Sandwich Generation Truth-Telling
Mothers are turning into flattened paninis with systemic failures around childcare and eldercare surrounding them on both sides. Let’s talk about it.
I want everyone to be talking a lot more about the eldercare realities facing this country. No one benefits from dealing with these issues in isolation. So today, Double Shifters, let’s normalize talking about it! While I currently receive more care in the form of childcare from my parents and mother-in-law than we give to them, the three of them are in their mid-to-late seventies, so that ratio of give and take could change at any moment.
Around me, I see so many of my peers in their 40s facing daunting eldercare realities. And while people of all genders do this labor, it disproportionately falls to women and mothers to manage this unpaid work. Off the top of my head, here are some situations close friends are facing right now: