How is care giving affecting the sandwich generation in particular?
A. It changes the personal dynamics and creates enormous conflict in the family. The adult children worry — they want to be helpful and also want to be relieved of the burden, and who can blame them? They’ve got a whole other life they have to be living. And this is burdensome, no matter how much you love your parents. I tell a story in the book about this woman who was 57. She kept nagging her parents. She would take them from one assisted living center to another, and they always found something wrong — the rooms were too small, the food wasn’t good, the place smelled, the people were too old. She felt like they didn’t appreciate her efforts. And when I talked to them, they didn’t want her efforts. They wanted her to be nice and be there when they needed her, but otherwise to leave them alone. The father, in particular, was furious with her. So it’s a very delicate balance, and each family has to find that balance. My advice to the children is to know what it is that you’re really
