6 Ways to Juggle Kids and Elder Care

Who feels like a panini?

Sorry, this column isn’t about the panini you eat, rather the one you are — that is if you are a member of the sandwich generation with aging parents or other family members who need assistance and children, often into their mid to late 20s, still partially or completely dependent financially.

In 2002, Statistics Canada estimated that 2.6 million Canadians between the ages of 45 and 64 had children under 25 living with them and approximately 27 per cent of them were also providing some kind of elder care. After the financial collapse and recession the trend has accelerated.

Many of my friends are being sandwiched, as am I. My youngest daughter, nearly 26, is deaf. She’s still at college and may require financial help for some time to come. Until recently, my parents also needed considerable care. My mother died in 2009 and, fortunately, my father is relatively healthy and able to live in a nice retirement home. But now and then, the needs of daughter and father collide with my own busy life and I feel pulled in a dozen directions.

Most of those sandwiched between two generations are baby boomers, the first of whom started collecting their old-age pension in 2011. The advancing wave of this group is bringing with it a whole set of new financial challenges. “My daughter and son have student loans of $42,000 between the two of them. Despite their best efforts they’re semi-employed and living in an expensive city (Toronto),” Helen, 59, emailed recently. Helen is widowed and lives in a small northern Ontario town where jobs are limited. “I have enough to retire in a couple of years but not if I help them, especially if their situations don’t improve pretty fast. But I can’t see turning my back on them.”