Mini-Ep 467: We Can Relate
Listeners share thoughts on our recent guest Vanessa Grigoriadis’ episode on aging parents, offer ideas for how to support a friend going through IVF, and advice for switching careers without spending a ton of money (and maybe even with the help of AI?). Plus, Doree has a triumphant tennis update!
Mentioned in this Episode
Episode 374: So Our Parents Are Old with Vanessa Grigoriadis
Handheld massager
Heating pad
Bad ass in me honors the bad ass in you
Whole Foods
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Transcript
This episode transcript is AI generated.
Doree Shafrir (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise Hu (00:18):
And I'm Elise Hu. And we're just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums,
Doree Shafrir (00:22):
And this is a mini episode where we hear from you, we share your comments and your thoughts, and we do answer your questions to the best of our ability. But with that said, we are not experts. We are podcast hosts. We do always encourage you to seek support, first and foremost from the medical and or mental health professional as needed.
Elise Hu (00:41):
And we're recording this episode after Doree has returned triumphant from her recreational tennis teams big trip to the national championships of USTA recreational tennis Doree.
Doree Shafrir (00:56):
It's true.
Elise Hu (00:57):
Give us the readout.
Doree Shafrir (00:59):
Well, I'm going to give a brief readout, but we do have a lot to cover today and so I'm going to give more of a readout on a future episode. Okay. So in fact, I believe I'll be giving more of a readout on Monday's episode because we have a really great crossover episode coming up.
Elise Hu (01:19):
That's right. Alright. We can't say too much about that, but we do have a crossover episode planned for next Monday, and you'll hear more about Dorie's Adventure in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Doree Shafrir (01:31):
Yes,
Elise Hu (01:32):
At Nationals,
Doree Shafrir (01:33):
The top line takeaways are that it was an amazing weekend. It was exhausting, but so much fun and really intense. Some crazy shit went down
Elise Hu (01:46):
Like tiebreaker stuff or behind the scenes team things? No,
Doree Shafrir (01:51):
Not behind the scenes really. But we made the semifinals by one set, which if you know, out of four matches that had five matches each, so it came down to one set and the way that happened was just so insane. So I will be talking about that more on Monday's episode, so stay tuned. But it was super fun and everyone just played such great tennis, had a good time. The weather was nice. We shared a house, the team shared a house. It was just really nice.
Elise Hu (02:30):
And did the house have a tennis court?
Doree Shafrir (02:32):
Yes, the house had a tennis court. That's amazing. One of my teammates. Amazing. Yeah, one of my teammates found a house in Scottsdale with a tennis court so you could practice. So we could practice there. It was like a turf surface. It never really played on that, but until the balls bounced a little differently, but it was great to just have a court there to warm up and yeah, I think nine of us stayed in the house together. Oh, cool. So how cool. So it was super fun and I drove there and back with three of my teammates, so I feel especially bonded to them all
Elise Hu (03:09):
Their favorite gas station snacks now, which one's into the combos, which one's into the slim gyms? Yes,
Doree Shafrir (03:17):
It was really, really great. Definitely feels like, I mean, I don't know, I might never go to nationals again. People play recreational tennis their whole lives and never get to go to nationals and I feel really grateful and lucky that I got to go,
Elise Hu (03:33):
Man. I wish I could have been there. I've been listeners, I think in one of our previous casual chats we talked about how I was going to try and be there because Rob spends half his time in Scottsdale, but the flights to and from Los Angeles to Phoenix were astronomically priced. It was shocking.
Doree Shafrir (03:53):
It was shocking. I was just saying to Elise that the ride there was fine, but it was long. And by Saturday evening I was really tired and I was like, well, maybe if there's a cheap flight I'll just fly back in the afternoon. And then I looked at the flights and they were $688 in the afternoon. You could get on a morning flight for like $350, which also seemed exorbitant for a one-way flight that is less than an hour. And so I was like, okay, guess I'll be driving back. Yeah. But Rob came to watch
Doree Shafrir (04:33):
One of
Doree Shafrir (04:33):
Our matches, which was so sweet. Someone came up to me and they were like, someone's looking for you, were you? And they were like, oh, there's Doree. I was like, who is he? Am I in trouble? Have I been called to the principal's office? And then Rob was like, Hey. And I was like, oh my God. Yeah, it was really sweet. And he happened to get there at a very intense moment. I was like, they're in a tie break. And he was like, whoa. I don't think he was expecting the level of intensity from either team. No, sure. It was so, so sweet of him to come.
