I am so very excited to share this special guest recording from Butterfly Days podcast hosted by Tami Jorden. You are seriously going to love it and learn so much!
Tami brings a special perspective and an honest and insightful approach to asking questions. Her podcast explores a wide range of issues, opportunities and challenges facing Gen X and Gen Jones women.
She invited me on her Butterfly Days podcast to share insights about navigating life with aging parents - and saving your sanity while you're at it. I love being asked challenging and thoughtful questions - and Tami does just that. I encourage you to follow Butterfly Days and share it with a friend. You will learn so much on so many topics!
Your group chats are blowing up about aging parents. The house full of stuff. The car keys. The "maybe we need some help at home" conversation nobody wants to start. In this episode of Butterfly Days, I sit down with Kirsten Mau, founder and creator of Who Gets the China?, dedicated to helping sandwich generation women save their sanity while navigating life with aging parents, especially downsizing the stuff.
Kirsten and I talk about starting from what your parents want to keep, getting buy-in before you touch a single closet, selling in-home help as a gift, the dreaded car keys conversation, and how to stay on top of it all when you live half a country away. Some of what she shares is just gold, and you're probably going to want to share it with friends.
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🦋 Connect with Who Gets the China?
Substack: https://whogetsthechina.substack.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirstenmau/
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/who-gets-the-china/id1823264326
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7h3w2YWQyhMxwFIeiBH2BN
Kirsten Mau is the founder and creator of Who Gets the China?, a podcast, Substack, and website helping women of the sandwich generation navigate life with aging parents. A communications expert with years of experience building brands and organizations, Kirsten now puts those skills to work for the rest of us. She serves on the Colorado Commission on Aging and is part of multiple advocacy groups focused on aging well.
Like so many of us, Kirsten came to this work through her own family. During the pandemic, she started to reckon with the sheer volume of stuff in her mom's house, and with a bigger question underneath it: how do we care for our parents, honor their stories, and still live our own lives?
It Started with Carbon Paper 🦋
Kirsten found carbon paper in her mom's office. Her mom moved from Connecticut to California 25 years ago and had almost certainly not used carbon paper in the 25 years before that either. It's a small, lightweight thing. But it's a symbol of what so many of us are uncovering in our parents' homes.
Here's what Kirsten realized: the stuff doesn't mean anything without the stories, the connections, and the history behind it. So instead of a purge, she reframed the project as a chance to connect with her mom. And she needed one word to describe why she started all of this: stress reduction.
Start with What They Want to Keep 🦋
Kirsten's first paradigm shift is a complete flip. Don't ask "what can we get rid of?" Ask "what's important for you to have around you? What do you want to see when you wake up in the morning? What teacup do you want to use?" Start from a place of honor, appreciation, and value. Maybe you think those 20 year old slippers are ridiculous. She loves them. Respect that.
The second shift is asking permission. Do not walk into the garage and announce that everything must go. (Kirsten did. I've done my version too. We've all messed up before we even started.) Instead: "I think we should go through the frames in the front hall closet. Are you ready to do that?" Not ready? Fine. "When might you be ready?" You are putting the power back in their hands, and that buy-in changes everything.
Sometimes you see the danger zone clearly and they are simply not ready to deal with it. Kirsten, a self-described type A eldest daughter, has had to learn radical acceptance the hard way. Right now for her family, it's the resistance to bringing a part-time caregiver into the house. Until it's a must, not a nice-to-have, she practices acceptance.
And let's be honest about why our parents resist. To admit you need help is to admit that you're aging, and that the aging is actively ongoing. That's a hidden loss inside the practical problem. Understanding that softens how we approach it.
"Would You Try This as a Gift to Me?" 🦋
When it's time to bring in help, Kirsten shares language that has actually moved the needle in her family: Mom, Dad, you're doing this for me, not for you. It will help me sleep better at night. Do you want me up worrying about you? I know you don't. Would you try this as a gift to me? And nothing is set in stone. If it doesn't work, we have another conversation.
She also shared the spoons theory. You only have so many spoons of energy in a day. Is doing the dishes a spoon that really matters to you? Or is getting to garden club the spoon that matters? Some help can take a spoon or two out of the drawer for you and free you up for what you actually love.
The Car Keys Conversation 🦋
It's probably not going to go smoothly. Let's be honest. But there are ways in. Talk about it early and in the abstract, before it's looming: "What do you think would be good benchmarks for us to look at?" Then, when the time comes, you can point back to that conversation.
A few more tools from Kirsten: driving occupational therapists and AAA driving assessments exist, and the frame is not "can you drive or can't you," it's "what can we do to keep you driving safely as long as possible." Email the doctor ahead of the appointment and ask them to bring it up. And when you visit, let your parents drive at least once. If you always take the wheel, you'll never know what's actually going on.
And here's what I said to my own dad when his vision was failing: I'm almost not as worried for you as I am for the person that could be hit. He stopped cold. Most of our parents would never want to hurt someone else. Sometimes that's the truth that slows their roll.
Caregiving from a Distance 🦋
If you don't live near your parents, Kirsten's advice is to build two villages. The human one: know the neighbors, get their phone numbers, get the numbers of the people who come to the house. When Kirsten's dad needed the emergency room and neither daughter was in town, the next door neighbor jumped in because they had laid that groundwork.
And the digital one: finagle your way into your parents' electronic health record. This is critical. A HIPAA disclosure form and a call to the doctor's office can get you your own view of test results, appointments, and alerts. Then, when you join an appointment, be quiet, listen, and take notes. You're there as their advocate and support, not their boss. Trust is everything.
Have the Conversation Before It's Loaded 🦋
In my updated death doula training on dementia support, the caregivers teaching us said they have yet to see someone come into care who wasn't at least two months past when they should have started. At least. Because the conversation is so hard, we wait until we no longer have the luxury of time.
Kirsten and I both know this: it is so much easier to talk about end-of-life wishes, care decisions, even what happens to the china, when it's not loaded. When it doesn't feel urgent. Kirsten has already told her 19 year old daughter she wants a green burial. Was it a weird conversation? Sure. But there was no emotional weight attached, and now it's known. Have the little snippets of conversation now. Write the names on the backs of the photographs now.
The Baller Move Is Asking for Help 🦋
We are the "I can do this myself" generation. But as Kirsten says, the baller move is asking for help. It's not good for you, your family, or your parents when you white-knuckle this alone. And remember: you are laying the foundation and the programming for your own children. If your kids watch you give up your whole life to caregiving, that's the lesson plan they inherit. Fill your own cup. Show them a better way. That's what this whole conversation is really about: living your own best life while caring for the people you love.
It is my hope for you today that you release the idea that you have to carry your parents' aging alone, or perfectly, or silently. May you start the hard conversations while there is still ease in them, and may you begin from honor: what matters to them, what they want to keep, who they still are.
May you have the courage to ask for help and the wisdom to accept it, knowing that the baller move was never doing it all yourself. And may you protect your own precious life, your spoons, your joy, your people, even in the middle of this season. You are modeling for your children what love looks like. Make it a love that includes you.
