Forever35 – Mini-Episode 468: When You "Don't Fit"

Hosts: Doree Shafrir & Elise Hu
Date: November 5, 2025

Episode Overview

In this dynamic mini-episode, Doree and Elise tackle the emotionally charged terrain of aging parents—including tech challenges, dementia care, and practical support services—while weaving in their signature humor and warmth. Listeners' voicemails drive much of the conversation, offering both practical tips and emotional solidarity. The hosts also share amusing tangents about TV culture, household hacks, and close with a thought-provoking call on societal attitudes toward thinness and health, underscoring the complexity of body acceptance and medical bias.

Main Topics & Key Discussion Points

1. Navigating Aging Parents and Screen Time

• Generational Challenges with Technology
  • Elise discusses the influx of AI-generated, often nonsensical videos her father shares, paralleling discourse around children's screen time with the less acknowledged but real issue of "boomer screen time."
  • (02:08) Elise Hu:

    "We talk so much. There's so much discourse about kids and screen time. But what about our parents and screen time?"

  • Doree relates, mentioning monitoring her mother’s YouTube consumption and the unique risks tied to seniors' digital payments and scams.
• Reflection on Technology-Free Elders
  • Doree shares that her grandparents never had the internet—once frustrating, now something she views more positively given current digital landscape pitfalls.
  • (04:14) Doree Shafrir:

    "In retrospect, I'm like, you know what? It's probably for the best that they did not have the Internet."

2. Listener Voicemails: Caregiving for Aging Parents

A. Hiring a Senior Care Consultant

• (13:03–16:34) Listener details how a senior care consultant helped manage her parents’ transition to assisted living, including:
  • Navigating stubbornness, activating long-term insurance, and finding appropriate facilities and aides.
  • Services extended to move managers who complete the downsizing and moving process.
• Advice:
  • If financially possible, investing in professional help alleviated massive stress—and, as the caller joked, it “was definitely cheaper than the extra therapy appointments I would have needed.”
  • (15:53) Listener Quote:

    "...if you can scrape together even a little bit of cash for some time with a senior care consultant, it was truly a lifesaver for us."

B. Dealing with Dementia—"Meeting People Where They Are"

• (18:12–20:28) Listener shares about her father’s dementia, recommending empathetic, moment-based caregiving instead of struggling for “logic” or reality.
  • “It's really hard not to get frustrated and sad and mad at them when they're...not being the parent that you are used to having. It's a long term period of mourning for them while they are still alive.”
  • Using redirection and comfort within the loved one’s perceived reality can yield more joyful moments.
• Doree and Elise resonate with the advice, discussing their parents’ health and support needs, and emphasizing the emotional labor on caregivers more than patients.

3. Quick Hits: Humor and Life Updates

• Deadwood and TV Star Mysteries
  • Elise recounts her anticipation for a trip to Deadwood, SD, and the ongoing joke with her husband about the prominence of actress Molly Parker on LA billboards.
• Soccer Mom Season Ends
  • Elise is relieved as her daughter’s packed soccer season concludes, with light banter about the exhaustion involved.

4. Listener Advice & Life Hacks

A. Towel Overhaul

• (21:22–22:43) A listener recommends Costco bath sheets for their size and value.
  • Elise contemplates the catharsis of purging mismatched towels and socks, suggesting recurring household “refreshes.”

B. Solidarity in Caregiving

• Doree underlines the importance of sharing stories to break isolation:
  • (21:04) Doree Shafrier:

    "I think it's like comforting to people to hear that other people are going through the same stuff."

5. Weight Loss, Thinness, and Medical Bias

• Speech-Language Pathologist’s Soapbox (26:10–29:38)
  • The final voicemail brings a sobering perspective: patients with serious illness may celebrate extreme, unintentional weight loss due to cultural bias favoring thinness.
  • The caller urges a shift in focus from size to health and function:

    "...our culture, even when you were that sick, still [sees] skinniness as being the goodness of a person."

• Elise strongly agrees, referencing body liberation journalist Virginia Sole-Smith and the dangers of conflating thinness with health.
  • (29:38) Elise Hu:

    "Thinness does not necessarily equal health. ...A lot of doctors have anti-fat bias. ...We problematize bodies that don't ‘fit’... then we create this market for a solution."

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On intergenerational tech anxiety:
  • “I now have to like, treat my parents like my children when it comes to screen time.” — Doree, 02:57
• Caregiver burnout and boundaries:
  • “You don’t have to make your job your identity. …You could also just do the job and have a rich life outside of work.” — Elise, 08:47
• Dementia caregiving:
  • “It’s a long term period of mourning for them while they are still alive. …But you can still have some joyful moments with them if you just kind of meet them where they’re at.” — Listener, 19:00
• Household hacks as self-care:
  • “Maybe we give all of our towels to the vet and we just start fresh... I feel this way about socks every once in a while.” — Elise, 22:12
• Cultural bias on health:
  • “I routinely would have to fight for patients to get, you know, alternative means of nutrition... because it was not okay that they were losing this much weight.” — Listener, 28:00

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------------------------|---------------| | Parental Screen Time, Boomers & Tech | 01:43–04:39 | | Listener: Senior Care Consultant & Move Managers | 13:03–16:34 | | Listener: Dementia—Meeting People Where They Are | 18:12–20:28 | | Listener: Towel (and Household) Refresh Advice | 21:22–22:43 | | Listener: Thinness, Health & Medical Bias Perspective | 26:10–29:38 | | Body Acceptance: Reflections on Medicine & Culture | 29:38–31:09 |

Conclusion

This mini-episode underscores the realities—and shared vulnerabilities—of caring for aging parents, navigating household chaos, and resisting societal pressures about bodies and self-worth. With the Forever35 community at its core, Doree, Elise, and their listeners cultivate both practical wisdom and a supportive environment for listeners “who don’t fit,” in any sense of the phrase.