Cross-Generation Friendships Do Something Peer Relationships Can’t

speaker-0 (00:05.934)
Hey folks, welcome back. today we have a unique experience. I’ve had a lot of people in my interviews talking about intergeneral racial intergenerational relationships. so I thought I’d reach out to Marcy. Marcy’s with Cogenerate. they’ve set up a program and I’ll let Marcy explain that. And as part of that, she’s brought along Allison. Now it always sounds better coming from the people I introduced, so

Marcy, why don’t you explain who you are, what you do, and then I’ll turn to Alison for the same.

speaker-2 (00:41.986)
thanks so much, Neil. It’s really a pleasure to be here and to do it with my pal Allison over here. So I’m with a small nonprofit called Code Generate. We are virtual, but we operate in the United States with a small San Francisco office. I’ve been in this organization about 17 years. And our mission is to support leaders who are bridging generational divides to solve big problems in society and to also foster

beautiful things that come out of intergenerational relationships and connection. And we’re currently running a program called Koi Cogen Voices, which is to support emerging and existing thought leaders in the intergenerational space. And we’re so excited that Alison is one of our fellows in that program.

speaker-0 (01:27.298)
Perfect. Alison?

speaker-1 (01:29.33)
Thanks so much, Marcy. and thanks, Neil, for having us. so my name is Allison. I currently live in the Bay Area, San Francisco, California. And I run an organization called Joey Co. And what we do is we work with older adults who want to live their best years at home and may have an extra bedroom, and we help them rent that extra bedroom to local university students who would love to rent that room and work for the household to make their rent feel a whole lot cheaper. You can think of it kind of like au pairs for older adults.

and we’re currently operating throughout the state of California.

speaker-0 (02:03.668)
So okay, I’m Canadian. I’m supposed to be able to speak French. What’s a no pair?

speaker-1 (02:11.214)
Thank you for asking. so an au pair is a visa status in the US. So it exists in different flavors in different countries, but essentially it is an a educational program in the US where you get a visa from the State Department. If you want to come from, let’s say, France and live in the US and study for a couple of years. It’s actually a childcare program in the US. So it’s very specific to childcare and people who are typically women

come to the US for a couple of years, perform child care in a household. And it’s actually a relatively affordable US childcare option. Because the the participants of the au pair program are living in living in the home and living in a bedroom, that housing subsidy basically makes the childcare much, much more affordable. And it didn’t make sense to me why we couldn’t do something similar for the way in which we support people as they as they age in the in their homes.

speaker-0 (03:10.52)
So Marcy, originally cogenerate was called Encore, if I remember correctly, yes? And if the focus at that time was more on just the elderly, now it seems to be on the intergenerational aspects, the relationship side of things. Is that

speaker-2 (03:27.968)
Yeah, one one caveat, we we would never use the word elderly. I mean, I I actually even el older adults would be a more like acceptable language for what but but what we specifically were looking at in the in the encore phase of our existence is this new phase of life that has opened up between midlife and old age that can can last decades that never used to exist and needed a name and needed new norms and new opportunities for people like.

Whether you would call it like the post-retirement years or after a primary career or so, and I also love the way Allison speaks about the homeowners that benefit from the Joey’s. Like I think we we stay away from language like elderly, but we made we focused on that work because there was this huge increase in that population. You’ve probably heard the statistic of 11,000 people a day turning 60 and this. We we saw that.

As an incredible like resource for society and talent pool, whereas a lot of other people were talking about that aging as kind of a problem. So in those years, we were focused on how do we make the most of both those years of life, but that resource in our population. And the reason why we shifted our focus in the last few years.

Is that we’re not just an aging society, but we are actually an age diversifying society. We have no now more age diversity than we’ve ever had before, with equal numbers of people living at every age from like 77 to their 70s. And we don’t have a lot of cross-age fluency. we have a lot of generational talk about generational tension and ways that older and younger people need to learn to work together. And we aren’t exactly

kind of building a society that is built for intergenerational contact and often we’re kind of in age segregated places. So when you see something like Joey, you’re like you’re seeing a new development that’s bringing people together in new ways across age.

speaker-0 (05:32.59)
Yeah, it’s interesting. I had this conversation with somebody a while back where the old thought processes of an older person being pushed aside probably came about because we didn’t have those people living older. But now, for example, my dad is 94, I’m 61, we’re mobile, we’re able to get together and that sort of thing.

