover the loss in
social security from that one year that I took to
care for him that my spouse did not take.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Right, the impact of social security.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Is not understood by most people when they are young,
and so they don't make decisions around it. However, most
people living on social security are dependent on social Security.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
For many of them, it is their only source of income.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
We make decisions in our teens, twenties, thirtiecis, and eies
that impact what we will earn as our social security
for the rest of our lives, starting in our sixties
or seventies, depending on when we're going to get access.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Right, if we do not.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Understand how social security comes to us, we can't make
smart choices. Don't understand that again when we are twenty,
when we are thirty, we are going to make choices
that have very long term impacts ourselves. Compound this, right,
like I'm an upper middle class, white educated woman right now,
(19:08):
Compound this by somebody who is not any of those things,
and we recognize, we have to recognize that there are
even bigger considerations that need to happen on that education front.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
If you want to take a whole nother level to
think about this. Think about this.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
As women, we carry the burden and the privilege of
caregiving for the most part, and that means that systemically
we will earn less social security than our male counterparts.
Add that to the fact that we earn less in
the workplace, it just keeps adding up, right, the issues
with understanding how social security impacts us. It just keeps
(19:48):
getting layered upon layered upon layered. And so I loved
what Ariel wrote. I have to tell you a I
loved it because it was.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
A call and team who, right, who in Team Vogue
is reading about social security?
Speaker 4 (20:05):
In Team Vogue, here's an op ed that says, Hey,
social security is not your grandparents problem, it is yours,
and let's talk about this and let's begin to understand
those impacts. And I just think, right, we as women
are often told we don't talk about money. We don't
(20:26):
educate ourselves about money, we don't talk about it with
our cohorts, we don't talk about it with our friends,
we don't talk about it at the workplace, and we
should not ask for more of it in the workplace
because that's not our place, right. And so we are
in a system in which because we don't talk about money,
we don't talk about social security, and we are shooting
(20:46):
ourselves in the foot in the long run. And so
I sort of love having an intergenerational conversation about this
because Ariel, your generation of women are talking about things
that my generation didn't talk about.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Yeah, Arel, so let's talk about it. So I'm just
curious when you proposed that a piece to teen vote
or did they suggest it. I mean, what was people's
reaction to.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I mean, in large part, it was an outlet for
me to communicate how I felt during you know, the
start of this presidential administration and seeing the news of
this was even before anything about this federal bill that
just passed. This was back in kind of I wrote
(21:35):
it back in April timeframe, and it was a response
of ACL is potentially getting eliminated or dismantled and spread
across all these different agencies, which in effect is taking
away the people who are concentrating on this work. Right,
we are seeing in real time that the priorities for
(21:56):
aging populations are not being you know, not front and center.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
In fact, we are taking away so many of the programs.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
And the people that are working on these issues.
Speaker 9 (22:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
The White House Conference on Aging was supposed to be
this year, not this year, right, There's been no conversation
on that.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
So all of these things.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I felt like we were seeing so much in the
media about how higher education was being impacted. We are
seeing so much as to you know, how immigration in
terms of like how that's impacting our communities, all of
which are so important.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
But what I was not seeing, especially.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
On social media, was all these aging programs potentially being
eliminated and you know, what's the impact of that. And
so having conversations with a lot of my peers at school,
this was not top of mind for anybody, nor.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Did they have any idea. What ACL did. For me,
it was I needed.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
It was a response, but it was also a way
to communicate that this is something that you should always
care about, but like especially in this moment, to fight
back for these changes, right. Aging Always believe this aging policy,
aging reform should not be solely with older adults in
the rooms. It should be an intergenerational conversation because everyone
has a stake in this. Everyone's first of all is aging.
(23:07):
But youth are already impacted by you know, the broken
systems that we have. Youth caregivers. There's millions of youth
caregivers as as you know we've discussed, and they're already
being implicated by the fact that there's not more caregiving
supports and the lack of funding, right, and so all
of these reasons were kind of drove me to communicate
(23:28):
in this article, and I will say I got a
very positive response. A lot of you know, of my peers,
my colleagues across aged bands read it and we're ignited
to at least learn more about it, which in large part, Cindy,
to your point, it's about public education.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Most people don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
That Medicare doesn't cover long term care.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Most people don't know that they would have to spend
down their assets to receive Medicaid LTSS right. Most people
don't know how reliant they would be on Social Security.
I used to I worked for a few senators offices
in my home district in Massachusetts, and the amount of
people that would call if their Social Security was a
day late because they were relying on those paychecks, Like
it is a critical lifeline, and for younger people to
(24:08):
be aware and have the cognizance of that is so critical.
