My older sister bumped into my dad and my grandmother out shopping the other day. My 87-year-old “Mother” (as she likes to be called instead of Grandma) is always bickering at him for one thing or another and today it was because he refused to assist her in picking out bras and panties. “I kind of felt sorry for him, you know?” she explained to me, “So I stepped in to help and it wasn’t long before she was yelling at me too.” In her old age my grandmother has resorted to behaving like a spoiled child and probably suffering from a bit of dementia. It can be difficult to care for an elderly parent, even though my dad shares responsibilities with three siblings. As I listened to my sister, it dawned on me that one day that would be us with our mom in the middle of Target yelling at us for picking out the wrong kind of paper towels.
In her article “The Sandwich Generation: Taking Care of Your Parents and Your Kids” Michelle Borboa describes me and many of my peers as a generation sandwiched in between caring for the needs of their aging parents and their own responsibilities. In the past fifteen years or so the financial comforts of growing old have faded fast. Pensions are harder and harder to come by. With the financial crisis, people who have spent their whole adult lives building their careers are being laid off in exchange for desperate graduates who are willing to work their lives away for lower pay. When those forty and fifty somethings seek other employment they are often discriminated against because of their age and the experience they were once told was so beneficial to have.
This became all too real to me when my father was laid off during my senior year of undergrad. I was working at a Dairy Queen dipping frozen bananas in chocolate when my sister called me in tears, “The hospital is closing down, and they just told us we only have two weeks,” she cried. I responded, “It’s going to be OK,” but in my head I was panicking wondering if we’d be poor.
Luckily my parents have always saved and prepared for emergencies, so although my mom took on most of the financial burden, nothing really changed about our lifestyle. That was almost seven years ago and since then my sister and I have managed to find full-time work to help contribute to their household. But as I start to plan a life for myself and pay bills in my own household, I find myself choosing between buying myself a dining room set and paying my mom’s Macy’s bill off. It always seems like I am struggling with a selfish part of me that feels like I should be able to focus on building my own life and not having to support my parents. At the same time, thoughts of my own retirement and the fact that I could end up in a similar situation, if not worse, scare me.
As I taught a class of young mothers the other day, I found myself disgusted at the fact that many of them didn’t know what “SSI” stood for or the reason Social Security exists. One student told me with a straight face, “It’s real easy to get Social Security. They give it out for ADHD, depression…bronchitis.” Now I’m not sure of how true that is, but I know there are plenty of people who count on an SSI check faithfully like it’s just another handout because they feel like a little anxiety entitles them to ”free money”. Meanwhile, my father whose worked over 40 years of his life is sitting home cursing at CNN every day telling me the life I’m trying to build basically has no chance because the government has “f’d everything up”. He’s bitter, but frankly, he has every damn right to be.
Claudia Fine, chief professional officer at SeniorBridge, a geriatric care management company offers some insight into what is quickly becoming a concern for young women, “It’s very difficult to juggle working, childcare, marriage and now parent care and impossible to do well. Then, when you don’t do it well, it leaves you with a sense of not feeling good or competent, and perhaps even guilty.” Guilty. It’s exactly what I feel when I put a down payment on a trip only to for my mom to tell me that she needs help paying the property taxes. It’s taking today’s twenty-somethings even longer to live independently, let alone afford the extras and when they finally can it seems like they have to make sure their parents can still live comfortably.
My parents always remind me that all of my happy hours with the girls, vacations and decorating my own house are exactly what I am supposed to be doing as an adult. In fact the only person pressuring me to be able to do it all is me. According to WomensHealth.gov almost 75 percent of caregivers report feeling very strained emotionally, physically, or financially are women. Maintaining a solid support system and practicing self-care is key. Thankfully my sister and I are able to trade off responsibilities so no one person is stuck spending all of their disposable income paying bills for two households. At the end of the day, that’s what family is all about: taking care of and supporting one another. You can pay your parents back and still find a way to play as hard as you work.
Toya Sharee is a community health educator and parenting education coordinator who has a passion for helping young women build their self-esteem and make well-informed choices about their sexual health. She also advocates for women’s reproductive rights and blogs about everything from beauty to love and relationships. Follow her on Twitter @TheTrueTSharee or visit her blog, Bullets and Blessings.