I’m almost thinking that retirement is not the right term anymore as well. So Alison, first off, you s you call yourself Joey Co. Is this an a hearken back to baby ja kangaroos? Which

speaker-1 (06:19.15)
In some ways. Yeah, in some ways. I think my goal when I was when I was naming the company was to come up with something to call the person who lived in that wasn’t caregiver, caretaker, assistant. Like it was it’s a new type of job, and I wanted a term to to sort of call that person that had dignity and respect without it being

adjacent to something that already existed. And I needed the term to be, you know, gender neutral and sort of like supportive and buoyant and fun and sort of energetic and kind of have all of those components to it. certainly baby kangaroo came up. I think it’s nice where it’s a a younger person living with an older person. It’s obviously more of a a motherly context with the with the kangaroos. a couple of folks that I’ve talked to actually bring up Joey from Friends, kind of the the the nice guy next door who pops in every once in a while, which

isn’t the worst connotation if that’s what it comes to you. but really it’s all around being able to to work with our students who we call Joeys when they live in the household as kind of the the term for the work and the type of work that the role that they’re provided.

speaker-0 (07:26.008)
So what exactly do I I’m gonna use the term kids, but that’s probably nowadays if we’re going away from certain language for older people, probably the same for younger. what do these people do? Is there a a specific role? There’s there are limits to what they do. What’s what’s a role?

speaker-1 (07:45.41)
They they do a lot of things that the household needs. I can give you some of the limits and barriers. We’re we’re not a medical service. We’re not a home health service. We’re not home care aides, you know, as formally trained. The the bright line there is usually, you know, touching. So we’re not clipping toenails. We’re not feeding or bathing, that kind of thing. but a lot of times Joeys are doing what the household doesn’t really feel like doing anymore. I like to think of it as.

You know, we like to help our hosts, so that’s what we call the homeowners. We like to help our hosts do the things they actually want to do with the amazing space they’ve created in their world and in their life. So a good example is, you know, I don’t want to walk this dog that I love so much in the rain anymore. Or I I know I should be eating healthier, but I only know the recipes I grew up cooking and I’d love someone else to help me think differently in the kitchen.

I live in an area where there’s lots and lots of hills. So I hear about you know rolling my trash cans up and down the hills or a hilly driveway or things like that. students or or young adults are incredibly helpful hands around the house. another one I hear all the time is you know, going up a ladder to change out a light bulb. You know, that’s just a different task for different people. regardless of age or ability, some people are just afraid of heights and they don’t want to change that light bulb, and it’s been out for six months.

and you know, that’s that’s really where our service comes in to better understand the household. What would make their life easier? What would make them come alive? You know, maybe they want to drive to their bridge, you know, their bridge group at night. And driving at night is just more complicated than it used to be for them. so there’s all kinds of things that make people come alive and and brighten up, and that’s where we come in to better understand what those are and pull the rest of the stuff off their plate.

speaker-0 (09:33.638)
So talk to me about the relationship situation. And I’m gonna say this to both of you. So start with you, Marcy, and then go to you, Alison, for more of the the practical side of things. What’s changing? Is there a change going on right now between the age differences?

speaker-2 (09:55.31)
I yeah, I do think a lot is changing. so first of all, one of the reasons, and I think Joey illustrates this, is just the way we live in nuclear families is changing. So I think people used to live in multi-generational households, often until young people got married. And what we have now is often situations where young people go off. They go off to school, they go off to work, and they settle somewhere else, and they’re not near their nuclear family. And maybe they’re with

Other older people, but not the older people they grew up with. And so we have like a a bit of a fragmentation. We have a decline in in joining. And that has been meaning like joining clubs, joining civic organizations, joining faith communities. all of those things used to be much higher in prior generations. And those were naturally places where people would build community and have run into people who are older or younger than them.

them and get to know their neighbors. So I think what we’re in this moment was where we are recreating new infrastructure to replace the kinds of things that have changed. A big initiative we’re doing right now is working in higher ed because higher ed was created to educate 18 to 22 year olds. While we now live in this moment with longer lives and therefore longer potential career spans, longer periods of needing purpose and engagement. And we find that

