Sandwich Parenting… parenting your own children and parenting your parents. It isn’t easy. Maybe that’s why it’s called that, cause being caught inside both ends of the spectrum means that you end up smooshed like a piece of expired bologna.

Today was one of those days.

 

I don’t put this out there to get a woe is me. I am not a martyr. But I am very much the mom of three kids that need me and the daughter-in-law turned parent figure of a very vocal and needy mother-in-law. My husband takes the brunt of his mother’s ire, but man, oh man, parenting a parent while parenting your own children is difficult.

Below is a snapshot of two REAL CONVERSATIONS this morning…

with the 7 year old

Daughter: Can we go to the storage building?
Dad: Why?
Daughter: To get a dollhouse couch.
Dad: Not today. We are all sick and getting in the storage building would be bad for our allergies.
Daughter: (Tears) Why can’t I ever get what I want? Why don’t you understand me?…

 with the 77 year old

Mom: Can we go to the storage building?
Son: Why?
Mom: I want to look for some perfume.
Son: Not today. We are all sick and getting in the storage building would be bad for our allergies.
Mom: (Tears) Why can’t I ever get what I want? Why don’t you understand me?…

It’s the daily conversations like these that wear on your soul. You expect to have fights with your kids. That’s part of parenting. But having duplicate fights with a grown woman are hard to take on a daily basis.

What is truly frustrating to me is that I watched my father-in-law have these same conversations with his mother and Doug’s mom wasn’t happy with incredible stress that was placed on her husband because of it. By the time I joined the family Doug was a grown man and his parent’s were retired while caring for Doug’s dad’s parents.  But here I am watching the same situation, next generation, but our children are small enough to still need lots of parenting. I am trying my absolute best to not be bitter. Some days are harder than others.

So for those of you out there living in the land of sandwich parenting, let me say, you are not alone. It is tough and it feels like no matter the decision you make for your parent it isn’t the right one, but hold on and enjoy the very rare and brief moments when all the ingredients in the sandwich create a masterpiece.