"Sandwich Generation." "Cluttered-Nest Syndrome." Whatever term is out there right now, multigeneration families are nothing new. Some of us grew up in them, or at least remember accounts of together times where grandparents enriched both parents' and kids' lives. In recent decades, though, the caregiving dynamic has changed in bittersweet ways.
Demographic studies tell us that care for senior parents by adult children is mushrooming as baby boomers age and as everyone's life expectancy grows. And surveys report the good news that this kind of role reversal is often welcome and satisfying. But when parents need significant care—and care for children at home is ongoing—emotions like stress and burnout dominate headlines and hearts.
As both parent to an adolescent and caregiver to a parent, I regularly feel squeezed by this sandwich effect. When my daily life presents a convincing picture of chronological "ages and stages,"—a counterfeit of the real continuity of good—my only recourse is the prayer that trusts God's goodness. Lifelong study of the Scriptures has brought this already-established fact of His nature home to me. The Bible's countless descriptions of God as good, and stories of actual people who found solutions by totally depending on God's care, awaken me to the true spiritual character of every one of us. If my teenage daughter seems disrespectful or my mother intractable, choosing to look for evidence of God turns me away from resignation—toward healing.
