The Sandwich Generation

I'm in the sandwich generation, caught between aging parents and angry teenagers.  I feel like mayo, spread too thin and still trying to do the job of holding it all together.  I also feel like a tomato smashed between the buns and then picked off and tossed unceremoniously in the trash.  Splat.

We visited the aging parents on hubby's side of the family today.  His dad is 76 and was just this week told he's progressed from dementia to Alzheimer's.  His wife called yesterday to update us.  He's been having silent mini-strokes.  He knows the year but has no idea what day or month it is.  He can talk for hours about his youth, but can't tell you what happened five minutes ago.  For months he has been keeping a journal of everything he does.  Wife says sometimes re-reading what he wrote previously will help him get through a day, but he has more frequent episodes of feeling like he should just end it all.  He's become a prisoner in his own body.

The hard part of this is that hubby's siblings are in denial.  They don't like Wife (much of that is her own doing) and so they think she is making this up.  I'm here to tell you he is not making it up.  Hubby and I will try to keep the peace between them all, but what a job we have ahead of us!

Upon returning home from our visit with aging parents, we dealt with the angry teenager.  Again, I realize she is stuck between wanting to remain a teenager with rules and expectations, while at the same time she really wants to be treated like an adult and be able to make her own decisions.  Unfortunately, I am taking the brunt of her anger.  She wants to tell me only what she thinks I should know but she doesn't want me to "go all mom" on her.  Easier said than done. 

Last week we had a big argument about school and her attitude.  She thinks I shouldn't worry about it.  She doesn't understand that we worry about everything!  She doesn't care about some of her classes and thinks I shouldn't either.  She tells me she won't use anything she's learning in business or english in her future.  Really?!?!  Obviously she wasn't thinking about what she was saying! 

That carried over to other things.  She warned me that she "might" want to talk to me about something that was really none of my business so she wanted me to promise not to say anything.  I was honest with her - I told her I would try but I couldn't promise not to say anything.  Apparently that was the wrong answer.  She barely spoke to me that night and then was gone the next day.  Today I discover she has blocked me from Facebook.  She's starting to cut me out of her life.  I'm torn between understanding and knowing I need to let go, and being hurt and angry and wanting to strike back.

I don't think I make a very good sandwich.