So all of us to say is it's a growing
part of my desire to get more younger people into
the spaces of aging policy, because I think our perspectives
important to also get young people to care about this
and be educated about the issues of caregiving and social
security and long term care, because we will be implicated
if we aren't already, we'll be implicated in the future.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
You already are implicated that you know, affected by it was,
as you point out, Sindy, that social security is you know,
a good portion of a lot of the financial security
to the extent that we have it of older people.
And when you start cutting that or impacting that, guess
who has to pick up the mantle or you know,
the shortfall. It's the younger generation and specifically their kids.
Speaker 8 (24:54):
Often.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
I remember, you know, having conversation when I was with
some people from ARP. You were on a college campus
talking about SOB security, and there was a table there
and we're tabling and people are sort of walking by,
and then we engaged in conversations and we said this specifically, said,
what happens if your parents' social securities cut? Who do
you think is going to pick up the pieces? And
(25:15):
they kind of looked at us like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
I know. My sons are nineteen and sixteen.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
And when my older son about three years ago, he
and I were on a solo mom kid trip and
we were walking through an airport and he very insightful,
he said, what do.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
You think the biggest issue is in the world? Right?
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Like sixteen year old asked me this question, and I
said caregiving. And obviously he was expecting us to say
something about climate change, hunger, war, genocide, like we can
go down the list, right, and I said, we do
not create solid plans to provide caregivers. That is what
(26:02):
creates a space to limit people's ability to rise up
past any of those other issues.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
If we do not have.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Social security, if we do not have strong Medicaid and
snap supports.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
If we do not have like these cuts.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
That we are seeing right now, that will immediately impact
the generation below to stand up and have to care
for their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
When they have to do that, what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (26:33):
It means they can't afford to one broad in their
own careers and grow professionally because they are having to
spend time taking care of other people. And two, it
means that they are going to have to give up
the money that they would be able to use to
do things like buy the home for themselves, one day
care for their own children, save up for college for
(26:55):
their own children. Though it just gets over and over again.
I have a young person who lived with me for
quite some time. He couldn't go to college because his
responsibility when he wasn't living with me was to pay
rent for his mother.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Right.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
That carries through over and over again, and it is
to me the crisis of caregiving is so real and
because people don't know their caregiving, they don't know the word,
they don't recognize themselves as caregivers, they don't understand the
implications of that on themselves long term.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
But I think we need to accept that it's a crisis.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
It's internalized as such an individual.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Problem in the United States by no means do people
think right, there's fifty million plus caregivers. This is obviously
a massive issue, and yet very few people see it as.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
A collaborative community effort.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
It's often seen as I have to deal with this
on my own, and that's that I think contributes largely
to why there's so little supports or conversation on it.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Doesn't that just get to the very loneliness caregiving. That
that's an interesting point.
Speaker 5 (27:59):
Yeah, and there's no question that the burden is largely
on women younger or older. Nevertheless, from my perspective, it's
also it's part of a structural problem. So we don't
it's to your conversations earlier, mar we just don't value
certain things as cultural values, so caregiving is not really valued.
Speaker 8 (28:20):
You know.
Speaker 5 (28:21):
It's sort of like, well, it's really okay, you got
to do it. But I remember, you know, when I
had to take a break in my career because my
wife and I had twin sons and we were both older,
and like, there weren't grandparents in the picture really, so
I said, well, I've got to take parental leave, you know,
and people were like, you're going to take parental leave?
(28:42):
I was like, yeah, you know, what do you think
my wife is going to think, you know, take care
of twins by yourself. No, but there was there were
consequences to that, very subtle, implicit, not basically voiced, but
like Ron has made made a decision to that will
impact his career that he's not not quite as serious
(29:07):
as he should be about advancement, you know, So it
was subtle, it was not that significant, but it was significant.
And so it goes to this point that which I
like to talk about. We need to take it to
another quick break. But when we come back with the break,
I like to talk to you folks a little bit
more broadly about caregiving because this is a big issue.
I agree with you, Cindy, it is a crisis. We
(29:28):
use that word, you know, sort of casually, but it's
in fact the case. So folks, we have much more
to talk about on next sevenent with Darrie All and Cindy.
So don't go anywhere right back.
Speaker 8 (29:42):
Do you like what you're hearing? Well, We've got plenty
more where that came from. Head over to forty five
forward dot org, where you'll find a full archive of
over two hundred episodes of the forty five Forward podcast,
all hosted by Ron. Each week, Ron talks with fascinating guests, experts, advocates,
(30:07):
and everyday folks, sharing insights and stories to help you
live a better, fuller life in your second half. We
cover everything from health and care giving to careers, relationships,
and finding purpose. Whatever helps you move forward with clarity
and confidence. That's forty five Forward dot Org. Check it
(30:30):
out and keep moving forward. Forty five Forward.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
Welcome back to forty five Forward, folks. I'm your host
Ron Rowell. Once again. We're talking with Cindey Morrisonnariol Kolinski.
Cinne Morris is the CEO of the Benson Agency. Arielle
is a student graduate student can they right for master's
student at the Harvard It's Kennedy School. We've been talking
a lot about intergenerational issues, an issue that is close
(31:04):
to my heart as well as Ariel's and Cindy's. We
were talking before the break about caregiving, and I want
to broaden about that because I think that a lot
of these issues around intergenerational policies and practices and deal
with the fact that we don't really know how to
care for each other as a society, and we kind
of take it for granted. It becomes, you know, a
(31:25):
family issue, a family responsibility, as if we're all kind
of adamized marbles rolling around and together without any connection.
Even though we throw around phrases like it takes a village,
it does. So talk about from your perspectives, folks, about caregiving.
You know your younger Carl, but you're, as you know,
quite familiar.
Speaker 8 (31:45):
With this already.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
You talk about young caregivers, which I think we take
for granted, but I think now a third of family
caregivers are millennials. So we usually think about people more
than their fifties and fifties taking care of their parents
in their sixties and seventies and eighties. Although now, as
Cindy knows quite well, we have sandwich generations, right. We
(32:07):
have you know, people in the middle taking care of
older parents and younger kids, and then we have people
who are older in their sixties and seventies taking care
of people in their nineties. So it's what I call
a club sandwich. So let's talk about, you know, what
are the some of the thoughts you have about solutions
to this, and we'll sort of go from caregiving broadly,
(32:28):
and then also, as you mentioned a we have long
term care issues. You know, there are specifically problems. So
let me start with you this time, Ariel, and then
go back to Cindy.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah, I mean, I'm going to start the high level
again as I did before.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I think it starts with a culture change. I think it.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Starts with making caregiving a sexy thing, making caregiving something.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
That is appreciated and valued.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
The other day I was looking at one of my
colleagues LinkedIn pages and for the first time ever, I
saw that he that that on someone's LinkedIn page, they
had a two year period where it said caregiving break. Like,
that's amazing, right, But it's so not normalized, right. No
one everyone feels like they have to do caregiving on
top of on top of being you know, employed, being
(33:19):
in school, whatever it might be. But it's not something
that's glamorized enough for you want to put on your
LinkedIn page. And so I thought that was really really
impressive and something that we just need to make more
than norm right. So many people are caregivers. There's there
are some wonderful organizations like Care Across Generations and National
Caregiving Alliance that are doing great work in terms of
uplifting people's stories and the stories of caregivers and why
(33:41):
it's so critical that there are supports, but.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
There's more work to be done.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
We need we need non traditional voices to speak about this, right,
people who aren't in the health policy space, people who
are reaching mass audiences, and I think, for example, the
recent movie that came out Bradley Cooper's caregiving.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Documentary I think is a step in.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
The right direction, right because it's reaching a mainstream audience
from a celebrity talking about how difficult it is to
be a caregiver. That's I think the high level what
needs to happen on the you know, policy changes ways
in which we can appreciate caregiving responsibilities is by providing
caregiver credits, by making sure that that while it exists
(34:22):
in some form and some state waivers and in some
like guide models and whatnot, it doesn't exist on amounts
of scale.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
So how can we make sure.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
You know that if someone's doing this as a full
time job, that they're getting compensated and have a means
to get compensated, right, And so I also think that
goes hand in hand with making sure that communities have
sufficient respites resources.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
And actually I'm finishing up a paper right now.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I did focus on caregiving with a professor at TUFFS
and a lot of this is focused on what is
the missing resources that exist for caregivers right now in
the United States and specifically a mass choose which is
our focus area, and a lot of people don't feel
like they have community and even if that exists on
an online basis. There's twenty two million older adults, older
(35:10):
Americans that don't have broadband access to be able to
reach those internet communities. If they don't have respite care,
then they can't go to senior communities senior centers to
find in person support. So how can we better reach
these caregivers so they don't feel as isolated? And I
think that's on a more personal level. What needs to
happen in a you know, on a state and city
and local level.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Yeah, I'll throw in the plug also for Hilarity for Charity.
