The Millennial Sandwich
The Millennial Sandwich is a podcast for the generation raising kids while watching their parents age. Hosted by geriatrician Dr. Anita Chandra and parenting journalist Zara Hanawalt, it explores what it means to be part of the sandwich generation: caring for aging parents, navigating motherhood, and trying to make room for your own life, too. Through honest conversations with experts and people living it, we talk about caregiving, family, friendship, and the questions no one prepared us to answer. For the generation holding it all together.
How Do You Talk to Kids About Death and Dying? With Jessica Correnti
It's something nearly every member of the sandwich generation has thought about: What's the best way to talk to young kids — or older kids, or teens — about death, dying, and grief?
Certified Child Life Specialist Jessica Correnti is here with practical, actionable tips. Her advice isn't prescriptive; it honors the fact that kids (just like adults!) process heavy things in a variety of ways. Â
But if you've found youself in need of guidance on how to open up these conversations, you're in the right place.Â
Find Jessica's books here.
This episode...
Is This a Podcast or a Therapy Session? Our Season 1 Recap & Finale
Season 1 of The Millennial Sandwich is officially wrapped!Â
From the first episode we recorded (which, spoiler alert, has still never been released) to this season 1 recap, we've learned so much, felt so seen, and found ourselves asking..."is this a podcast or a therapy session" over and over again.
In this episode, we talk about what we took away from our first season, what you can expect from us down the line, and what we hope to deliver in our second season. But most of all, we just...talk.Â
We get into:...
The Most Surprising Stat About the Sandwich Generation with Care.com's Naaz Nichols
Naaz Nichols is Care.com's Chief Customer Experience Officer. She's also a sandwich generation caregiver — and that lived experience gives her the tools to fully understand what other caregivers truly need.
In this episode, Naaz joins us to share the details of Care.com's first ever Sandwich Generation Report. She shares a statistic that may shock you.
Naaz also gets deeply personal about her own experiences with sandwich generation caregiving.
We discuss:
How real-life caregiving makes you better at your job (even if your job doesn't involve serving caregivers)What it...How to Notice Your Parents' Signs of Aging Before There's a Crisis
If you're a millennial, there's a good chance you've noticed some changes in how your parents function. Maybe they're moving differently, or they're repeating themselves more, or they're simply just...not as confident as they used to be.
But if you're in the sandwich generation, noticing those changes in how your parents behave is especially complicated — because while you want to stay on top of those changes, you're so busy raising your kids, you barely have time to consider what they could mean.Â
Co-host Dr. Anita Chandra, a geriatrician and expert in aging weighs in...
The Myth of 'Doing it All' with Multi-Hyphenate Hitha Palepu
Personally and professionally, Hitha Palepu wears a lot of hats. She's a mother of boys (but not a boy mom), a daughter of immigrants, and only child, a pharma CEO, a content creator, an author, a speaker...and that's not even an exhuastive list.
It's easy to look at someone like Hitha and wonder how she does it all. But here's the thing: She doesn't.Â
Hitha talks us through how she makes her multi-hyphanted life work...and also, what she doesn't do. Because doing a lot is not the same as doing it all.
Why is Everyone Still Treating Care Like it's Worthless? with Elissa Strauss
Care work has value, economically and beyond — yet both our systems and our culture refuse to acknowledge this.Â
Nobody understands this deep devaluation better than Elissa Strauss, who (literally) wrote the book (When You Care) on the true value of care.Â
In this episode, Elissa, Anita & Zara discuss:
The longheld idea that motherhood shouldn't "take over" your identityThe interdependency of policy and culture where caregiving is concernedThe biggest misconceptions people have about care workOur cultural obsession with independence and preservation of youthThe caregiving secrets many of us keepHow tradwife and girlboss narratives fail caregiversWhat Will the Midlife Crisis Look Like for Millennial Women?
Millennials are preparing for their midlife era...and it's bringing up a lot of questions.Â
For example...
Does every generation feel this way at this age?Why do we feel so much younger *and* so much older than we actually are?What do I actually want to be when I grow up?I've done all the things I set out to do. Now what?And, perhaps most importantly...do women even get to have a midlife crisis?Anita and Zara are getting into all of it...and exploring the wild identity shift that comes when y...
Young Caregiving & Alzheimer's with Jessica C. Guthrie
Jessica C. Guthrie was your typical ambitious millennial. She had it all figured out: The big dreams, the Ivy League education, the clear path to the top. And then, when Jessica was 26, her mom's Alzheimer's Disease diagnosis changed the plan.
In this episode, Jessica, a caregiving advocate and consultant, joins Anita and Zara to talk about the realities of being a young caregiver. Â
They cover:
How Jessica realized it was time to go from long-distance caregiver to in-person caregiverWhat the medical community ought to understand about patient and caregiver experiencesThe effect becoming a...Anxiety, Avoidance & Anticipatory Grief with Claire Bidwell Smith
Grief doesn't always follow the five stages that have become a fixture in cultural conversations about loss. The reality? Grief can show up in a costume...and it doesn't always begin when someone dies.
Claire Bidwell Smith, therapist, author, and grief expert joins Anita and Zara for a conversation about the elements of grief we rarely discuss. It's a perspective-shifting conversation that may help you recognize surprising ways grief has presented in your own life.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Grief and Loss
02:54 The Shift in Grief Conversations
05:45 The Loneliness of...
