Sandwich Generation

What it is and why the Sandwich Generation should join the F***-It Club

Try as you may, there are some things you can never prepare for. I thought I was ready for parenting, how laughable it all seems now. Also there has been a blow in my life that I never even saw coming, that of the massive and sudden decline of my parents health and a switch in roles in our relationship. My parents' GP called me "Sandwich Generation": when, at the point of seeing your kids off to school and getting a semblance of your old life back, you are called upon to help elderly or long-term infirm parents. I was offered support initially, but being in denial, I didn't take up the offer. As time has passed, my outlook has changed.

New parents will know that childrearing is the toughest job you'll ever do. You can try and prepare, but can't actually know what its like until you're there, weak, sleep deprived, with a raw, scoured complexion and a joyous, crazily beautiful bundle in your arms and sheer euphoria in your heart. Even before becoming pregnant I was smug in the knowledge that I'd done my homework, read the books, was armed with facts I'd sought out myself and facts that had been thrust upon me by friends and colleagues. All would be well, after all, I'd been a kid myself, right? Oh sweet ignorance. I'm glad I anticipated an abrupt change in the pace of my life and so, during the months before becoming pregnant, I dove headlong into work and play, burning the candle at both ends, and in the process, experiencing the time of my life.

So yes parenting is tough and your life changes forever, but one of the things I hadn't counted on was the worry. The ever-present, all consuming worry that even after the colics, gripes and rashes of infancy are over, it never, ever wears off......ever. Have I packed them off warmly enough? Will they overheat? Do they need sunblock? Are they Vitamin D deficient? Should I be enrolling them into fencing classes? Will it scar them for life if I don't... Oh FFS.

Just as I began to relax and get ready to head back to an existence that would cater for myself as well as the kids, there came the diagnosis of my father's Alzheimer's. This was an unexpected blow which I'm still reeling from even 18 months after diagnosis. (...Ah, his memory was not conveniently selective after all, and the times his rudeness to others had made me wish the earth would open up and swallow me... the penny dropped). At the same time, the arthritis my mother has suffered since she was a teenager flared up, perhaps aggravated by the toll of living with my father's illness as well as her own. Its not easy watching the decline, it is in fact hellish, and its not right to see your nearest, who have always been strong for you, become so weak and needy. And then you realise that you will lose one parent not once, but twice. So for a long time, rather than face this inevitability I chose to ignore the fact that it was happening at all.

Coming to terms with being a carer has been a long journey for me, a virtually vertical learning curve comparable in fact to becoming a parent for the first time. As I've mentioned denial is the first stage you go through, followed hot on the heels by a long period of blind anger (at my folks for letting me down *sigh*), then guilt for feeling so angry, and finally, well, resignation and acceptance because there's nowhere else to go.

I've taken as much help from the wonderful NHS as I can, but even so, time is never my own and sometimes I feel like I have four children rather than two. I am thankful to be a homeworker, fitting family commitments around deadlines and I often work into the night as my working day gets bitten into by dealing with the people that make my parents lives tick. And then there's the time spent on kid worries and the busy activity timetable that means chauffeuring the kids to clubs and fencing (not really.... but I'm still considering...).

Easy it ain't. Your goals get put aside and you feel like your life has been hijacked. But if you find you're in a similar situation, specially with ailing folks, the best advice I can give is take all the help and respite you can get, but most of all, try not to get too angry for too long. Push through it. If you do need to let off steam now and again, find an understanding mate who will allow you the occasional rant, and then move on. If you absolutely have to be angry at something, be angry at the diseases, not the poor souls who are suffering them. After all, the alternative is much worse. So count your blessings and cling on to what you have for as long as you can, cherish your loved ones, and even though its hard, enjoy this time as it won't be with you always. One day you may look back on this period and miss it, for one way or another, all things must pass.

Life is both long and short and whichever way you look at it you must minimise the bad and make the most of the good. One of the best things I've done to get me through is to become a fully paid up member of, what my girlfriends and I have labelled "The Free-Falling F***-it Club". I suppose it's the guilt free club you join that lets you to do stuff you haven't done for a while or maybe have never done at all. Its about allowing yourself to be totally carefree for a moment, it can be as simple as a night at the flicks or a little more hedonistic, like blowing the expense, getting a sitter in and going out dancing till dawn. Or getting a naughty tatt' on your arse. Singing Karaoke passionately at the top of your voice. Joining Twitter. Being creative - going totally nuts, and writing a blog about your life.