I've Spent 10 Years Caregiving For Aging Family. Here's What I Know.

“Sandwich generation” describes adults who juggle young kids, careers, and caregiving for aging family members at the same time. About 23% of American adults identify with this stage. One family moved back to Seattle expecting help from in-laws, but diagnoses and worsening health meant the parents could no longer assist. Over nearly a decade, caregiving responsibilities expanded alongside parenting demands and a writing career, including managing early childhood milestones, handling long-term care insurance calls, assisting after surgeries, and performing specific household tasks. The experience brought exhaustion and heartbreak, with the hardest challenge being maintaining a personal sense of self.

"“Welcome to the sandwich generation,” a friend ruefully announced a few years ago as I described the overwhelming task of juggling young kids, a career and caregiving for aging family members simultaneously. I'd never heard the term before, but I felt a jolt of instant recognition. There was a name for what I was experiencing! I was even more surprised to learn that roughly 23% of American adults identify as part of the sandwich generation."

"When my husband and I moved from Europe back home to Seattle in 2017, I was a freshly minted novelist celebrating my first book launch. We had an infant and a toddler. We relocated to be closer to family, excited for my husband's parents to help us navigate family life amidst our growing careers and those wonderful yet exhausting early parenting years. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. My brilliant physicist father-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and my mother-in-law suffered increasingly debilitating health issues. They were not in a position to help anyone."

"“I think this only goes one way now,” my husband said quietly one Sunday afternoon as we drove away from their house after helping with a list of tasks they could no longer do. “They need our help, not the other way around.” I've spent almost a decade now in this sandwich stage of life. I've juggled potty training and tantrums and my burgeoning writing career, publishing eight novels in nine years."

"I've fielded confusing phone calls about long-term care insurance, assisted after multiple surgeries, and learned to trim my mother-in-law's prized rose bushes to her exact specifications. The learning curve has been steep, the list of new challenges seemingly endless. It's been exhausting and exasperating and yet at times also heartbreakingly sweet. The hardest part has been trying to hang onto my sense of self."

Read at Scary Mommy