When children become parents

It happens slowly. It creeps up on you gradually and you are not even aware that it is happening. And then one day, out of the blue, you find your daughter on the phone asking agitatedly " Where were you ? I have been calling and calling. I almost called 911. Why are out so late?"

That is the moment you realize that now your children have become your parents. She is reading from a script that we parents wrote some decades ago when your children were out late partying and not informing us where they were!

A group of us elderly parents were bewailing our lot. One wailed, " my son wont let me eat a dessert". Another complained of constant lectures from her children about not sticking to a diet. " Have you taken your pills today? Really, Mom! Must I come there to make sure you follow your doctors orders?"

Yes the transition is complete- the children are now our parents. Time was when we would threaten them when they were particularly recalcitrant " Just you wait. I hope I live long enough to see your children give you the same trouble you are giving me now!"

Little did we realize that there was going to come another phase in between - when even before our children had their children they would find an opportunity to berate us parents for our supposed failings.

"Honestly, Dad" said my daughter one day in good humored exasperation, " I can not leave you alone for even a little while. Every time I turn my back, you create a new problem".

That was at least partly true- unfortunately so I could not argue with her - the last time she had had to call the emergency services.

"Taking care of babies is hard, for sure, but add to the baby a parent who has somehow, so strangely and suddenly, become childlike, and you are quite abruptly in charge of two generations. Big and little people with needs that you must answer." writes Elizabeth Cohen, " Extreme parents get to zip everyone’s zippers, tie everyone’s shoes, make sure everyone has gone to the bathroom, and sometimes change the diapers of our babies and parents as well."

While it is a natural part of life, and happens so often in our society, it still feels strange and wrong somehow when children charge of their parents. It is counter-intuitive.

"But there are silver linings to the extreme parenting job" continues the writer, "One is you get to spend time with your parents at the end of their lives. There is something precious and lovely about that time, because it is so fleeting and finite."

I asked another of these ambitious young women about her plans for the next ten years. She replied blithely " Oh! marriage, children and build my career". Little did she realize that looking after her aging parents would be added, inadvertently to her repertoire. And she would be left juggling these four balls for years to come.

To me it has becoming increasingly evident, that the " sandwich" generation that I wrote of some time ago, is rapidly becoming a "Houdini" generation juggling marriage, children, career and aging parents all at the same time. It is also a constant source of wonder and amazement that this generation is still able to function despite these pressures.

As one of this generation asked me ruefully one evening., " I honestly dont know which is more difficult, looking after my children, my parents or working at my career? How should I handle it?"

I had no advice to give her.