Their website, we are hfc dot org offers a ton
of resources for caregivers.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
And it's really one of the.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Things that I think that we don't necessarily really talk
about deeply enough in there is the professionalization of caregiving
as a career right that you know, not only are
we billing it as.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
A low paying job. Right.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
What we're seeing right now with what is happening to
immigrants in our country, we are losing an entire workforce.
I saw recently a message from Honor who acquired home
Instead that they are losing a large number of employees
due to TPS pulling back work permits for people. And
(36:24):
so we are systemically as a country right now not
dealing with the fact that we have a shortage of
professional professional caregivers. We are not building it as a career.
We are limiting it to a low paying job, and
we are removing the rights for people who had those
(36:45):
jobs to take those jobs and continue to work in
those jobs. These are systems that are building upon the
crisis that we are talking about here. And if we
don't respond, if we don't if we don't start to
build out solutions for that, if we don't start to
(37:06):
provide funding from governments to senior living and care centers
to professionalize their staff, we're going to lose that staff
over and over again. We're going to lose that staff.
And it takes a lot of training to be a
good paid caregiver. It takes a lot of training to
be a family caregiver. You're lucky if you get any
but it takes a lot of training to be a
(37:26):
paid caregiver. And so we invest in the training and
then we have the turnover. I think I read recently
that sixty percent of nurses leave the profession within two
years because largely because of.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
The environment that it is in working in that space, Well,
what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (37:44):
It means that we have gone That is people who
have gone through years of schooling, taken an exam, past
the exam, and it is still worth it to them
to leave the industry because of the environment that they
are being forced to work in. Imagine what that means
for agiver who doesn't even have access to the education
that that nurse went through. We're just not solving.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
I just wanted to add Sindy, some of what you
brought up percolated some additional thoughts for me. I think
there's absolutely in terms of paid caregiving right What's something
I'm deeply concerned about right now in the current administration
is impact on immigration and the fact that twenty eight
percent of the American direct care workforce is made up
of immigrants, and whether it's you know, individuals really not
(38:30):
being able to go to work, or just the fear
of you know, the fact that I think the Trump
administration repealed the sensitive location so individuals can no longer
are safe within healthcare settings. I'm deeply concerned that those
sentiments will cause a dip in the caregiving workforce, and
that is not being paired with domestic solutions to fill
(38:52):
those roles. And so the care crisis that's already exacerbated,
I fear is.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Going to only get worse.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
And then I will also say, I think a positive
potential solution, and something that I'm starting to see larger
employers do is to really embed caregiving as a benefit
to employees, so providing resources for training how to be
a caregiver, providing flexibility to take time off to be
a caregiver, Allowing for non flexible I mean for non
(39:20):
traditional hours of working, so you can take your mother
to a doctor's appointment or what have you. I think
there's actually a very large part that's not being talked
about enough in terms of how employers can support caregivers
and also allow individuals to pursue the career in which
they want to.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
And I think in terms of these caregiving benefits or credits,
you know, again sort of broadening spectrum, saying listen, these
can be used for childcare or elder care, you know,
because you could be affected by either one of them.
So having that flexibility to use it, you know, for
wherever you are and you know, in life spectrum is important.
(39:59):
I think my experience too, is that one of the
problems is that in terms of looking at issues like
caregiving in terms of costs and benefits, we need what
I call a higher math. You know, we look at
you know, like direct impactsy well, that's widen the lens,
look at you know, what is the impact of not
having good caregiving. We've done some studies, you know, they
(40:19):
look at you know, employee absenteeism and you know, and
things like that. But being able to look at the
societal benefit of having good support systems for overall productivity,
overall welfare, you know, and the ability to pursue happiness.
It requires a support system beyond voting. You know, it's
(40:40):
not just about that. So, you know, I wanted to
just shift a little bit because I think one of
the things that you folks are bringing out is kind
of the importance of the personal stories that come about.
So I wanted to talk a little bit more about,
first of all, the Legacy project but that you've been
doing Ariel, and then shift to Cindy. I've got some
(41:00):
other questions for you about stories. But so I'm sorry,
we'll take another very quick break, but don't go anywhere,
folks will be talking much more. We have a lot
more to get to with Ariye Allen Sidey, so don't
go away.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Caring for a loved one can feel overwhelming.
Speaker 9 (41:16):
That's why we created Caregiving nav dot com, your personal
guide through the complex world of caregiving. It's a free,
interactive website built around the Caregiving Navigator Book, with tools
designed to make your journey easier. Whether you're planning ahead,
managing care right now, or navigating a crisis, you'll find
(41:37):
step by step advice, trusted resources, and over a dozen
downloadable checklists. From legal planning to home safety, from medical
decisions to emotional support, it's all here, all in one place.
