Its a full time job, being the generation in the middle

[fortifiedwithtea]

I have a spinster aunt 95 in a care home. My mother is 86 still lives at home needing increasingly more help.

I am an only child.

I have 2 adult children . One is undiagnosed neuro diverse and high IQ the other is neuro typical but has intellectual disabilities.

This weekend has been non stop. I feel I am in the middle of 2 generation both needing support.

Anyone else feel like this?

We're the Sandwich Generation

Yes! Parents in mid 70s but one in very poor health - and a 5 year old daughter. And my parents are over 4hrs drive away from me. Feel absolutely torn in two and exhausted, and like I'm constantly letting them all down.

My username says it all….. although now an open sandwich as dm died last year, after17 years of increasing care from me…..
It is brutal. Come and join the cockroach cafe thread- we are many.
golden rules- outsource all you can, facilitate not do, boundaries, and make time for you. Do not neglect your health( as a member of the cancer threads too….)

I always remember being in my twenties and saying to my best friend that we needed to enjoy every second we had, because this could / would be the likely reality of our lives come our 40s / 50s.

In my case I'm a single parent, 52 with an Autistic 12 year old DD. My Mum is 79 and has cancer. My uncle in his eighties recently tried to lean on me heavily to support him. (He was ringing me 8 times a day) Couldn't do it I'm afraid. I was already spreading myself too thin. I had to walk away from that particular situation, or I'd have had a breakdown.

Hi I’m 50 and my mum is78 and in a care home 70 miles away . I also have two children with autism who are 19 and 14 . I genuinely feel stuck .

for you all and thank you for your words of advice @thesandwich

I empathise with all of you, and I was a "sandwich" woman - an only child responsible for my unwell mum in her 80's, and 2 children in their mid to late teens, until my mum died aged 87. I was working, (only 17.5 hrs per week but in a stressful job).
I also lived around an hour's drive away from my mum.
When I was growing up, my dad went to work and my mum was a "housewife". My dad's unwell mum lived with us, and her care, and all domestic tasks, were left to my mum. So she was a "sandwich" woman, and because of various conflicting issues causing a "perfect storm", my mum had a complete mental breakdown and was hospitalised.
All of my friends were in this same situation - working dad, sahm, and elderly grandparents.
So, this "sandwich" generation phenomenon is nothing new by any means, is it? The only differences between me and my mum were that she was a sahm and I worked, and my grandmother lived with us but my mum lived in her own home.
We were still both caring for the generation above us and below us.
Or am I missing something?

Less so now my Mum is gone. But yes, I’ve been there. DD2 was 2 weeks old when DM fell and broke her hip. DH was still on paternity leave and he spend a lot of that time with a new born and toddler sitting in the hospital cafe ringing me when DD needed feeding - she was under paediatrics for allergies and couldn’t have formula.

Now my youngest is 4 so less reliant and it’s only D’Dad’ not two parents who need looking after and Dad needs less support than Mum. But it’s awful being pulled in two different directions.

Totally empathise. Both my siblings have died, and DH’s sis is a waste of space. We spend our time running around after our DMs (95 & 87).
wed love to do more for ourDCs but have no time for them, as we’re exhausted all the time having worked full time all week.
People might live longer, but the quality of life isn’t always great and decent care is so expensive!

Yep, I'm there too. With an extra generation on top.

Grandma 97 lives alone with carers, am and pm, 2 hours away
parents and inlaw mid 70s, all 3 need help.

teenager (asd) about to sit GCSEs.

5 day a week job.

Its killing me!

I'm though it now, but will never forget the stress of elderly parents plus young/teen kids with a nice topping of menopause.

*open sandwich * 🤣

Yes, and my parents live over five hours away and are now needing quite a bit of support. I’m also ill and having treatment for cancer for the second time. My DH also has cancer. I have a full-time job. It’s just impossible sometimes.

Yes. You've heard the term "sandwich generation"?

Dad died when Mum (severely impaired sight) was 80 and my DS was 6.
Luckily I was a SAHM and I could drop DS at school and zoom over Mum’s who lives in her own home 40 minutes away. It was always stressful, dealing with things and watching the clock so I wouldn’t be late for school pick ups.
It became easier as my DS got older and had a key for the house.
Ten years later, Mum is 90 and DS does his GCSEs this year. Sometimes I get really stressed and no one understands what it’s like. I fell quite alone, but I take comfort in that I do my best for my Mum and she appreciates it.
I’m often lurking on these threads and they help a lot. 💐

My parents are in their 80s but luckily in good health so far. But DH's parents have needed a lot of support over the past couple of years. And we have three teens and two busy jobs - it's hard.

Not quite yet but getting there. I have children in late primary, early comp, both ND and uncertain about independence. Mother in early 70s and still in good health but who knows. Stepfather in poor heath. Grandparents recently died in mid nineties. A single aunt in v poor health. Work FT in stressful job.

I think the difference between us and earlier generations is that women tended to have children earlier so were frequently grown up at this stage, and it was less culturally usual to support adult children in the way we do now. And we tend not to be local to our elderly relatives. It is relentless at this age, and certainly for me and many of my contemporaries, our needs are bottom of the pile. I am being very cheerful today! I have to say, I am looking forward to my (poor) retirement and hopefully independence from the caring role!

Yes @TheSoundOfMucus I agree with all three of your points as to why it's more of a problem for the current sandwich generation than for previous ones - women having children later, children gaining independence later in life, and families less likely to live local to each other.

And I'm going to add another two - women more likely to be working rather than SAHM, and older people living longer but spending more years in ill health (see article below).

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/04/longer-healthier-lives-everyone/

The “women having children earlier in life” is offset by the lower life expectancy. My mother was 25 when I was born; even so, all four of my grandparents were dead by the time I was 18. So my parents were still the “sandwich generation”.

I think a big difference is what @Toblerbone alludes to ie the way lives have got longer but length of healthy life has not, and that is partly because of better treatment of cancer but particularly of heart disease, meaning many more people survive until dementia.

A wave my fellow sandwiches 👋🏻
Single mum to three children, work full time and main carer to my disabled mum.
Have two siblings and can’t quite work out why they get to live their lives as they choose whilst I’m here, feeling alone, sandwiched, exhausted…

I can empathise - DF 90 victor mildew esque honestly can't cope with his constant complaining . Sibling miles away and can only offer weekly phone call where DF doesn't complain about anything and is as nice as pie .
2 adult kids one fairly heafty ND with learning needs and the other MH needs . Full time job . Thankfully DF living alone but I think about to fire the carer !

Sympathy!
I've got one in early 90s and one almost 80. They're a generation apart - youngest of one generation and oldest of the next. Both of them are about 3 hours away but even further from each other than that!

And I'm mid-40s, an infant school aged child, full time job too.

The massive difference I've seen is in working - older female relatives often didn't work or did very part time after having children. And they all lived within the same network of streets rather than 100s of miles away.

Not that I'd want either of those things, I love my job and working and not living in the area I grew up in! I'd be terrible at being a full time carer, whether for a child or an elderly relative.