A lot of people my age, I just turned 60. Many people my age are going back to school. They’re going for certificates. They’re going to finish something they started when they were younger. They’re just curious. and many higher ed institutions are realizing that they might design themselves differently if they are designing themselves for people of all ages, not just for 18 to 22 year olds.

speaker-0 (11:45.482)
I r recently, just a couple of weeks ago, interviewed Kate Schaeffers from the University of Minnesota. And she’s you so you know Kate as well. Okay.

speaker-2 (11:52.706)
We love Kate.

Yes. Yeah. I’m I’m a guest speaker in her our one of our upcoming classes. I love TV.

speaker-0 (12:01.016)
Good. Okay, so that’s the overarching theory. Alison, what’s it actually what’s actually happening on the ground? What’s happening with these relationships?

speaker-1 (12:12.554)
I think one thing I I’m noticing a lot recently is the younger people that I work with and that I talk to and that sort of seek us out, because in some ways it is self selecting, don’t want their phones, don’t want the digital. They want the real world, the real life experiences. And I’ll give you a perfect example. One of our one of our joys was just letting me know that they actually have, you know, kitchen table.

discussions now about politics. And they’ve gotten to a point where their relationship is strong enough that they’re approaching some of the what I would call maybe touchier subjects in any relationship, familiar or otherwise, with earnestness. And and Marcy, you said this as well. There’s this curiosity in in the moment right now where

speaker-2 (12:57.026)
Real

speaker-1 (13:05.056)
the curiosity that they’re able to bring to each other’s perspective, it’s less of a debate at the kitchen table, but it is that how did you come to the opinion that you have? And tell me more about what in your life has influenced the way that this opinion has evolved and and the topic he said they were discussing was whether or not oil should be a state resource in the US. And I was like, you guys go for it. You know, that’s a

A hot topic, I’m sure. but they both come to it from completely different perspectives. And it’s that curiosity, that ability to say, I’m not gonna get fired up because of some, you know, 30 second TikTok on the topic. I’m gonna slow down and have that real dialogue at the table. And I’m really inspired and encouraged by that ability that I see over and over again. And so

I don’t know if that’s different about the moment or the or the experience, but I certainly think the the technology and the way that we rely on technology to mediate relationships has almost had a counter effect in in what’s happening in what I see.

speaker-0 (14:10.07)
Interesting. One of the things I hear regularly in all my interviews is that for longevity to occur for a healthier, longer life after retirement, is the maintaining and the col creation of new relationships. For the very simple reason, like with men, our life, our social life is tied to our careers. And when we stop work, those relationships disappear.

Like me personally, I’m dep wholly dependent on my wife for any social relationships that I have. It’s the same with my wife. So the fact that you’re setting up relationships later on in life probably turns things a lot more healthy. Marcy, talk to that. Is that something that you’re you’re seeing going on right now?

Is there a drive for that simply because there’s such a long period from end of work to end of life?

speaker-2 (15:10.39)
Sure, sure. So and also end of work, end of work is not such a defined period anymore for people. So many people kind of maybe they leave a primary career or a long-term job. And then they’re bouncing around a bit. They are consulting, they’re working part-time, they’re they’re having other kinds of work relationships. But one of the reasons why volunteering and service, for example, is so important in that life stage is that people do need.

regular social interaction, a sense of being needed and valued. and so all of that is really important to our our you know our our well being. And you know one of our prior fellows actually wrote this amazing book on on social connection and her name is Casley Killam and she’s really elevated the idea of of social health.

So we we talk about mental health and we talk about physical health, but you’re talking about social health. And social health is something we never used to meas measure, but we all know that isolation and loneliness is not just bad for your emotional state, but it’s bad for your physical state. So you’re entirely right. And there is a special kind of sweetness and kind of organic thing.

