Caring for aging parents while still caring for young children at home is happening more and more to my generation. This is my story and my way of managing it all.
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Resources mentioned:
- Home Blessing (once a week house cleaning)
- Massage Chair we bought for my mom
TRANSCRIPT OF PODCAST #184
You may have noticed that I haven’t recorded a podcast in quite some time. And the main reason for that is because I am in a completely new season of life and it has been interesting and sometimes difficult to navigate. And I am just now getting my bearings a ah, year into it. And so that’s what we’re going to talk about today is how I am managing as the sandwich generation.
Hello friends. Welcome to the Raising Arrows podcast. I’m Amy Roberts from raisingarrows.net and this is episode number 184. Living in the Sandwich generation.
Now, a few years ago I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what the sandwich generation was. It’s just since I have become part of that that I now understand what it is. it’s basically when you are still caring for children in your home, but are now also caring for an aging parent or grandparent. And so about a year ago, almost exactly my mom moved in with us. She lives in an apartment in our basement and she’s 85 years old and she does use a cane. She had polio as a child, so walking and getting around is a little difficult for her. But for the bulk majority of the time since my dad has been gone, he passed away 18 years ago – my mom lived on her own, but she was getting lonely. A lot of her friends had passed away. My grandmother, who was almost 104, passed away and they were living in the same town. So my mom felt like it was time for her to do something different. So she moved in with us, which was a big move.
It was four hours away from her home and she is no longer driving. And there were just a lot of changes for her. But there were also a lot of changes for myself and for my household. And while I always knew I would probably be the sibling who would be caring for our mother, I really didn’t know what that was going to look like. And to be honest, this past year has been difficult in different ways. It’s not been bad, it’s just been difficult and different as I’ve tried to navigate what this looks like with having my 85 year old mother living here while at the same time still having six to seven of my own children living here.
So when I did a little bit of research for this, come to find out, 71% of the sandwich generation are my age, somewhere in their 40s and 50s. And so I’m right smack dab in the middle of that. I’m in my late 40s and this is pretty common for our generation to be still caring for children while at the same time caring for aging parents in some capacity.
Some are caring for their family members in their own home, and some are finding themselves having to travel quite frequently. Maybe they live in the same town and they’re checking on them several times a day. And so that also counts as that sandwich generation. So I know I’m not alone, and I actually know quite a few other friends and bloggers and people that I’m acquainted with who are actually doing the same thing that I’m doing. They’re either caring for parents or grandparents within their home. They still have children living in their homes. Many of them are homeschooling. And so I know I’m not alone. And that’s why I thought I would go ahead and do this podcast to kind of help those of you who are either navigating this season or see that this season is coming for you.
And while I cannot in the least say that I am an expert in this, because like I said, I’m a year into this and I still have not completely figured this out out, I feel like there are a few things I have learned in this past year that I’m ready to share at this point.
So first of all, I just want to share with you how things have changed for me personally. When my mom moved in to our home, my husband was about halfway through a year long deployment. We had put an apartment in our basement and that took about a year. So he was still here when we started that process with some friends. But he was not here when we completed the process. And so when it was time for my mom to go ahead and move into the apartment, my husband wasn’t even here, which in some ways helped the transition because had my husband been here, I would have had those responsibilities as well. And I had a little bit of time before he came back to adjust a little bit to my mom being here and the children being here before I also added my spouse being here, but most people don’t have that. And in some ways it may have been easier if he’d been here where we could have shared some of the responsibilities. But for me, as a military wife, I feel like it was actually kind of helpful that my mom moved in while I didn’t have quite so many commitments on my plate.
The first thing that became readily apparent was that my mom was going to have doctor’s appointments that I was not used to having. We don’t go to the doctor a lot. We go to the Dentist a couple of times a year, I have a random doctor appointment here and there. We really just don’t have a lot of outside appointments like that. And so adding my mother, who is 85 years old, into that equation exponentially increased the number of outside doctor’s appointments I was having to manage.
Also, when she first came here, she was used to having her hair done every single week. She would get her hair washed and styled every single week. And this is something that that older generation was used to doing. And when she lived on her own, she just drove herself to the appointment each week. However, moving in with us, my siblings and I decided that she should not be driving anymore. A lot of that was just because she was going to be in new surroundings and her reaction time is not as good as it once had been. And so we decided instead, instead of trying to navigate that on top of everything, that we would just go ahead and have her not drive. And so that meant I was taking her. We also found a service, a bus service, where she could ride the bus to some of these things in this town and a neighboring town for a small fee. And so that was what she first started doing, was she would take a bus every single week to her hair appointment. But it got where that was even kind of difficult and strenuous. And so we decided to encourage her to find a hairstyle that did not require her to go get her hair set and styled every single week, one that she could handle herself, which meant growing out the perm that she had gotten and getting a simpler style. And so that’s one thing that we did, was we tried to pare down some of the appointments that she was having, because you can’t really pare down the doctor’s appointments, but all these extra appointments we could pare down.
