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Constable: Life serves up 'sandwich generation' stress

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." - Ferris Bueller in John Hughes' classic 1986 movie, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

I missed it.

For weeks, I had been anticipating the odometer on my 2007 Prius rolling from 199,999 miles to 200,000. It seemed like one of those innocuous things I could photograph and post on social media so Facebook would have one interesting moment to use in the video it will manufacture to sum up my 2017. But as I drove during last week's summer vacation that was centered around my family's annual pilgrimage to the Fountain Park Chautaqua in rural Remington, Ind., I didn't remember my odometer quest until the mileage read 200,020. My photograph of that moment is not Facebook-worthy.

I had other things on my mind. My widowed 82-year-old father-in-law had to go to the emergency room and was in the hospital for a few days. As my wife and her two sisters scrambled to care for him, my two sisters, our 90-year-old widowed mom and I had an appointment with a probate lawyer to draft power-of-attorney documents to cover our bases in case something happens to Mom's health, which currently is fine enough that she can live by herself on the family farm. My wife and I also celebrated having all three of our sons together for the first time since Christmas, as our busy twins in college came home from summer internships for a three-day visit. Meanwhile, my wife and I helped our youngest pack for his college's August Wilderness adventure in Utah, which finishes just in time for us to haul everything to his dorm room later this month.

Everything is moving in the right direction at this moment, but life with all the demands and general worries about young adult children and aging parents still can seem a bit tense.

"I am personally very familiar with it, and through my business for nine years," says Julie Kollada, founder and president of Open Arms Solutions in Northbrook, which provides at-home care for older people or those who need additional care in the surrounding suburbs and Chicago. "I do a talk called 'Sandwiched.'"

In 1981, social worker Dorothy Miller coined the term "sandwich generation" to describe women who were in the middle, between taking care of children and helping aging parents, Today, almost half of adults in their 40s and 50s have a parent older than 65 and responsibility for a child or young adult, according to the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research and polling service. The suburbs are filled with middle-age men and women who are full-time, active parents, also work full-time jobs and still feel the need to help their elderly parents. Among those with a parent older than 65 and a dependent child, 31 percent report that they "always feel rushed," according to one Pew study.

"I hear a lot of stress," says Kollada, who can draw upon her own experience as the mother of 10- and 12-year-old boys when her mom's health was failing. "I would be at my kids' baseball game and get phone calls from my mom that didn't sound like my mom."

She wanted to be there for her boys, but she also wanted to give her full attention to her mom. "I was pretty torn," Kollada says, explaining how that experience inspired her to start her business that provides care anywhere from one hour to 24 hours a day for older people in their own homes.

The issues my wife I are facing fade when we talk to people who would be thrilled to have three kids in college and aging parents to love. Lots of people our age have lost those loved ones, or their situation is exacerbated by caring for a child with special needs, a parent with total dementia or their own health battles. We are lucky.

It's just that life does seem to be moving faster than ever. My wife and I might not stop and look around as much as we should, but I don't think we are missing the important stuff. We make priorities, enjoy the good moments and let some stuff slide.

In fact, I've already decided that I'm even going to make an attempt to photograph my odometer when our Prius rolls from 299,999 to 300,000.

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