China’s sandwich generation?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

China’s sandwich generation?

As for the “children” that sandwich generation caregivers are looking after? Traditionally, the assumed reference would have been to those younger than 18 who are still living at home. But many sandwich generation caregivers have young adult children who no longer live in the home yet still rely on their parents for financial support. Still others have adult “boomerang” children who have moved back into the house.

There’s also the “club” sandwich, which includes more than three generations. For example, a 55-year-old woman might be caring for her aging parents, while her 30-year-old son and daughter-in-law, along with their young children, live at home with her. “It’s not just a regular peanut butter and jelly sandwich, it’s a club sandwich of family members looking behind and ahead in multiple generations,” says E. Christine Moll, an associate professor and chair of the Department of Counseling and Human Services at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. Moll is also a past president of the Association for Adult Development and Aging, a division of the American Counseling Association.

Ten years ago, Phillip Rumrill found himself in a variation of the sandwich generation. Rumrill, a professor of rehabilitation counseling and director of the Center for Disability Studies at Kent State University, was helping to care for his grandmother, who had cancer and dementia. He was also raising young children of his own and holding down a full-time job as a counselor educator. Rumrill says there weren’t many good resources at the time for sandwich generation caregivers like himself. He and the other family members helping with his grandmother’s care “had to learn a lot on the fly.” A few years later, two rehabilitation counseling colleagues approached Rumrill. The women — one of whom had cared for her mother-in-law and the other of whom had cared for her father, both while raising their own children — were interested in writing a book on the topic. Rumrill, Kimberly McCrone Wickert and Danielle Schultz Dresden co-authored The Sandwich Generation’s Guide to Eldercare: Concrete Advice to Simultaneously Care for Your Kids and Your Parents in 2013. Their aim was to provide the kind of practical guide they wished had been available for them.