She also was getting a massage twice a month back where she was living before, which I felt was super important. But she was becoming less and less mobile and able to get up and down off of the table at the massage therapist. So we bought a massage chair. And, one of my children is very gifted in being able to tell where you hurt and, and help you that way through massage. So she actually pays him to give her a chair massage, which helps her in that way, but also keeps her from having to take a bus to the massage therapist or for me, having to take her to the massage therapist.
Now there’s a flip side side, a catch 22, if you will, to all of this. I don’t want my mom to become less mobile I don’t want her to get out less. I want her to continue to have a social life and to continue to do things and be as mobile as possible for as long as possible. But I also need my life to not revolve completely around her outside commitments. So we had to find a balance. And for us, that was not doing the massage and making the hair appointments only about every five or six weeks. But she still goes to church every week, Bible study every week, and then she also has random church parties that she goes to. She also gets out and does her grocery shopping with one of my children once a week.
She was starting to feel like maybe she shouldn’t do that anymore. But I’ve encouraged her to continue that for as long as she possibly can, just to keep her as mobile as, possible. So as you can see, it’s just this meshing of somebody who’s been living on their own without even my father around for 17 years, and then coming into a home that’s already running with lots and lots of moving parts and pieces and trying to fit her life into our lives has made for some difficult scheduling.
And that is probably the number one thing that has been difficult for me is the scheduling. I just have struggled and struggled for the past year to figure out how to put together a schedule that works and doesn’t overwhelm me. Because there are some weeks where I am completely and totally overwhelmed by my schedule. And those are the weeks typically where my mom has several doctor’s appointments and I feel like I’m just running here and there to doctor’s appointments and then my own things or my children’s things.
One thing that I have tried to do in order to manage some of this scheduling is I’ve tried to put her doctor’s appointments on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday and keep my Monday and Friday clear. However, there are often times when the doctors only in on a Monday or a Friday and I have to take what I can get. So I’ve thought about paring down even further to trying to keep them on only a Wednesday and a Thursday, and then those random ones that pop up here and there on days that I don’t typically want to have an appointment on, I still will feel like, okay, I can fit that in there because there’s nothing else on there. However, I haven’t quite gotten to that place. And I’m finding that even like this week, there is an appointment on Friday morning because that’s when the doctor was in that particular office. And so it’s really been A little difficult for me to figure out this whole scheduling.
And because of not being able to figure out the scheduling, I’ve also found that I don’t have time for the blog. As you can see, this is podcast 184. And the last time I did a podcast number 183 was in May. This is September. I have not been able to podcast. I haven’t put out a video. I haven’t done anything all summer long because there was just too much going on and I could not fit it in. And the only reason I’m managing to podcast right now is because I was supposed to be on a podcast interview today and it didn’t end up happening. So I was able to do this instead. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to handle this. I don’t know whether or not I’m going to really be able to continue to put together very many podcasts or blog posts or videos from here on out for a while. I just don’t know. And I’m kind of keeping that flexible and open and giving myself a lot of grace because I haven’t really figured this out completely. I’m getting more and more glimpses of finding some normalcy in this new season, but not enough time, not enough bandwidth to add anything to it. Now, as I mentioned, you know, you have a doctor who can only be there on this particular day or there’s an appointment that just seems like it’s super important, we have to do it now. older people tend to feel that way, that we need to take care of this now. I need to get this off my plate now. And, I have had to teach myself that not everything is an emergency. not everything needs to be taken care of immediately. I can wait, I can hold, I can do this another week. I don’t have to take care of it immediately. I tend to be a get it off my plate kind of gal. I don’t like things on my plate. They bog me down, they mess with my piece. I don’t like it. However, I am having to learn patience with myself and learn that I do not need to take care of everything immediately. Not everything is an emergency that even plays into things like going down to take care of computer issues or anything else that my mom might have. For several months, my mom would come upstairs just about the time I was starting homeschooling. So about 10 o’ clock every single day, she was coming up the stairs and had all these important things she had to tell me, things that I either needed to take care of things that she just wanted to share with me. And I finally had to tell her, please don’t come up in the morning unless it’s an emergency. This is when I homeschool and I can’t take care of this stuff in the morning. If you’ll shoot me a text, if you’ll come up in the afternoon, I’m more likely to be able to help you then. But it really messes with the flow of our schedule in the morning. If you come up in the morning and have all these things you need to ask me. And so that has been another instance of that not everything’s an emergency. We have to make sure that we kind of keep things in their little blocks. And so I tend to go down and check on my mom in the evening. I would