Facing the Challenges of the Sandwich Generation with Jenny Hutt

Hey everybody, Jen Hatmaker here, your host of the For The Love podcast. If you’ve been tuning into the regular podcast lately, we are doing this just really dynamic series called For the Love of the Middle, and we’re covering all kinds of topics like aging and empty nesting and managing our, our parents who are getting older. All the hard parts of life that kind of no one prepares you for. Well, for our premium listeners, we wanted to extend this conversation a bit with a beloved friend of mine, a dear person to me, Jenny Hutt. She is smack in the middle of her life just like us, and she can talk all things about being the sandwich generation, which is what, what is that?

Well, for those of you who maybe don’t know, it’s this generation of people usually in about their like forties and fifties, somewhere in that range who are both responsible for raising our own children and getting them launched. And Jenny and I talk about this quite a bit. Even when they’re launched at the young adult stage, they still need a lot of parenting and also caring for our aging parents and also probably still working full-time. Um, you’re, you’re not, you’re not retired, so you still have this whole full adult life and you’re kind being tugged at both sides. So it’s double the responsibilities, double the caretaking, and we’re kind of doing it all. And in some cases trying to hang on for dear life. My parents are still like relatively healthy, but in the last five years we have been through cancer and surgeries and I mean, we’re, we’re experiencing that, in our family right now.

And then of course, I’ve got one kid still at home and four in various stages of launch, but not really. And so I like, I understand this, I understand feeling like, whoa, which way do I go? So whether you’re managing, being a part of the sandwich generation or you’re just mentally preparing yourself for that phase of life, which will come, if you’re not to it, it’s not that far away. You could be like, “been there done that.” I think you’re gonna love this raw and tender and good and hopeful conversation with my friend Jenny. 

Jenny Hutt is the host of the Just Jenny podcast, and then for years hosted the Just Jenny Radio show on SiriusXM. She’s also the founder of Bunny Eyez Eyewear. The tagline is “not your mother’s reading glasses.” I adore that and I have easily a dozen pairs.

She actually just lost her father in November, and so she has just entered this post sandwich part of life. But as we talk about at length, managing someone’s affairs and estate after they are gone can either be, um, um, sort of tidy and managed and well prepared for, or it can be an absolute burden and you’re gonna hear her talk through that too. And so she had so many good things to say about navigating both spaces and I love her. She, um, has, we became friends via her show. She found me and she was like, “can you come be on my show the next time you’re in New York?” And I was like, “absolutely.” And we’ve been friends ever since. And so I’m delighted to have her in my space and I’m delighted to introduce her to you if you’ve never met her before. So without any further ado, here is a, just a really special conversation with my friend Jenny Hutt.

Mentioned in this Episode: 

Bunny Eyez Eyewear

For You When I Am Gone
by Rabbi Steve Leder

Stay Connected with Jen Hatmaker: 

FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | TIKTOK | YOUTUBE | WEB

Thanks for listening to the For the Love Podcast!

XO – Team Jen