About intergenerational relationships. It’s why the grandparent-grandchild relationship is magic, right? We all know that, but it’s actually true in cross-age friendships that we get something out of those relationships that is kind of different than what we get from our peers. Maybe less comparing, maybe less competitiveness, maybe just like a an area of safety. so I think that’s that’s one of the things, one of the the

kind of benefits of these kinds of relationships.

speaker-0 (16:59.18)
You mentioned something cross intergenerational friends. Alison, is that is that something when I grew up, that did not happen. Right? I wasn’t friends with somebody that was 20, 30 years older, unless you know they were my boss. But there was that boss subordinate relationship. Is that something that you’re seeing? Is that the friendships are growing as well? Because a lot of what you were saying were things too.

do as opposed to ways of being, if that makes sense.

speaker-1 (17:34.144)
Absolutely. one of my one of my pet peeves in this job is the word companionship, because it basically implies that you’re paying for a friend, right? And it actually takes it makes what can be such a beautiful organic connection and makes it very transactional. And so we almost never use the word companionship. I always tell my team, like, if you find it in any of our materials, like let’s pull it out. Because to what you’re asking, Neil, we set up a very

straightforward relationship between the host and the Joey. And the host the Joey lives in and they provide the work and there’s a a rental agreement and an employment agreement. And there’s sort of like this clear exchange of value for the tasks that I was saying before. And there’s this beautiful magic that happens on top. And we’re not actually selling the magic. We’re not like our our process, our product isn’t the magic, but the magic happens no matter

whether we’re sort of involved in it or not. And we do certain things like, you know, we build communication. One of the things I love about the COGEN Fellowship so far is the language that I picked up around connection before collaboration. And it was something we were doing, but we didn’t really have that language for yet, where if you can actually find those points of connection, and it can be truly anything. And it’s been so wonderful to see

I’ll give one example. A a young man we have is an entrepreneur in his own right. He does coaching and basketball training for for some, you know, young people in his community. He’s a Joey and his his host is a CEO and been an entrepreneur his entire career. And so they have all of these connection points because of the business and the way that they work. This man’s wife,

Loves costumes, loves Halloween, is like so into so the other host is like not at all in this entrepreneur world. She’s like, we are a Halloween household and you should be on board with this. And this Joey is like, I remember all these. She’s like showing pictures of what he dressed up as for Halloween as a kid and all throughout college his costumes. And so they’ve bonded on the costume front. And the others have bonded on the sort of more more business front. and

speaker-1 (19:54.966)
That’s almost never something that we are architecting in any way when we’re trying to find the match. We architect the sort of like nuts and bolts of the value exchange, but the friendship it’s so magical is just the word I I always come back to because it happens whether you architect it or not.

speaker-0 (20:22.176)
Is there a what’s the process for matching? Because I I’d almost think it would be something along the lines of like an adoption where you don’t want to just adopt a kid. You want to know whether the personalities will match, that sort of thing. Is there what’s that process like?

speaker-1 (20:41.066)
so there’s a couple different steps and it looks a little different towards the tail end for different people. The basics of matching is like, are you in the same area? Do you have roughly the same budget and financial expectations? do your schedules kind of roughly align if the host has standing appointments or things that they want that Joey to help them with, making sure that we’re not working with someone who has class from nine to nine on the day that that person needs. so there’s there’s kind of the basics, the nuts and bolts. Once those are in place, we start.

that connection piece. So we really start our first meeting between a host and a Joey is purely connection. We take all of the are the financial expectations out of it? Are the dollars and cents, you know, aligned. We make sure they’re aligned. We reassure them. And then that first one, we talk all about, you know, family and joy and pets and, you know, different conversations or different things, but it’s the things that brighten you up about the world that you live in and what would

what would a beautiful new relationship look like? if that spark kind of happens, it’s it’s almost like dating in a in a in a strange way. You know, it’s it’s any interpersonal relationship where even if you’re meeting a new friend, you can have that little spark, like, wow, we can talk for hours. If that spark happens, then there’s all kinds of you know agreements and things that we get in place. Of course, there’s safety and security and trust throughout as we go. but it really

Once you get those logistics in place and that spark happens, a lot of the rest kind of falls into place.

speaker-0 (22:16.394)
Interesting. that then goes to my question to you, Marcy. How did you choose Alison and Joey Cole?

speaker-2 (22:25.76)
So we have two CEOs at our organization. They are a cross-generational pair, Eunice and Mark. And I first heard about Allison because Eunice and Allison were on a panel together at a was it a housing conference or an aging relationship?

