About a year ago, I was away from home for three or four days. Piglet was in school and I made arrangements for her to go to various friends afterwards. I set out all the clothes needed before I left. I made a list with details of what the Fella should feed himself, the two of them, on which days; who she was with on any given day and their contact numbers; a few domestic tasks which I asked the Fella to undertake in my absence. (Thursday: Put out bins!) I was tempted to blog about how ridiculous it was to make this list for a grown man. Then I had a rethink.
Yesterday Piglet came out of school and said: "You have to get me shin guards for tomorrow."
I do not like to hear a piglet say "you have to," without some honorific title, I prefer something like: "O noble mater familias who bore me amid unbelievable pain and suffering and has nurtured me at considerable cost to your social life ever since, I beg of you humbly on my knees ..."
They call us the sandwich generation. We are the ones who care simultaneously for elderly relatives and young children. It feels like a personal struggle sometimes. It comes from a number of sociological phenomena.