Over at In the Middle, Linda asks a question common to everyone in the Sandwich Generation, ” How do you balance it all and end up feeling like you’re doing what’s right?”.
She has the classic dilemma:
With one sick parent and three kids back in school, and oh yes, a job — and a husband — I’ve been pulled in a million different directions lately. And the bad thing is, being stretched so thin seems to benefit nobody.
Sometimes it’s nice to realize we aren’t alone, but I wish I had magic answers since I don’t know how to keep from feeling …read more

At Life in the Sandwich, Susan Ito has a poignant essay about the changes in her life as her daughter heads off to college:
There are six days left until five of us board an airplane that will take us two thousand miles away, and a few days after that, only four of us will return. Our sandwich is thinning, and the turmoil I’m feeling is barely describable.

“Packing” is a must read.

There’s an interesting discussion going on at the New York Times’ New Old Age blog.
In the article, How to Make a Better Sandwich, author Jane Gross asks Jeannie Keenan, a registered nurse and case management expert how people can cope with having to make decisions between their kids and aging parents every day:
Ms. Keenan said that the biggest mistake adult children make in this situation is trying to segregate their dual responsibilities.
Their well-meaning goal is “they don’t want their children’s lives affected by what’s going on with their elderly parent,’’ she said. The result is a constant series …read more

This post at Nourishing Relationships had me at the line:
“When you are told by your secretary that a nurse is on the line, do you try to guess if it is the school or the nurse in the cardiac care unit?”
The article by Roberta Benor reprinted there, “Food for the Sandwich Generation: the Meanings Behind the Bread You Choose”, published in the Washington Post in 1992, looks at life between elderly parents and children and how you cope with it all:
Just as in a deli, when you are asked what kind of bread you would like for your sandwich, you …read more

My husband is out of town, and, my 83 year old mother-in-law is staying with us.
I’m grateful for the help, but, this weekend there’s been a few moments that have been rather comical in terms of me being needed by everyone.
The kids have been particularly needy this weekend, probably a combination of their dad being gone, and, me somehow not providing the level of service to which they’ve become accustomed.
There was one glorious moment where all of them were calling out my name at the same time, my 5 year old needed someone to wipe his butt, the …read more

A Sandwich Generation Moment from our dear friend, Sista Smiff:
The GK has to get home and doesn’t want to sleep on your couch because she has two boys at home alone, plus, she’s just plain wo’ out, but, she doesn’t mind at all seeing that you’re ok because you are her mother.
Many of us have been there, and, it rings true.
Go find out about her adventure with her mother, and, how Sista will do things a little differently when it’s her time.

As if there weren’t enough “wars” going on in the media what with the whole “working mother v. stay at home mother” thing, now there’s a whole phenomenon of “parent wars” where the Boomer mothers and the Generation X daughters differ on parenting ideas.
According to the story, mothers and daughters differ on parenting issues such as food and discipline,and, it concludes that both parties should try to understand the other, and, grandmothers should remember that the child in question isn’t their child.
Now, I’m pretty sure that these dilemmas aren’t unique to Baby Boomers and X-ers, after all, mothers …read more

So many times, when you read something about people caring for children and parents at the same time, it’s a financial “how-to”, or, list of areas nursing homes, or, agencies. But, sometimes you read something that just “speaks to you”, and, this article titled simply, “The Sandwich Generation” spoke to me, so, I thought I’d share it with you.
The author tells it like it is from a “where the rubber meets the road” perspective.
Sometimes, you’re literally caught between your children, and, your parents, and, there’s nothing you can do.
I have two moments like that stand out in my …read more

We just got back from a lovely vacation with my dad.
I had a quintessential Sandwich Generation experience at the beach one day.
I was out at the beach with my younger kids, and, my father.
The kids got in the ocean, which was OK, but, I need to be reasonably close by. They began to drift, as one tends to do in the ocean, so I followed them down the beach a bit.
I looked back in time to see my father up the beach (74 years old, fairly recent back surgery, and, not a real strong swimmer) pick up …read more

On the way to my father’s step mother’s funeral today, I realized my daughter who was sick, and, home alone for the first time, wasn’t answering the phone because the line had been busy for a couple of hours straight.
I was worried since we have call waiting, and, there shouldn’t have been a busy signal.
I practically shoved my dad out of the car at the funeral, raced home to find the phone off the hook, and, my daughter quite fine (I was in and out so quickly, I don’t think she knew what hit her), and, raced back to the …read more