Elise Hu (05:16):
Good, good.
Doree Shafrir (05:17):
So yeah, so more to come on that, but in the meantime,
Elise Hu (05:20):
Yes, in the meantime your questions and your voicemails and voice memos.
Doree Shafrir (05:24):
Yes, yes. And we've actually gotten quite a bit of feedback on the episode we did with Vanessa about aging parents, some of which we'll actually get to next week because there was so much
Elise Hu (05:40):
Wow.
Doree Shafrir (05:41):
I think, and I think people will continue to write and call in about this. It seems to have really struck a chord with a lot of people. So first off we have a text that said, just wanted to say, I found Monday's episode about aging parents very refreshing and validating. It is a perspective. We don't get to hear much these days due to changes in our culture.
Elise Hu (06:08):
Culture has long valorized youth, but in this tech optimization world, we're in constantly optimizing for everything including our bodies. We're sort of not allowed to age. I mean we talk about this with respect to our skin, but it's like it makes so many large swaths of the population have to disappear into the shadows. And I don't want to disappear into the shadows. I don't want to course not have digital solutions or just solutions, community-based solutions for what is a major demographic shift, which is there's so many boomers who are now in their seventies and eighties and we've got to take care of each other and take care of our parents. And so it's so exorbitantly expensive, which actually gets into the next text.
Doree Shafrir (06:53):
Yes.
Elise Hu (06:54):
Just to piggyback off of Wednesday's texter episode 3 74 with Vanessa, I also felt overwhelmed by the financial privilege. I know it was an example, but the advice to set aside some money, like $100,000 is so wildly unrealistic for most people. My parents have nearly nothing to their names and I hate to think I'm alone in this. I would've liked to hear options for those of us who have parents that didn't or couldn't set themselves or their children up. Thank you for reporting on this important subject though.
Doree Shafrir (07:30):
So I didn't really talk about this in the episode because I felt like we were sharing Vanessa's story,
(07:36)
But my grandparents basically had nothing when they got older and they were only able to stay in their home because they had a reverse mortgage. And when my grandmother died, my grandfather, I mean he couldn't function, he didnt have dementia, he couldn't of himself, but he couldn't really take care of himself. And she had died because she fell. They were still in their house, they were still mentally fine. And so my mom arranged to move him up to the Boston area to move into a nursing home and she was able to get it covered by Medicaid because he had zero assets. He didn't own the home anymore because they'd done a reverse mortgage and that means he basically sell it back to the bank. So yeah, I just want to offer that they definitely did not have a hundred thousand dollars saved. They had, they had nothing to their name, but yeah, so
Elise Hu (08:41):
I worry about how predatory some of these banks are too
Doree Shafrir (08:47):
For
Elise Hu (08:47):
Seniors too because you watch Fox News and half of the commercials are anti blood coagulants and then the other half are reverse mortgages. But yeah, there needs to be a whole much larger structural change towards caregiving. Totally. Not only for the very old but also the very young.
Doree Shafrir (09:06):
Yes. And I also just want to acknowledge they obviously had, there are levels of privilege. They had no financial assets, but they had my mom who was able to spend the time to figure out how to make it all happen and get him into a home that would take Medicaid. And so he had that and I don't know, there's definitely many layers of privilege involved even if you don't have the financial assets. So I just want to acknowledge that too. But the listener who wrote in last week talking about why didn't we talk about multi-generational household? I mean, no, I don't think there was any world in which my parents could move my grandfather into their apartment. That wasn't really an option either. So it's tough.
Elise Hu (09:59):
Yeah, it's a structural problem in the way we live where this country favors these nuclear families, but that's an incredibly totally vulnerable unit.
