So Your Parents Are Old

How To Avoid Scams with Patrick Coughlin

Cybersecurity expert and author of The Dark Side of the Boom Patrick Coughlin joins Vanessa to talk about the scams coming for our parents and their bank accounts. They get into AI voice cloning, spoofed numbers, why seniors are such major targets, and what to do when someone calls with an emergency that feels terrifyingly real.Check out Scamwise for help spotting suspicious texts, emails, phone calls, and mail.

Senior Living, and When Does Gen X Move In? With Neil Nagraj and Laura House

Senior care advisor Neil Nagraj and podcaster Laura House join Vanessa to talk about the impossible math of senior housing: when aging in place stops working, what assisted living actually is, and why so many families wait for a crisis before making a plan. Also discussed: memory care, Medicaid myths, long-term care insurance, and Gen X’s grim future.Learn more about Neil’s company, The Senior Housing Authority. For more from Laura, listen to How’s Your Boomer? or subscribe to the newsletter.  

Revisit: No One Should Live This Long with Comedian Lewis Black

This is an episode where we get mad! Comedian ⁠Lewis Black⁠ cared for his late elderly parents, who lived to 101 and 104. He talks about something nobody wants to even think about: what he'll do when he's too old to care for himself. Hear more from Lewis in his podcast, ⁠Lewis Black's Rantcast⁠, or read one of his ⁠books⁠.

Feeling At Peace with Your Life with Joan Lunden

Joan Lunden joins Vanessa to talk about her new memoir, JOAN: Life Beyond the Script, and the moments that forced her off-script: bringing her baby to work at Good Morning America, living through divorce in public, surviving breast cancer, caring for her mother, and deciding what she wants for her own later years. If you want to hear more about preserving brain health, listen to our episode with Dr. Majid Fotuhi.

The Most Complicated Dad Ever with Jessie Buttafuoco, from The Gratitudeology Podcast

This week, we’re sharing an episode from The Gratitudeology Podcast with Jamie Hess, featuring Jessie Buttafuoco. Jessie opens up about the shocking event that changed her family forever, the media storm that followed, and what it means to revisit a painful chapter with perspective, honesty, and compassion.