The Washington Post - 11.03.2020

C2 ez sU the washington post.wednesday, march 11 , 2020

er than t heir parents w ere.’ ”

In Pew’s 2012 study of sand-

wiched parents, researchers

found that members of the sand-

wich generation were more likely

than other adults to feel perpetu-

ally rushed — but they also r eport-

ed that they were as happy with

their lives overall as those outside

the c ohort. And when L eslie Ham-

mer, a professor of psychology at

oregon’s Portland State Universi-

ty, and margaret Neal, former di-

rector of the Institute on Aging at

Portland State, conducted a study

of working couples who were part

of the sandwich generation in

1997 , “it was very important to the

people who participated that we

didn’t only look at the negative

aspects of being sandwiched,”

Neal says. The participants want-

ed to emphasize that there was

still reciprocal support among the

generations, she says, “and the

quality of the relationships with

both the children and with the

aging parents had a lot to do with

Family photo

raising children and offering sup-

port to their own aging or ailing

parents.

The boundaries of this cohort

are blurry and perpetually shift-

ing; when the term was first

coined by social worker Dorothy

miller in 1981, she referred s pecifi-

cally t o 30- or 40-something w om-

en — baby boomers o r members o f

the S ilent Generation — who were

caregivers for both children and

aging parents. Now, 40- and 50-

something Gen Xers make up the

heart of the sandwich generation

(which includes m en and women),

but t he baton will pass again soon:

The oldest millennials turn 40

next year, notes K im Parker, direc-

tor of social trends research with

the Pew r esearch Center.

And because millennials have

waited longer to have children

than prior generations, they are

even more likely than their prede-

cessors to find themselves balanc-

ing care for e ven younger children

and a ging p arents, Parker says.

“We know, on average, adults

are marrying later now, and wom-

en a re having c hildren later i n life,

so it compresses things for that

generation,” s he says.

But p lenty of G en Xers had t heir

children later in life, too — the

trend of A mericans waiting longer

to start their families began in the

1970 s, according to Pew — and

their current reality offers a

glimpse of what a “compressed”

future might look like for millen-

nials.

“It’s a constant push-pull,” s ays

Christie moon, a 47-year-old hu-

man resources director i n the Dis-

trict a nd the m om of 11- and 7-year-

old sons. “I always feel like I’m

disappointing someone.”

moon says she started to feel

the “sandwich” pressure about

five years ago, after her father

turned 70 and both her parents,

who lived about an hour away,

started to have more medical

needs. She often feels guilty, she

says — that she hasn’t b een able to

support her parents as much as

she feels she should, that her at-

tention is sometimes pulled away

from her children and her hus-

band, t hat her child-free sister has

often been the o ne t o step in w hen

their parents needed immediate

help. And since her father’s death

in August, she’s been thinking es-

pecially about her family’s deeper

needs, the support that goes be-

yond simple c hores or errands.

“When there’s something spe-

cific — like, ‘I need to relieve my

sister, I need to help with this

particular task’ — it’s been easier

to make sure it’s a priority,” she

says. “But when it’s something

with softer edges — just being

there, keeping my p arents compa-

ny, making sure there’s a relation-

ship there between them and my

kids — then i t’s easier to say, ‘ I’ll g o

next weekend, I can’t g o this week-

end.’ ” She sighs. “And then you

lose your dad.”

In the months before his 70-

year-old father died in January,

Phil Sofia, 43, drove f rom his home

in manhattan to his father’s nurs-

ing home on Long Island at least

once a week. It meant that Sofia

and his wife were often adjusting

their work schedules — Sofia says

he was fortunate that the c ommer-

cial real estate company where he

works was supportive — and jug-

gling child care for their 3-year-

old s on.

“I very consciously waited until

a little bit later in life to have

children,” S ofia says. “I thought, in

a lot o f ways, t hat would give me an

advantage as a parent; I’ve been

around the b lock a couple of times,

I have more life experience.”

And that much has proved t rue,

he says. But: “I didn’t think about

this other aspect, where I was go-

ing to have multiple competing

priorities that were also going to

be taking time away from being

able to parent.”

T

here has always been the

cycle of growing children

and aging grandparents,

and the stresses that can result

from caring for either or both. But

as more parents trend toward

starting their families later, the

widening distance between the

generations — child, parent,

grandparent — is changing the

nature of the dynamic among all

three.

Growing up on Long Island,

Sofia saw his grandparents every

week: “They were healthy, they

drove, they would cook, they were

super active,” he says. “They were

much younger when I was the age

that my s on is now.”

moon’s mother had all four of

her kids by the time she was 30,

and her parents were each the

oldest of seven siblings — so her

grandparents were still parenting

young kids themselves when

moon was a child, and everyone

helped one another. “When I had

my kids, I was like, ‘How come my

parents aren’t helping me the way

my grandparents helped them?’ ”

she says. “Then I’m like, ‘oh, be-

cause t hey’re literally 2 0 years old-

generations from C1 one’s o verall well-being.”

