Sandwich Generation

The phrase sounds like you are a cut of deli meat. This is hardly anything new, the concept I mean.
It used to be, not all that long ago, that the multi-generational household was the norm. Having mom and dad living with you was not out of the ordinary, you probably lived with them when you were first married.
So now this arrangement is enough to have web sites and a week long on going news report! Is it really such a hardship to care for the people who cared for you? It seems that "family" has become a term that either implies people that you see only once or twice a year, or an undue hardship.

Undue hardship is what I am getting out of most of the reports. What is up with that? I guess that the parents are supposed to "live their own lives" and stay out of yours. Everyone doing their own thing.

I can just hear the cries of some people already, "My parents were horrible, they treated me bad, blah, blah, blah." Well, mine weren't the greatest either. I don't have all the answers, if I did I'd run for the position of God. It is just my feeling that family should be just that, family. Have we gotten so far away from that concept? From what I have observed, so many people have. Family is something to keep at arms length. You stay in your space and not in mine.

There are some benefits to having a multi-generational household. No, I am not talking money here. Even though most of the infromation seems to be centered around that. In todays world, for the most part, it is all about getting "stuff" and new cars and a better house and designer clothes and on and on. Is this really what life is all about? I guess that it is for most people. Lessons and wisdom from the past is not worthwhile, they have no place in our lives today. The world is electronically enhanced, mired in debt and utterly lost in the mad scramble of having the newest, the latest before anyone else.

Maybe I am just waxing philisophically from behind rose colored glasses. Maybe I am just crazy. Maybe I have an insane longing for things long passed. Maybe I am lost in a Walton-est dream world ( I thought I would bring that up before someone else did).

I do see the value of the families caring for each other, leaning on each other and learning from each other. That in essence is what helps keep the older ones young and matures the younger ones. It is the catalyst for passing on lessons learned, for seeing new points of view and for pulling together for a common goal. It used to be what helped make us who we are. In the world we have today, we need all the help we can get.