The Value of Intergenerational Connections

“When you spend time with the older generation, it allows you to see things from a long-term, eternal perspective.”

May 28, 2025

This week we’re switching it up and hearing from someone who loves the older generation as much as I do! Isabel Tom is the author of the book, “The Value of Wrinkles”, and creator of the Grandkid Investigator Kit, a resource to help connect grandchildren with their grandparents. I invited her on the podcast to discuss the value of intergenerational connections in honor of Older Americans Month. If you prefer listening, you can listen to or watch the full conversation on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.

Tell us about your story and your heart for the older generation.

Well, I would never have planned this story on my own. So I do think that God is the creator. He is the ultimate author of good stories. So, I grew up living with my grandparents and my parents. My grandparents moved into the house before I was born. I basically lived in a multi-generational household for first 26 years of my life.

And I thought it was fairly normal. But then, as I got older, I realized that none of my classmates lived with their grandparents. And so, I mean, that was just how life was for me, my grandparents were part of my immediate family. So you might say, I have four people who are in my family, my siblings and my parents. But for me, I considered my grandparents as part of my immediate family. I mean, they ate dinner with us every night. They went to church with us every Sunday.

And I don't think at that time I could have been able to express that there was value in that. I think I was just a kid. But I think what it really taught me is to realize that not everybody is like me. Because I think when you are around people who are your own age, you kind of just start to only look at life as if you were a teen or as a kid. But living with an older person, as I watched my grandparents age, I started to realize, what is really easy for me is actually really hard for them. So there are these really small moments that I think cumulatively added up to the point where I worked in the senior care field and I started to learn this for my job.

Professionally, I worked in the senior care field, so right out of college, I got a job at a retirement community, and then also had the opportunity to work in hospice care. And God really changed my heart and gave me this perspective where, I mean, I really didn't expect it. I was just looking for a job, but He really helped me to see the value of every person as they age. And I realized that this was very contradictory to the way the world seemed to value older people and people as they age.

So it just helped me have a long-term perspective, just like we're encouraged to have an eternal perspective. I think so many times we have this short-term perspective, but I think when you spend time with the older generation, it allows you to see things from a longer term perspective.

What sorts of things did you learn or absorb from your grandparents while growing up?

There are definitely things that they taught me. So my grandpa, he was a healthy guy and he walked every single day. He had discipline because he walked every single day for an hour and 15 minutes until he was 97 years old. And so, it was just part of my day that I would just see him put on his shoes and then go out. And no matter how slow he walked, I mean, he walked for an hour and 15 minutes, which is a long time. So I think just seeing that rhythm and routine really taught me about physical health and how it really can help.

With my grandma, she lived to 102, so I was 35 when she passed. And I attribute my faith to watching her because I would say the closest I got to seeing what the love of Jesus is like, it was watching her because she was just so selfless. And I also watched her live out her faith. My dad, her son died before she did. So she lived to 102 and he died right before she turned 100. And because I spent a lot of time with her, I saw her question God. I saw her just sit there and grieve. But I realized that you can do that. God allows for that.

And so I think I learned what faith is like through my grandma, seeing her in her highs and her lows. And she taught me how to pray. She was just a prayer warrior all the way up until she passed.

Tell us a little bit about your book, “The Value of Wrinkles”.

Well, when I was working in a senior care field and I was in my 20s, a lot of people said ‘Oh, wow, that's so sad that you work with older people.’ And I actually thought it was one of the best jobs ever. So I had started this blog, and I ended up blogging on it for about 10 years. And when my grandma passed, she was my last living grandparent, I thought, oh, now I can blog a lot because now I can get the message out there.

And it ended up that I learned how to pitch a proposal to write a book. But I realized at that time that God had given me 35 years of experience living with, serving, and working with older adults. And he had given me a picture into what aging is like as a younger person.

But I realized that older adults, they need a voice and they want to have a voice. But a lot of times they either don't have energy to do it or people aren't listening. So I was thinking, at this time of my life, people are listening. And while a 90-year-old could still write the same story, let me use my platform, let me use my youth to be able to be a voice for the older generation and show people that there truly is value in somebody who's older and to kind of see it from the perspective that God sees it.

Tell us about the work you’re doing now to connect generations.

So after I published my book, I realized that a lot of people were looking at my story and thinking, that's beautiful. Like you grew up living with your grandparents, but I'm never going to have that story because I'm not going to live with my in-laws.

So I really wanted to help parents, specifically, and grandparents to be able to connect the generations together. But I realized that as parents, we have to be intentional about this. Or if you if you're in the middle, you've got to be intentional about it. And there are so few resources, if any, that help parents to connect the older and younger generations together.

And with my background working in senior care, but also as somebody who has worked with kids a lot and has kids and coaches and all of that, I was like, OK, I need to put something together that will not only make this easy for parents, but make it meaningful for the older person and make it fun for the kids.

So I created this Grandkid Investigator concept that really helps kids to be able to prompt them and guide them. They're basically investigating their grandparents to investigate and uncover truly who they are. There are so many stories and so many things that we don't know about somebody who's older. And so I created this tool to really be able to help other people to see the value of older generation.

And the grandkids learn things that they might have never known or even the adult child may have never known. One investigator found out that her grandma really doesn't like water at all. And while these are like small facts, they're actually really important. One, these kids are learning about their grandparents, so they realize that they are more than just a history book. They are people now, and so they have preferences now.

But they are also learning about their grandparents' preferences so that my hope is that they would take part in caring for their older loved one as they age. Because I think so often, we just think adults have to do it. But, you know, I actually pulled up this verse from first Timothy 5:4 that talks about how grandchildren have this call to love the older person, specifically widows, right? And this is pleasing to God. So really I'm just trying to equip kids and parents to be able to value and honor their elders more.

I think so often grandparents are the ones who are trying to reach out to their grandkids, trying to develop that relationship. So they are asking the grandkids questions and it's always about the grandkids. But rarely do the grandkids ask them questions. But I feel like ultimately, if you want to value somebody, you’ve got to learn about them. You’ve got to learn about their story.

And so I think this has really been a huge blessing. It makes my heart so happy anytime a child is doing a mission because I know that they are helping an older person feel seen and heard. And I think that's something that we have kind of forgotten in many ways, or neglected, to love the older person even if we see them often, we haven't given them a voice.

And so we have to be intentional in helping our kids connect with their older loved ones and with their grandparents. Not only are there not enough resources, there's not a lot of time. But I think we really need parents to realize that this is an important thing. It’s about developing our kids' character to teach them a long-term perspective, allowing them to meet people and to connect with people who are different from them is a really important thing.

Just like you have your kids do piano lessons and make sure they do extra math homework, I want my kids to connect with their grandparents because I think it not only teaches them life lessons, but it exposes them to somebody who can teach them the love that God has for us, that same love of just slowing down and giving us intention and availability.

Listen to or watch the full conversation on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.

Thank you for being here,

Katharine

P.S. Eternal Echoes is free today. But if you’d like to partner with me in passing on faith and wisdom to future generations, I’d be so grateful if you consider supporting my work. I thank you truly, kindly and sincerely.

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