like to change that, but I feel like if I take that time in the morning, I may get off track. And so I’m not quite to the place where I feel like I can go down and check on her in the morning. So I tend to go in the late afternoon and evening. And, my husband will go sometimes as well. And then the kids will also check in with her throughout the day. So I currently still have seven children living with me. the 21 year old lives next door to my mom in that apartment. So my 21 year old is in a bedroom next door to the apartment and she tends to be the one that my mom calls on quite a bit. However, she is getting married and will be vacating that room. I believe my 24 year old will probably be moving into that room. she’s going to be paying us rent because the housing market right now is incredibly difficult to get into. And so she’s going to hold for a little bit longer and save up some more money. So I think she’s going to move down there and she’ll kind of be the go to when she’s not working. She’ll be the go to for my mom. But the other kids also check in with my mom. And that’s another thing that has been super helpful is rotating who’s visiting grandma. So I will go down, but I don’t always need to be the person who goes down. Even though my mom prefers it to be me. I have to have other people check on her, Other people take her mail to her, other people make sure she has what she needs. It can’t always be me. In the instances where you’re caring for an aging parent and there are no children left in the home and you have a little more time to be able to be the go to person in my life. As part of this sandwich generation, I still have tons of obligations to the seven children living in my home versus my mom. So I have to balance all of that. I don’t just have children and I don’t just have an aging mother. I have it all. And I also have a spouse who travels a lot and needs me to take care of things when he’s not here. I have a lot on my plate and so it all has to fit into the puzzle of my schedule. And so it can’t always be me taking care of things. There has to be some rotation there. And even if I didn’t have children in the home, I think that rotating responsibilities is helpful. If you can find. Find it. my sister and her husband will come and visit some. They live about an hour from here and they will come and take care of some things. My son, who lives in town with his family, he’ll sometimes come and take care of some things with my mom. And so we rotate these responsibilities as best as we can. Another thing that I think is super important is to talk things out. I know sometimes my mom feels like she has created something, such a problem in our home that it’s insurmountable and she just needs to go into a nursing home. She goes in cycles feeling like this. It’s really interesting. it’s about every month she has this moment where she’s like, I should just go into assisted living because I’m taking up too much space in your life. And I have to tell her, no, it’s not that you’re taking up too much space in my life. It’s that sometimes I’m just overwhelmed and I need to create a little bit of space so that I can move forward. It’s not that I think you need to go to assisted living. That’s not it at all. As long as we can talk some of these things out, I feel like keeping those lines of communication open will make this a better experience. Now, the flip side of that is you can talk about it too much and you can end up making them or making yourself feel as if this is a really big inconvenience and you don’t want to do this anymore. I’ll speak to that in a moment. But the kind of talking things out I’m talking about is where you’re open and honest, but. But you’re also positive about the situation and you’re rational and realistic and objective. You’re not trying to constantly infuse emotions and over the top feelings into it. You’re kind of an observer of, okay, is this working still? What could make this work better? And talking through those things, like I said, when I had to tell my mom, don’t come up in the morning, I had to be firm about that. And that’s not something I’m typically good at, but I had to do it, and I had to share that with my mom and talk that through and explain to her why, and then it was fine, no big deal. But you need to have that open line of communication with them. And part of that is also having that line of communication. As far as what does the future look like? Is there a time when we feel like this won’t be something we can handle anymore? Obviously, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. But are there some signs to be looking for for us? One of those signs is that if she can no longer get into the shower because our shower that we built for her down there has a step up. If she can’t do that anymore, we have a bit of a problem. And. And we may need to reevaluate whether or not living here with us is the best for her. I really want to keep her here as long as we possibly can. I don’t think assisted living is a great plan for my mom. I feel like it’s just a step into a nursing home. And as long as she doesn’t actually need a nursing home, there’s no reason why she can’t live with us. It seems like the right thing to do. It keeps her from being lonely. And I told her recently when she was talking about, well, I think I’ll just go into assisted living because I’m causing too much trouble here. I explained to her that actually, you going into assisted living is going to be harder on me because then I have to find time in my schedule to get in my car and drive to go visit you at the assisted living facility. And I definitely don’t have time for that right now. So. So as long as she’s just in the basement and I can go visit her there, that is actually easier on me there. Again, we’re just talking those things out. It’s important to know personally when I need to make changes, when I need to make adjustments, when I need to take things off my plate. I told my husband not too long ago, I said, I know there’s something I need to take off my plate. I just don’t know what it Is I know that I’m too busy. I just don’t know what it is. And one of the