The Privilege of Raising Her.

A couple of years back, my mother apologized to me for being so high maintenance.  It's true, she can be a lot of work!  I remember saying to her, "That's OK, you raised me all those years, now I get to raise you."  Notice the vocab choice, there; I don't have to, I GET to. All families joke about it, you know, who's going to take care of Mom when she's old and infirm.  Yeah, we joke about it, but we never really think it's going to happen because our parents are invincible.  Turns out they're not.  Psychologists call us the "sandwich generation."  I call us "tweeners."  We're still smack in the middle of raising kids, and now our parents are needing care, too.  I'm not gonna lie:  being a tweener is tough.  It's stressful, exhausting, sad...  Some time after my dad died, I realized that when I lost him, I lost them both.  And, I lost being someone's kid.  I really had to grieve that loss before I could accept the role of caregiver to my mum as a privilege.

I'm carrying her over high water.  It's literal, and figurative, too. 

 Part of the reason so many of us now fall into the tweener category is the changing demographic in our society:  More women belong to the work force than ever before; life expectancy has increased; couples are having fewer kids, leaving the burden of care with one or two adult children; couples are also waiting to have children, so our kids are younger when our parents are older; families are more mobile, increasing the likelihood of geographical distance between family members; our older children have more financial stress, increasing the need for parental help.  All of this makes conditions ideal for the perfect storm.  Indeed, documented familial financial support of older children and aging parents is up into the billions!  No wonder tweeners have more diagnosed mental illness than ever!

It took a while, and we want this time in our lives to be happy and fun, so here's now we make it work. 

First of all, there's open communication between all parties:  tweeners, kiddos, and grands.  No awkward, just lay it all out there.  Everyone understands the priority, and that is to make sure everyone gets what they need, physically and emotionally, ie:  driveway shoveled and company on a lonely night, or supportive family at the game and a ride home.  No one is excluded from making sure that all happens.

We ask for help when we need it, and we accept what is offered.  Can't do it all.  No one is trying to be a hero, here. 

No guilt trips allowed, especially self induced guilt trips.  "Should" is stricken from the acceptable vocab list.  Sometimes we literally forget to visit, or fall asleep before the nightly phone call.  It happens. 

A family affair.  This is the best part, actually.  The opportunities for building great relationships, for learning lessons in service, patience, kindness, sensitivity, love... these opportunities are many and frequent. I can tell you that our kids have grown exponentially from being active participants in a tweener family.

Finally, good stress management and self care...  we go to camp, take road trips, keep friend dates and spouse dates, continue with our loved activities and (try to) maintain some semblance of a social life.  Sounds tough to manage, but making the time actually makes everything else work, and you're not left feeling tapped out and resentful.  Take care of you!

In the end, it turns out we never stop being parents, and we never stop being kids, and the best of both worlds turns out to be The Purpose. 
💖