speaker-1 (22:44.16)
It was it was an aging related conference in San Francisco.

speaker-2 (22:48.198)
And Eunice came back and said, new housing, new intergenerational housing innovation we should know about. I started follow following Allison’s work and we actually suggested that she applied to the fellowship because we were pretty interested in what she was doing. And we already knew that the way she was speaking about the Joey Host relationship was both just we’re we’re big on mutuality. So there’s a lot of ways you can look at intergenerational relationships where it kind of

One generation is coming in to rescue the other group. And we don’t see it that way. We’re really attracted to models where the interdependence is what’s elevated and that everybody gains from being in this kind of relationship. And and that’s the thing. When I started looking at Joey’s model, I was like, well, Allison’s already there. Like everything about the way she speaks about Joey Co. exemplifies that. And

And that’s that’s good. So we’re looking for what are the the best models to show what cogeneration looks like. And so that’s why we’re excited to have her in the fellowship.

speaker-0 (23:56.622)
Okay. So Alison, so you’re you’re setting up a relationship between different age ranges. The the older range will have existing family relationships, I’m assuming. So it you’re not really just one to one relationship, it’s a one-to-many situation. How’s the relationship with the rest of the family?

speaker-1 (24:20.598)
It varies a lot. we adult children and and certainly parent-child relationships come in all flavors. I mean, I’m sure your relationship, Neil, with your parents is very different than mine or Marcy’s with hers.

Often we we get lots of calls from adult children who are like my parents are ready for this. And we talk to the parents, and the parents like we have no interest in this. Thank you very much. which is which is totally fine. we we cannot make anybody want this. I’m very, very clear about that. we also get we also get calls from you know the from our hosts.

Saying you have to get my kid on board. I really want this, but they’re worried about all the different things. So it really I don’t know that we get more of one or the other. It comes in all different dynamics. but you’re right, we have to be very conscious of what the family environment looks like. And to the earlier point about social health, we do sort of a social connection assessment of the household and ensure that there are a depth.

And sort of quality of social relationships for the person. You know, we can’t replace a dearth of relationships. We can’t be the only person sort of that this person can rely on. We’re we’re a part of an ecosystem and a support system for somebody. and in those instances where we’re kind of the only the only resource available, that actually puts the Joey in a really difficult position. So to Marcy’s point about sort of mutuality, mut mutuality.

And ensuring that there’s sort of safety and joy for the Joey as well. We need to make sure that the social connections are, you know, beneficial to the household as well and that there’s not animosity or just confusion as we go along.

speaker-0 (26:14.644)
Interesting.

I just lost my question because something else just popped up. I it doesn’t happen often. Okay. so Marcy, with the intergenerational side of things, Allison brought up a a point about adult children pushing things. I’ve seen it with my brother, where he’s trying to force my dad into doing things. Is this something that’s is starting to

i is just from a lack of understanding of how these different relationships need to be? Or is this something that’s

Just a new jet new situation out of born out of trying to control situations, if if that makes sense.

speaker-2 (27:04.908)
I mean, I think you hit something earlier, Neil, which is really important, which is this length of life and life course is the idea that we have a bunch of 60 and 70 year olds who have parents who are 90 and 100. That has never existed before. Like we are really navigating uncharted waters here. And also 60 and 70 and 80 and 90, 100, they all

As Chip Conley, our board member would say, your mileage varies. Like there is no one way a sixty-year-old behaves, an eighty-year-old behaves, or a hundred, you know, year old behaves. My mother is 85, she’s fully independent, she still drives, she takes care of many things for me in my life. And many of my peers have parents the same age who need a lot of care from them and are not, you know, are are not independent at that life stage. So it’s it’s all very varied. And I think

So we’re in a moment of really renegotiating a bunch of things, and we’re in a place where we have a lot of social structures that are kind of broken. So a lot of families have to take care of things that are not available in communities through social services or through socializing or whatever it is. So I think we are in this interesting moment of.

