How to strike a balance between dependent children and aging parents

Does your typical day include booking an extended lunch to take an aging parent to a medical appointment, leaving work early to pick up medication, racing to take your child to music lessons and then heading home to worry over once again taking time off from work?

If so, you’re not alone – the sandwich generation is alive and well, and growing. More and more working people today find themselves squeezed between caring for their children and an aging parent or parents.

On one side, you have an aging parent depending on you to help her cope with things she can no longer do for herself like driving and maintaining her finances and on the other, you have dependent children who take up as much time, energy, and money as you can give them.

Most people who find themselves sandwiched between young and old loved ones struggle to balance their major responsibilities – raising their own children, working full time, caring for their aging parents, and finding some time for themselves (and their spouse).

The role of a primary caregiver is demanding and spreads across all racial, gender, age and ethnic boundaries. The stressors are the same.

Dealing with the guilt of not having enough time to accomplish everything and not feeling alone and isolated in the situation is difficult without some help. You can’t nor should you try to do it all. You, just like your family and your aging parent(s), need help and assistance.

If you’re feeling stretched to the limit, it’s time to stop and take stock. If left unattended the stress can negatively affect your health. Take the time to re-evaluate your situation and seek creative solutions before it’s too late.

Connecting your emotions to your behaviours is an important first step. Once you understand that feelings of anger, guilt and grief are normal, you’re often able to see more clearly what you need to do and how you can effect positive change.

A friend of mine dreaded her regular visits to see her mother who had Alzheimer’s. It wasn’t because she didn’t love her or want to be spend time with her but because she was so caught up in the hurt and frustration over the fact her mother who had been such a big part of her life, no longer recognized her. It wasn’t until Sandy realized (and accepted the fact) her mother’s condition had nothing to do with her personally, was she able to look forward to and enjoy the twice a week visits.

Maybe you find other family relationships are strained as your spouse, children, siblings and extended family members are unable or unwilling to help out.

Just because other loved ones don’t react the same way you do, doesn’t mean they don’t care. They may be caught up in their own painful emotions or feel overwhelmed with other responsibilities.

Hold a family meeting. Explain to your family that you can’t do it all and that you need help. The most important thing here is to get them to agree in principle you need assistance and shouldn’t be shouldering the burden alone. Don’t expect a change overnight. You may need to give them some breathing space and then bring up the matter again in a few days and in order to see some action.

Prepare a task list. Share your daily and weekly activities with your family members. Discuss how they can help out with various chores. Go easy on your expectations of how the tasks are executed and remember to support and praise their efforts.

Learn how to spend quality time with your family. While you may not be able to significantly carve out more time with your children and/or spouse, you can find more effective ways to connect and make the time spent together more fulfilling. For instance, engage your children in conversation whenever you’re playing chauffeur, make family dinners a priority and way of staying in touch and involved, start a bedtime or early morning routine where you carve out some special time together to read, play a game or go for a walk.

Take care of yourself. Your own health and well being is just as important if not more so than caring for someone else. Granted there are days when you won’t be able to carve out any ‘me’ time but there’s always a way to creatively add some enjoyment to your daily routines. Some of best ways include making sure you always have your favorite radio station tuned in or music available when you’re driving or working around the house. Or, bring along an activity bag for whenever you find yourself in a waiting room e.g. a book, knitting, word puzzles etc.

Give yourself some personal wind down time before bed. Even an half an hour will do wonders for promoting a restful sleep. Take a bath, go for a walk, read a book or watch a sitcom. If your mind is still racing write down your thoughts in a notebook, then close the cover and vow to forget about things until morning.

Finally, no matter how many people are counting on you, it’s important to remember you are only one person and can only successfully manage one thing at a time. You owe it to yourself not to let guilt or the weight of the situation weigh too heavily on your shoulders. Accept the fact you can only do so much and then give what you can to each task and take pride in knowing you’ve done your best.