Doree Shafrir (10:08):
Yep, exactly. Okay, and last message about this before we take a break. Hi, do Elise, thank you for having Vanessa on to talk about aging parents. It's a topic that scares me, so it's nice to dip a toe into it with the lovely community you've created. One thing that jumped out at me during the interview was the conversation about estrangement. I've long been estranged from a parent 20 plus years and it's given me immeasurable peace over the years. The very things that led me to the difficult decision to become estranged are the ones that reassure me that I need not shoulder the burden of caring for that parent ever in the future. I know not everyone has reached a similar stage of peace and wanted to speak up about it. Lest that interview, leave them with guilt or doubt that does not serve them. Thinking blood is thicker than water has allowed many people to enable and cover for a multitude of sins,
Elise Hu (11:03):
Especially in some cultures that really favor filial piety like Asian cultures like mine. One of my closest friends has decided to become estranged from her father who was very, in lots of ways emotionally abusive and toxic towards her and she still kind of goes back and forth on like, oh, but he deserves to see his grandkids and I still need to check up on 'em. And this whole sort of going back and forth on it because of the values that you learn, respect your elders, respect your elders, and that's true for so many other cultures. So yeah, it's like give yourself a lot of grace I think is just the only overarching advice that we can give because everybody's situation is unique.
Doree Shafrir (11:45):
Yes, that's a really important point. If you would like to weigh in on this, you can call or text us at five nine one zero three nine zero. You can email us at Forever35podcast@gmail.com. You can also email us voice memos at that address. You can visit our website Forever35podcast.com. We have links there to everything we mentioned on the show. We are on Instagram at Forever35 Podcast and we have a newsletter at Forever35podcast.com/newsletter and you can shop our favorite products at shopmy.us/forever35 and after the break we have a bunch of messages about career change, second acts, second acts, and also a request for feedback on some skincare stuff. Okay, great. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. All right, we are back. We're going to kick things off with that voicemail.
Listener Voicemail (12:52):
Hi. Doree and Elise, have you or anyone in the pod group ever used vitamin E oil for moisturizing your skin? I do and I find it really helpful when the weather changes or when I need a little bit of extra moisturizer, I usually do that and then we'll put petroleum or something along those lines and I notice a pretty good difference in my skin also, if I've picked anything and it's healing, the vitamin E oil usually helps heal that pretty quickly as well, so I was just curious on any feedback about that.
Elise Hu (13:31):
Doree, are you a vitamin E user, Dave OT?
Doree Shafrir (13:35):
I am not. I'm a vitamin C user, although vitamin C and E are often combined, like the SkinCeuticals CE ferulic is vitamin C and vitamin E
Elise Hu (13:51):
When I was little, I don't know, I read some 17 magazine or something about vitamin E oil on your lips and so I got a bottle of vitamin E pills, just the supplement and you can just open 'em up. Yeah, you can and I would use that. Yeah, I would just open them up and use that on my lips and I actually found it very hydrating, so I like that in the winter. I also like face and body oils and I think I've talked about this before, the body oil I really like is the or bay face and body oil for faith oils Sunday. Riley does that CEO glow oil that I like a lot and I think that they have supported us in the past. You can also find it at Sephora and that's a good one too, but I don't know if it has vitamin E in it to the extent I use vitamin E, I just open up one of the nature made supplements, pat it on my lips. It's a very hacky way to use it.
Doree Shafrir (14:46):
I'd love to hear if other listeners have found vitamin E in any form helpful. So if you have let us know. Alright, and now we're going to move on to a completely different topic. Elise, do you want to read this next email?
Elise Hu (15:02):
Sure. I am responding to the caller who is asking about making a career change without getting an expensive degree. I work in HR and want to share my perspective. Many companies are now shifting towards something called skill-based hiring versus degree hiring. That means hiring managers are looking for people who can show that they have certain skills versus a degree in a certain field. Let's say someone wants to work in project management, they can take a course in project management often at a reasonable cost and receive a certificate which certifies that they have project management skills and can work As a project manager. I suggest the caller to start thinking about what they enjoy doing, what energizes them and what comes easy to them, and then put these things into a generative AI tool and ask what skills or roles these interests could translate to and then look into certificate programs or certifications that they could get. Also, if the caller is currently employed at a company, many have tuition reimbursement programs for their employees that also cover certificate or certification programs. This might be something else to look into. Good luck on this journey.
