Diana Wright from Bristol discusses the modern phenomenon of mid-lifers having care responsibilities between the generations.
What is the "in-between" generation? Those of us who are caught between the older and younger generation. We have elderly and sometimes ill, older parents, at the same time as our own children, often with their children to. We want to be available for our children and grand-children, but at the same time want to offer care and support for our elderly parents, and juggling these demands can be difficult.
How does this appear in real life? Take Mothers' Day - my Mothers' Day. We have an elderly mother in a nursing home. She is frail and has a level of dementia, but often comes to us for a Sunday lunch. Should she come on Mothers' Day? She is, after all, my husband's mum. I also have a daughter with a two year old. She works and I would like to give her a restful day. She also wants to celebrate the day in some way with me. How can we make this food for everyone? We can't go to a restaurant, Grandma couldn't cope. We can't go to Mary's, Grandma can't manage the stairs, so it will be at my house, and I, with some help from my daughter, will prepare lunch. After lunch maybe a walk with our grandson, but no, it is too cold for Grandma, but it is a sunny day, so she would enjoy a drive. A compromise - I go with daughter and little one while my husband takes his mum for a drive. A good solution you may think. Yes! But the in-between generation has done the compromising again.
Things can become more complicated if the parents or the children live at a distance. Then there is no compromise, just a straight choice, and either way we feel we have let someone down. There is a constant pull for us from both generations, wanting to be good children to our parents at the same time as being good parents and grandparents. At times it is a struggle to be both.
If an elderly parents lives with their children, there can be another set of problems. How do you balance the needs of teenagers with those of an elderly person? Can you give them both the time and attention required?
What about retirement? If we still have to care for our elderly parents when we retire, we may have to put our dreams on hold until we are free to follow them - the cruise, the country cottage, the visit to children living abroad.
At our church, to help our in-betweeners, I started a bi-monthly get-together for those with elderly parents who were needing considerable time and care. Here we share our frustrations, our sorrows, and our joys. Here we can say things that may be difficult to say in other places.
"My mum has become incontinent and I don't know how to help.".
We share information and resources, and we listen to each other, allowing everyone to get things off their chest.
The difficulty is that we love our parents and want to care for them as we also love our younger generation and want to send time with them. Grandchildren seem to grow up so much more quickly than our own children did! So we learn how to juggle, to compromise, sometimes to sacrifice, and do the best we can, which at times feels like not enough.
There are of course, good things that come out of these situations, like the teenager who found she really liked elderly people at the nursing home, and would chat to all of them during her visit to granddad. There was also an autumn day when my two-year-old grandson threw leaves all over Grandma sitting in her wheelchair. Her eyes lit up and she chuckled with delight as she threw them back and they shared a joke together, her eyes bright for the first time for months. These times keep us going through those other difficult times when being "in-between" feels like a very uncomfortable place to be.
© 2005 Diana Wright and Flame