Hammer and Neal’s research

also found t hat social connections,

and tending to one’s own needs,

were particularly important. “our

report recommended that sand-

wiched couples plan time for each

other and for their own personal

needs, and those are often the

things that get ditched first,” Neal

said. “But for long-term well-be-

ing, it’s much better if they can

take that time for t hemselves.”

Donné Settles Allen has found

this to be true. Between her work

as a program coordinator for an

organization t hat supports people

with developmental disabilities

and tending to her parents — her

father has suffered numerous

strokes, and h er mother i s recover-

ing from a severe case of pneumo-

nia — plus making time for her

husband and their three boys

(they have a 14-year-old and 10-

year-old twins, one of whom has a

disability), Allen prioritizes the

things that help her s tay balanced:

She wakes up early to do yoga and

breathing exercises. She talks to

her friends and rarely misses

church.

“That’s my therapy: church ev-

ery Sunday,” says the 41-year-old

from Silver Spring. “It’s a place

where I can release. If I didn’t h ave

my girlfriends and church, I don’t

know where I’d be.”

Shelly moran Pollard also says

her c ircle of f riends has b een vital,

and a dds that the c ompassion and

support they show one another

has helped her realize the impor-

tance of extending that same em-

pathy to herself i n moments when

she is overwhelmed: “No matter

where I am, I feel like I should be

somewhere else,” she says. “I say

this aloud to other people, but I

need to look in the mirror and say

it to myself: ‘You’re doing the best

you c an.’ ”

S

ince his father’s r ecent death,

Sofia has felt more keenly

aware of the fleeting nature

of things.

“Now, I spend time w ith my s on

and it sort of tinges the time I

spend with him with a little bit of

melancholy, because the loss is

very recent, and it’s so apparent

that the stage of life that my son is

in, the stage of life that I’m in, it’s

all temporary; it will end at some

point,” Sofia says. He pauses. “The

positive part of that, I think, i s that

it helps me appreciate that time a

little bit more.”

over the years, as Allen and her

husband have supported t heir p ar-

ents through their various health

challenges, s he says the couple has

felt a renewed focus on building

strong bonds with t heir c hildren.

“my husband and father-in-law

had a contentious relationship for

years, and at the end they got

really close. And I think, ‘What if

you w ere always close. What if you

didn’t wait until the end?’ ” she

says. “I just want to make sure we

cultivate that closeness now.”

Katie Shea Britton, 43, who

works f or a l aw f irm in the District,

has spent the past three years

helping to support her father, w ho

has dementia and lives in a rehab

center in Bethesda, and her moth-

er, who recently u nderwent a knee

replacement surgery. Britton has

seen the way this dynamic has

shaped her three daughters, she

says: Her oldest, at 10, is practical

and reliable, and volunteered to

stay with her grandmother after

her surgery and helped prepare

her meals. Britton’s 8-year-old

daughter is a compassionate free

spirit, the one who regularly re-

minds her mother to upload new

photos t o the d igital p icture frame

in their grandfather’s room so he

will know they’re thinking of him.

At 6, Britton’s youngest daughter

is curious and blunt, and tends to

ask big questions: What happens

when we die?

“Sometimes things aren’t per-

fect, and sometimes we don’t

know what to do. But this has

forced us to have these conversa-

tions that are both very practical

and very spiritual,” Britton says.

There is worry and stress and

heartache inherent in their fami-

ly’s s andwiched reality, i n navigat-

ing the e arliest and l atest stages of

life simultaneously — but there is

also a certain existential clarity,

Britton says, which has proved to

be a gift.

“We talk very openly about the

finality of life and the importance

of showing up for people when

they’re alive, to make sure they

know that they’re cared for,” Brit-

ton says. “The theme we always

come back to, in the end, is that

showing up for t he p eople y ou l ove

is always the right thing to do.”

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Sandwich generation always feels like it’s playing catch-up

Family photo Family photo

Cheryl Diaz meyer For the Washington post

toP LeFt: Donné settles allen, standing center, with her siblings and parents during a family trip to Myrtle Beach, s.C., last summer.

toP rigHt: Phil sofia with his son, nico, and his father, Michael sofia, in 20 17. Center: Christie Moon with her husband, Brian Pilz,

and sons Lucas, 11, right, and Maximilian, 7. aBoVe: shelly Moran Pollard, left, helps daughter shelby study at their home in Laurel.

“It’s a constant push-pull,” says Christie Moon, a 47-year-old human resources director in the District

and the mother of 11- and 7-year-old sons. “I always feel like I’m disappointing someone.”

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