A lot of things breaking down and a lot of things that need to be recreated at a time where we are. Laura Karstenson, the scholar at the Stanford Center of Longevity, talks about the new map of life. And the new map of life, like the old map of life used to have this lockstep. We all did things at a certain age. And now we’re like nothing, nothing, it’s it’s it’s it’s maybe we we get it, we we start out and we go to school and then everything goes in wacky directions. Some people

Have a linear career and education and family life. Other people have successive families, successive careers, reconfigurations in all kinds of ways. And now we’re doing it against this very interesting multi-generational family and community context. So I would just say it’s kind of the Wild West.

speaker-0 (29:23.778)
Yeah. No, it it’s it’s I was talking with Ken Stern a week ago or so. He was saying the same sort of thing, that the old model of education, career, retirement is gone. That entire concept is gone. Yeah. Is that something that Allison, your Joeys are learning? Is that traditional model is not really there anymore?

speaker-1 (29:51.214)
They’re they’re certainly learning it. I don’t know that they’re learning it from us because you know, our Joys are graduating into this job market. They’re graduating into the world of AI, they’re graduating into a sort of you know, if you think education, career, retirement, the education to career pathway is completely different than it has ever been. And you know, so not only are we redefining it at the sort of post retirement.

Phase of life and that being longer or different than we’ve ever experienced. the education to what happens next pathway looks very different. And so we we talk to students all the time. You know, we we start with students, but we are having our first cohort of kind of graduates actually start to become Joeys because it is a way to enter the real world.

with some gainful employment, with independence and sort of your own household, while also having a much more affordable and sustainable way to continue to explore what is that long term, what is that next. so I think you see it kind of on both ends in that the hosts get some altruism. They get to give back, they get to still, you know, manage their finances and work through and and kind of come up with something that they can give back to their world. And it feels a lot of

I’ve made it this far, I can give back to these students. That altruistic streak really does resonate with our hosts. And I think on the flip side for the for the students, it’s a really purposeful way to have some solid footing as a lot of things seem a lot less certain than maybe, maybe they had in the past. And really solid financial footing for them to continue to say, what do I want in this next world? And give them real

Space to dream without that that looming graduation date that can feel pretty daunting right now.

speaker-0 (31:49.87)
So we’re getting closer to the end of the interview. So Allison, how do people get in touch with you? How do they find Joey Co. or apply and that sort of thing?

speaker-1 (32:03.406)
Thanks for asking. So our website is withjoey.com. We’ve got a bunch of content for hosts. So if you’re interested or curious about hosting for someone that that you love and care about or for yourself, you can go to thatwithjoee.com. We also have a bunch of content for our students. So if there are any students who are happening to be listening and are really passionate about supporting people in their community and are looking for more affordable housing where they are, you can go to B a Joey, B-E, and then Ajoey.com.

and you can find out a lot more content there.

speaker-0 (32:36.366)
And Marcy, tell me last little bit from Cogenerate, what’s what’s the goal? What’s the next things that you guys are dealing with before everything ends up?

speaker-2 (32:46.73)
Yeah, so like so you can follow us in all the places. So just Google Code Generate and we have a website and a mailing list and we’re on all the social media, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. we are so our work is with leaders. So we we are working often behind the scenes with groups of leaders who are innovating in these ways. So

If you are an you know kind of innovating in the aging or intergenerational space, you’re the kind of person who might be appropriate for one of our fellowships or a community of practice. And then we have open to the public webinars often, usually once or twice a month, where we are doing conversations much like this book talks, innovation webinars, ways to spark your ideas, like your imagination on how to make your life more intergenerational. So

I would say get emb engaged in any way that you can.

speaker-0 (33:43.288)
Perfect. Alison, I wish you great luck with this. I think setting up these relationships would be very useful. Marcy, I’m gonna see whether I can get you back with regards to a number of different topics because I think cogenerate fits very perfectly into the audience that is listening here. So I much appreciate you attending.

and for everybody that’s listening, you now have two organizations that are doing really good things with regards to the aging population. One of the things, Marcy, I’m gonna have to learn is what the proper languages are. And I’ve had this conversation with a number of people. But folks, take a look at their sites, say see whether you can leverage what they’re doing and make use of improving the lifespan of whoever is close to you.

Ladies, thank you very much.

speaker-2 (34:38.003)
Thank you. thank you, Neil.