Undoing Generational Patterns Without Losing Your Parents With Dr. Mona Amin
One of the hallmarks of millennial parenting? Knowing so much (maybe...too much?) about raising kids, yet constantly feeling undermined by the people who raised you.Â
Even the experts are experiencing this. See: Dr. Mona Amin, a pediatrician, content creator and podcaster who shares parenting advice with over 2 million followers across Instagram and TikTok, yet has stumbled through the complexities of maintaining intergenerational harmony in her own family.
In this episode, Dr. Mona speaks to Anita and Zara about:
How to react when you hear your parents criticize your parentingWhy boys are just as v...Radical Honesty, Ragebait Content & Cycle Breaking with Libby Ward
As a content creator and author of Honest Motherhood: Losing My Mind and Finding Myself, Libby Ward built her platform on radical honesty. In this conversation, she delivers just that. Come for Libby's story, which includes a lifetime of caregiving responsibility, and stay for Libby's sharp, unfiltered opinions about the state of motherhood today.
Libby speaks to Anita and Zara about:
How being a caregiver as a child affected her in motherhoodWhy so many mothers feel invisible after giving birthWhat it's really like to break cycles in parenthoodHow she realized selflessness shouldn't be viewed as a...How We Realized We Were in the Sandwich Generation
There's no formal introduction to the sandwich generation. Chances are, you've been in it for longer than you realize — at least if your sandwich generation story is anything like our experiences.
Anita and Zara, hosts of The Millennial Sandwich, get deeply personal in this episode (yes, there were tears!). From how they each discovered they were officially in the sandwich generation, to what it's like to lose a parent and put your grief on hold in the name of staying strong for everybody else, to the loneliness of being an only child in the sandwich...they go th...
Is Marriage Supposed to be Hard? Partnership as Parents with Eli Weinstein
Having kids is going to change your relationship — that's inevitable. But that doesn't mean your partnership is doomed after you have kids. Eli Weinstein, LCSW therapist, host of The Dude Therapist and author of From I Do to We Do is here to break down our most pressing questions about partnership as parents.
Think...
Is marriage supposed to feel hard?Will we be okay without date nights?Is it normal for my marriage to feel different now that we have kids?How do I address issues in my marriage when I just don't have the emotional ca...Are Millennials Financially Doomed? With Financial Advisor Bonnie Mangold
It's not in your head: Millennials really are fighting an uphill battle when it comes to finances.Â
We're navigating astronomical childcare costs, an unstable job market, inflation, and more...and while still paying back our student loans. Meanwhile, we're being told the reason we're financially strapped is because we overspend on lattes and avocado toast.
On this episode, financial advisor, mom of two, and eldest daughter Bonnie Mangold joins Anita and Zara to talk about the financial realities of being a millennial in the sandwich generation. This isn't your standard financial breakdown — Bonnie gets real abo...
The Content-ification of Caregiving, 'Yesteryear' & 'Rugrats'
Anita and Zara discuss the evolution of media representation of caregiving. From 'Leave it Beaver' and other depictions of 1950's suburbia, to the social media-driven landscape we're currently navigating, representation of caregiving has evolved...but has it really changed all that much?
The hosts dig into their opinions, share thoughts on the buzzy tradwife novel Yesteryear, reflect on the cartoon that raised us (Rugrats!), and end with a rapid fire round of "which social media mom archetype would our nostalgic TV faves embody today?"
00:00 Navigating the Millennial Media Landscape
03:06 The Evolution of Parenting Media<...
Everything You Think You Know About the Mental Load is Wrong with Leah Ruppanner
Leah Ruppanner, a sociologist and the author of Drained, joins Anita and Zara to discUss the complexities of mental load.
In this conversation, Leah debunks common misconceptions and explains how emotional thinking work impacts burnout and gender norms. This conversation offers research-backed insights and practical advice for understanding and managing mental load in everyday life.
In this episode we cover:
Mental load as emotional thinking workThe eight types of mental loadGender differences in mental loadImpact of social norms on mental loadStrategies to manage and reduce mental loadChapters
<...What Does it Mean to be a Good Daughter? with Dr. Allison Alford
Dr. Allison Alford, PhD, a researcher and the author of Good Daughtering, joins Anita and Zara to discuss the concept of daughtering, its emotional labor, and its significance across generations. Discover how recognizing and valuing daughtering can transform relationships, foster resilience, and expand our understanding of womanhood.
Key Topics
The concept of daughtering and its originsEmotional labor involved in daughteringGenerational differences in daughtering expectationsChapters
00:00
Introduction to Good Daughtering
02:55
The Concept of Daughtering
05:27
The Emotional Labor of Daughters
08:20
Generational...
Surprise, We're in the Sandwich Generation (and You Probably Are Too)
What happens when a journalist who covers parenting and a physician who cares for older adults enter the sandwich generation? If Zara Hanawalt and Dr. Anita Chandra's experiences are any indication, no amount of expertise can truly prepare you for what it's really like to be in the sandwich generation.Â
Join longtime friends Anita and Zara they explore the complexities of the millennial sandwich generation, balancing parenthood, daughterhood, and personal identity.Â
This episode offers insights, nostalgia, and community support for those navigating multi-generational caregiving and self-care.
Key Topics
The concept of...Guilt, Friendship and The Baby-Sitters-Club Series with Saumya Dave
Saumya Dave, psychiatrist, author, and mental health advocate joins Anita and Zara to discuss the complex emotions of guilt, the importance of authentic friendships, and the societal expectations placed on women and mothers. She shares personal stories, insights from research, and practical advice on navigating mental health and relationships in modern life.
Key Topics
The different types of guilt and their impact on womenThe importance of authentic friendships and social connectionSocietal expectations and their influence on women and mothersThe role of vulnerability and honesty in mental healthStrategies for managing guilt and fostering self-compassion<...
