Did your mom or dad ever feed you with the “airplane technique”?
Maybe they got really into it and made great sound effects…
ShoooooOOOoOoOOooooOom! GIF via Baby Bullet/YouTube.
Maybe you actually had a spoon shaped like a plane…
Incoming baby food. Prepare for landing. GIF via Samantha Skolnik/YouTube.
Or maybe you were so resistant to the ol’ “plane technique” that they had to go for the bait and switch…
Oh no, you didn’t. GIF via BlueChainsawMan/reddit.
Families take care of each other in all kinds of ways.
And today, there’s a new group of people who are taking care of both their own kids and their parents. They’re called the “sandwich generation.”
The sandwich generation is a generation of adults who are caring for their aging parents while simultaneously supporting their kids. This scenario may be a lot more common than you think.
1 in 7 middle-aged adults provides financial support to both a parent and a child.
And that doesn’t even begin to cover the amount of people providing emotional support to their families. 68% of all adults who have a living parent aged 65+ say they provide emotional support for that parent at least some of the time.
Why do we care for our aging parents?
You could certainly think of it as a social responsibility — many Americans do. 75% of adults believe they have a financial responsibility to support an aging parent.
Maybe we feel like we owe them something after all the years they fed and clothed and cared for us. Maybe we feel that without us, they’d have no other option.
Or maybe, it simply comes down to love.
GIF via Ad Council.