things that I took off the plate that, hasn’t exactly afforded me more time, though, is taking off the blogging and the podcasting and the video production. I have taken that off my plate, but I haven’t felt like it’s really given me much more time. And so I’m still in that evaluating phase where I’m like, okay, what can I do now that will give me some time back? And one of those things is saying no even to fun things. Now I will go paddleboarding quite frequently. I love to be out on the water. I love to paddle around with my friends. But I’ve had to say no to some of those evenings because I really just need to come home and decompress. Even though I can decompress on the lake, sometimes I need to decompress at home and get some things done at home. another thing that I have found to be super helpful is prepping as much as I can for meals. So early afternoon, I will do a lot of prepping for our meals so that when it comes to meal time, I can just pop everything in the oven, throw it in the skillet, whatever needs to happen. Rather than trying to block out an hour or two of my time at suppertime, I am doing some of it ahead of time, and then I’m ready for the evening and really only have to deal with about an hour of cooking time. So that has really helped me, too, with my, time management. I have also had to be okay and guilt free with sometimes not being able to do morning time and sometimes not being there for the Friday morning cleaning. this Friday morning, I actually have to take my mom to an appointment and I won’t be there for the Friday cleaning. And I have trained the children as best that I can, and it may not be 100% up to par because I’m not there, but they do know their jobs, they do know what they need to do. And so I have to be okay with not being there and not doing every single day. Some of the things that I feel like I should be doing every single day. It’s all those shoulds in my life. I should do this, I should take care of this. I should be here. It’s all of those shoulds in my life that tend to bog me down. And I have to really work hard at recognizing not all the shoulds need to be done. They can wait. Again, not everything is an emergency. they can be put off to another time. They can actually not all be done. It’s really a matter of am I doing what I need to be doing? Am I staying focused on the season that God has me in right now and the things that are important to him. It doesn’t matter if it’s the things that are important to my husband, my kids, my mom, myself. It’s really what does the Lord have for me right now? Now he will give me the energy and the time that I need. I have to recognize that he gave me the same 24 hours that he gave me years ago when I had a bunch of little kids and I felt overwhelmed by that. He is giving me the same 24 hours now. It just looks different. I have to recognize which shoulds actually fit into that time schedule, which ones are the shoulds that God requires, not that man requires, not that some random person on the Internet thinks I ought to be doing. It is really a life lived for the Lord that leads me through this schedule, through this time frame. So certainly I’m going to look to my husband and my children and my mother and myself for the things that need to be done. But I am learning to say no. I’m learning to redirect. I’m learning to designate somebody else and not try to take all of this on myself. And I think mothers tend to be very bad at wanting to take everything on themselves or thinking that they’re supposed to take everything on themselves and then not delegating, not letting other people try, not training up other people to help out. I mean, why do I have to be the one who makes supper every single night? That is one that is so difficult for me to give up. I’m okay with saying this is a night when I’m not home, so we’re gonna have frozen pizza. But I don’t seem to be okay with saying this is a night that I need somebody else to cook. Even though I’m here, I just feel like that’s my responsibility and I ought to be doing that. However, I’m also doing my children a disservice by not allowing them to try to cook a full blown meal for our family. And I think some of that is control. I’m afraid they won’t make enough. I’m afraid they’ll do it wrong. I’m afraid they’ll still need me to show them what to do. And then I’ve got double the amount of work. And so rather than actually letting them try, I hover or I feel like it’s just easier if I just take care of it myself. And if I would just train them up and let them go, it would be easier on all of us. But again, I am still figuring this out. I’m a year into this. I’m still trying to make sense of my schedule and make sense of this new season. It is something very different from anything I have ever done before. And so hats off to those of you who are living the sandwich generation life. I would actually love to hear from some of you and I may address this in another podcast in the future. more things that I’m learning and ways that I’m navigating this season. But I would love to hear from those of you who have navigated it maybe a little longer than I have and have some good insight into what you can do to live this sandwich generation life without losing your mind. Now, I can’t say that I’m losing my mind. I just do feel very stretched thin. And so if the podcasts are a little sparse here and there and the videos just don’t seem to get out on YouTube and every so often I put out a blog post, but then there hasn’t been any new content for a while, you will know where I am. I am at home managing a brand new season to me and it’s just going to take me time to find figure it all out. I hope that this podcast has been a blessing to those of you who are maybe living this yourselves or seeing this in the near future. I know personally this is just something that has been weighing on me that I wanted to share with you because it is just so different. And I know I’m not the only one living this. That’s all I have for you today and I’m so glad you took the time to listen to this podcast. Until next time, have a blessed day. Day.
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