Just visit caregiving nav dot com because you're not alone
on this path, and the help you need is just
(41:59):
a click away.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
Folks were coming back now with Cindy Morris and Ariel Galensy.
It's Ron ro Will from forty five forward. I want
to just we just have a few minutes left. I
wanted to sneak in some more from Ariel about her
legacy project. So go ahead, Ariel, give us some quick
notes about where that's going.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah, quick summary.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
So the Legacy Project, as I mentioned, it started as
a Passion initiative really took foot in terms of a
student college based organization when I was a sophomore at
Tufts and alongside two of my fellow co founders who
also went to Toughs with me, we connected college students
at our university with older adults in Medford and Summerville,
(42:45):
Massachusetts for intergenerational interviews and storytelling over the course of
an academic year. We've quickly realized that other schools, other
students wanted to do this work and that framework didn't
exist for them, and so we got in corporate read
it filed to become a you know, a nonprofit, and
we've expanded to We're now in twelve states at different
(43:07):
colleges and universities and continuing to grow, and really our
mission is to uplift these life histories of both olders
and youngers, to really emphasize the cogenerational element of it,
the mutual benefit, to combat.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Socializlation and loneliness.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
And we have a new program evaluation tool measuring that
which is wonderful, and then also to really provide hopefully
inspired some younger adults to go into the field of gerontology,
whether that's in clinical medicine, which is a lot of
the students that partake in our program, or whether that's
being a journalist and writing more about aging issues or
you know, it really.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Runs the gamut. But we it's been an exciting.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Growth over these past few years, and I just see
us continuing to grow.
Speaker 5 (43:50):
So, Sindy, you're involved in Women Who Change the World,
you know, I would encourage each of you, everyone out
there to check out Cindy's LinkedIn because they're replete with
stories and they're great stories. One of them I love
was you're having lunch with herman every Friday, which is
you know, it's sort of a it's not a family caregiving,
(44:11):
but it sort of says a lot about you know,
the need for connection, you know, and every generation. Let me,
I know you were coming to close to the end.
Before we get to that, I just wanted to very
quickly let people know how they can get touch with
your contact each one of us. The arel you start
and then I'll finish up with Cindy. People want to
reach you and learn more about your work, but it's
(44:33):
the best way to do that.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah, Well, you can find me on LinkedIn, very active
on LinkedIn. R el Glenski. You can also look up
the Legacy Project Legacy projectink dot org and there you
have my emails directly listed on there as well as
our organizational email. So please reach out if you're interested
at all, either personally about the policy issues or about
the Legacy Project.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
And probably the easiest reach me is.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
Also through LinkedIn, or you can access us through the
Bensin Agency, which is the beentsinagency dot com.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
My email is.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
There are also Women Who Change the World, which is
an organization that we started specifically to talk about women
having lifelong learning and women having permission to be in
transition throughout their entire lives. So you can also go
to that website and there you can actually register for
our newsletter and we'll share some of these stories and
(45:29):
we'll share what's going on, and we offer monthly workshops
and programming so that people can kind of get together,
and we'll be launching sort of a whole lot of
new information coming out of that in the coming months
as well.
Speaker 5 (45:44):
All right, any any final thoughts before you both have
to zip off.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Ron, I'm just grateful for this opportunity and grateful that
you've connected Cindy and I there's a lot more work
to be done in this area.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
This was super fun.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
I do it again anytime, So thank you so much
and happy to do this. Anybody who's listening to this,
I think the thing that I would want you to
take away is to have these conversations right and to
recognize that the work you are doing, paid or unpaid,
is vital well. And I mean it when I say
(46:20):
it is both a burden and a privilege, and it
is okay to feel both parts of that. And so
I hope that as people who are listening to this
think about how do I hold on to the privileged
part and how do I talk about the burden parts
so that we can create systemic change.
Speaker 5 (46:36):
And let me just offer my last word, which is
that I think that the women, especially in caregiving and
looking at these intergenerational issues, are the ones who are
taking the lead. And I would I would exhort my
male colleagues to step up and be partners in this process.
That doesn't happen. You need to be part of this process.
People know, I have a Caregiving Navigator book, and I'm
(46:58):
so involved in caregiving. And when I go to these
groups and we talk, I look around the room and
my first question is where are the men? So step up,
guys and join this conversation. So, once again, folks, this
is Ron Royal forty five Forward. Thank you for spending
this time with me. I'll we'll be back next week
(47:19):
with another episode, so until then, keep moving forward. Forty
five Forward
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