Doree Shafrir (16:03):
Okay, this is great advice. I am always curious whether those certifications or courses are if anyone cares about them, you know what I mean? Or are they just sort of money grabs? I can't tell. So it's interesting to hear this person say that maybe some hiring managers actually do look at those.
Elise Hu (16:25):
Yeah. Yeah, I think for certain methods like the agile scrum method, people want you to be certified in that if that's the kind of project management system that they use in their shop. So it could be helpful, especially if it's low cost to get the certification.
Doree Shafrir (16:42):
For sure, for sure. Alright, and now we have a voicemail that some people might consider a little controversial because it involves how people can use AI to help them with the job search. My view on this is that job searching right now is so messed up and hard that if you're using ai, I think that's fine in this current hellscape of job searching, I don't fault anyone for using AI at all and I do think it's helpful to hear about how you can use AI to help you in your job search. I think we got to do whatever it takes to get jobs right now, so that's where I stand. I do not speak for Elise, so she might
Elise Hu (17:31):
Feel, well I told you I saw that chart that eating beef is way worse than a simple search and so now I'm like I need to cut back on my beef
Doree Shafrir (17:38):
And I already don't eat beef so it's like I've bought carbon credit or something. Yeah, have your search. Exactly. Alright, here we go.
Listener Voicemail (17:46):
Hey Doree, this messages for the caller that was looking to switch fields completely and wondered how to switch and was asking for HR folks to weigh in. If your resume is all one thing, how do you switch something else? And this might be a controversial recommendation, but I worked with the federal government and it's terrible out there and we're all scrambling and I've done this my whole career in like 20 years, but for obvious reasons, I'm starting to look outside of the federal government and I attached into chat GPT, my current resume and the job description that I wanted to apply to, which was outside of the federal government. And I said, I just talked to it. I was a person, I was like, I've worked for the federal government doing this forever with tribes, with federally recognized tribes, but I went to work for a law firm with tribes doing policy stuff.
(18:47)
Can you make my resume, turn it from a federal facing resume to a law firm resume and within literal seconds it's advice and its recommendations were incredible. And then I asked if to spit out a cover letter, which was also incredible. It all needs editing and it's not perfect, but I would encourage the listener to try to utilize AI as much as possible and really say, these are the qualities I have, this is what I want to go to tailor it towards this and it honestly is really incredible. I know there's an environmental impact. I work at EPA, I get it, the AI and the water resources, but I mean really use it as a tool for you and it's been mutually beneficial to
Elise Hu (19:33):
You. Okay. It is amazing what some of these models can do
Doree Shafrir (19:37):
And
Elise Hu (19:38):
Help you think of. So thank you for calling
Doree Shafrir (19:41):
And now this is also a career related question, but on kind of a different angle.
(19:49)
So a listener named Coco wrote in and said, hi, Dorian Elise. I have a 19-year-old son who never really loves school, although he did well in high school and is now attending community college. Both my husband and I have degrees from four year colleges and it never really occurred to me when my son was younger that he wouldn't follow in our footsteps in that way. He does not know what he wants to study or if community college is the right path for him. We have talked to him about looking into the trades as well. My question is have other listeners experienced this? How did you help your child explore what is out there for them? Any recommendations on where to turn to help them find their way? I know we can't do it for him, nor should we, but I just want to give him some ideas about where to look. He seems a bit lost these days. Thank you for reading this and for all you ladies do. Love the Forever35 community. I mean, who isn't lost these days?
Elise Hu (20:39):
I know.
Doree Shafrir (20:40):
First of all, I really sympathize. 19 year olds are not the only ones lost these days, but correct to your question. Elise, do you have any thoughts on this? This is sort of like
Elise Hu (20:53):
I would actually go back to the voicemail that we just heard earlier in the show about what do you love? What does he love, what does he find easy doing? What would he do even if he weren't paid for it? I feel like that's always a great place to start because I think that I would be chatting with friends and it doesn't have to be at a mic, but asking questions and exploring ideas even if I weren't paid for it. And so it's just a huge privilege that I get to do it for work and get paid for it. I love that. Maybe observe everybody has things that make them feel more alive and more energized and observe that in your son and that could lead to a path. The other way to think about it is just to get a job and do the job that's a job and maybe can be kind of a grind, but then have really a rich leisure life. Have a rich life with hobbies and friends and community outside of whatever you do for work. And you can kind of separate the two because we don't all have to buy into the mantra that your work is your family and that you live for your job or that your job is your identity. We don't have to be that way either, so there's different ways to take it.
Doree Shafrir (22:08):
I love that advice and it sounds like you're a really supportive parent and I just want to acknowledge that.
Doree Shafrir (22:15):
Yeah,
Doree Shafrir (22:16):
Thanks for being supportive of your son. All right. We are going to take another short break and when we come back we have a couple suggestions for the listener who wrote in or called in recently about how to support a friend of hers going through IVF. So we got some great suggestions from listeners.
Elise Hu (22:36):
Alright, I'm looking forward to it. Alright, we'll be
Doree Shafrir (22:38):
Right back. We'll be right back. Alright, we're back. And this listener said, hi Doen Elise, after seven years of listening to you, I just had my first pause the pod moment. Wow, it's never too late. And they say I'm writing in regards to the listener who is asking for suggestions for an IVF care package for her, there are actually two things that really helped me and would be easy to gift. They are a good handheld vibrating massager and an electric heating pad. My son was born through IVF almost four years ago. We had to do two cycles, so it was approximately four months in total of daily progesterone shots in my butt. I've been there. I'd read about lots of people suffering terrible bruising and lumps and soreness from these shots. And so I was looking for all the tips to avoid this. The ones that I kept seeing repeated were heat and massaging.
Doree Shafrir (23:38):
When
Doree Shafrir (23:38):
It was time for my shot, I would lie down on my stomach and just relax with the heating pad on my butt for about 10 minutes. My husband would administer the shot, look up Dr. Lisa on YouTube for the best technique for this.
Elise Hu (23:49):
Okay, we'll link to that.
Doree Shafrir (23:50):
Then he would use the massager on the injection site through the heating pad for five minutes. We did not try doing any shots without heat and massage, so I don't know if I would've been fine without them, but with them I did not have any soreness or bruising or lumps. The shots were tedious, but that's the worst thing I can say about them. Love you guys and thanks so much for all that you do, Elizabeth.
Elise Hu (24:11):
This actually made me remember a TED talk that Dr. Amy Baxter gave. She is a pain expert and she's been researching pain and reduction of pain and reduction in how we feel pain for her whole career and found that the buzz buzzing and vibration is something that really reduces pain and so we need to be using. That's interesting. Yes. Vibrating massage a lot more than we do. So that's what made me think of it. There's a TED Talk, Dr. Amy Baxter. It is hilarious and enlightening. So check that out and thank you to the caller. Okay, very
Doree Shafrir (24:46):
Cool. Thank you for that. Alright, and to wrap things up, we have a voicemail,
Listener Voicemail (24:54):
Two recommendations for the what to send to a friend going through IVF or anything else that's really hard. One is the malicious women candle company on Amazon. They have really funny sayings on them and you just have to go look at them. One of them is the Badass and Me honors, the Badass in You. Just funny things like that. And I sent one to my friend completely unannounced and she got it and she just thought it was hilarious and so she would light it whenever she wanted to kind of think about me and know that I was thinking of her. And then the other thing that my friends did for me, I think after one of my kids was born was if you have Whole Foods or another fancy grocery store near that, you can do delivery. They had just a bunch of stuff delivered to my door. And the nice thing about someplace like Whole Foods is like you can deliver flowers and cupcakes and face masks and just granola bars different. They picked out just fun treats that I would've never bought for myself and they just appeared at the door with flowers and cupcakes and it was just a really nice thing. Those are both things that you can do also for someone who doesn't live near you at all, which is great. Okay, bye.
Elise Hu (26:19):
I really like that. And it's not even just for IVF support too. I have a friend whose dog is now in hospice care and I should do it for her today, so that's great.
Doree Shafrir (26:30):
That's a bummer. I'm sorry about your friend.
Elise Hu (26:32):
Oh pets. Yeah. Aging pets so hard.
Doree Shafrir (26:37):
Well, everyone, thank you so much for listening, for writing in for calling in, and we will talk to you again soon. For those of you on the Patreon, we will talk to you on Friday in the casual chat.
Elise Hu (26:50):
That's right.
Doree Shafrir (26:51):
Talk soon.