New generation, parents living longer, where did MY life go?

Your story is one that is so common in the sandwich generation. There were a lot of parents in the "great generation" who wanted all the children to come home for holidays. Families grew to include grandchildren, but no one could start their own traditions without making grandma upset. So people started having multiple celebrations to try to make everyone happy. Now a lot of people dread seeing the holidays come because there is just too much work and travel involved.

I personally believe that when people marry and have kids they should be allowed to set up their own tradition. If it includes grandparents, that's fine. I also think our generation should be able to go to Hawaii if we want to for the holidays. We can make holidays so stressful trying to keep people happy. It usually turns out that no one is happy.

JessieBelle..you got it right. My husband (3rd time was a charming prince!!! Lol) and I discuss making holidays special for just the two of us so travel plans are in the future. However, for now, my mother needs us because nobody else makes an effort to be with her. Last year for Christmas we put the word out that Grandma would be at my daughter's (she's a Feb locks from Mom's AL) but nobody showed up OR EVEN CALLED. And my mother has 5 kids (though one brother died last October) , 9 grandkids, and 15 great-grandkids! I was heartbroken for her. At least her mind has declined to the degree that she didn't fully grasp what happened. But it makes me so mad at them!! Mom is the type who worked her whole life to provide for her family...had huge family dinners up until her 70's, cooking, making homemade rolls, pies, you name it. All those people came to "see her" as long as it was Grandmas cooking. After she was no longer able to do it, we had potlucks. But, the numbers went down each year. And since we got her moved last summer, nobody bothers. I suppose they think she won't notice or remember. But, on her good days, she does! And she will say, I sure do miss the big family get-togethers.
And I sit there thinking, hmm. .wonder what my own long-term memories will hold?!?

Dang spell check!! Was supposed to be: daughter lives a FEW BLOCKS from mom's AL

My husband and I attended several sessions on parenting in blended families early in our marriage. One piece of advice sticks with me: Don't feel guilty about enjoying yourselves in your children's absence. If all of the kids are with your exes this holiday, hooray, you can now spend the holiday in Aspen. It may seem unseemly to be celebrating not having your kids with you, but it is a matter of making the most of the situation. Your kids are elsewhere and spouse's kids are with you? Great opportunity for some one-on-one time between your spouse and those kids, and for you to get to know those kids better.

Also, a holiday is just a mark on a calendar. Who says you can't celebrate Christmas on Dec 18? Or Jan 6?

I know that this "sandwich" generation thing is not quite the same as blended families, but I think those principles apply. Celebrate the good in whatever the situation happens to be, and don't be tied to arbitrary dates for family celebrations.

Now that my grandkids are all adults I tend to celebrate non-mainstream holidays. Lunar New Years, Mardi Gras, Cinco de Mayo, Flag Day ... and none of these make the poor kids and grandkids have to decide which "side" to go to this year.

I don't think my sisters and I ever visited our mom on a holiday in the nursing home. The facility did an awesome job of making that day special. We celebrated with other parts of our families. But we also had celebrations in NH by reserving a common room, bringing in food, table cloths, party plates, etc. For the Christmas event (held in January, but before the decorations were taken down) we all brought presents that the NH could use as Bingo prizes. They were very happy to get our contributions! Gifts for mother were mostly certificates for the onsite beauty parlor.

Every generation has its own challenges, and each family is unique. I try to make the best of what I've got.

Thanks God our siblings and I were taught by example how to take
Care of eAch other when we become old. So whoever needs more ,we put
Our efforts to help .

"Celebrate the good in whatever the situation happens to be, and don't be tied to arbitrary dates for family celebrations."

Jeanne, great perspectives all around. And love your idea of claiming the non-traditional celebrations.

Not only are you upping the joy and lowering the stress. You are showing the younger generation how to be less rigid and more spirited as their adult years escalate into Family Calendar Competition. 

A win-win for everyone.

i am one of the guilty younger generation. We live 3 hours by car from my divorced parents (same town - refuse to be in same room) and 4 hours by plane from my in-laws. What is it with the demands for holidays? We are expected to travel - they won't. (they'll gladly drive across country to see a college chum but it is h*ll to pay to ask them to travel to us for a holiday) We are expected to be there ON the holiday - no matter how bad the weather or chaos with flights. (btw, my grandparents generation did not expect people to travel!!) It is madness - all because this generation expects some idealized version of everyone gathered around, in harmony, at the bountiful table. In reality- we and our child are cranky from travel, criticized for how we are dressed (even when we dress up), criticized for our child's behavior - why can't he sit for three hours at the table with all of the relatives?

The stress was too much and our son hated holidays - is that really the message we want him to have? Christmas is all about sitting in a car for six hours? We ended the madness. We, small nuclear family, have our holiday, at home, creating our own temporary traditions, and CALL the extended family. We will travel to see them, just not on the holiday. Yes it has lead to WWIII and "poor us, we won't be around forever" and eighty ways to try to manipulate us to come so they can win the holiday calendar competition and brag to their friends. Pfffuuiiii...........!!!

This will come across very negatively, i'm sure.

Kimber, you definitely get thumbs up from me. My parents and their parents before them didn't travel to be with their families on holidays. They stayed home with their spouses and children, sometimes inviting others in. The baby boomer generation seems to be the first that was expected to travel long distances to grandma's house. When I was living in Texas it was quite a long trip to feel like I had to make to sit with a group of polite strangers. Total insanity, really, since no one cared but my mother. And she only cared because she thought it was what you were supposed to do.

I feel like I failed in relaying my situation clearly.

I am 61... 1 son/1 daughter, grown... 5 grandkids.
Daugter lives in town where my mother is in AL. (2 & 1/2 hour drive away).
Son moved to FL 4 years ago.
I stayed with their father until they "left the nest" then divorced after 21 years of mental & physical abuse.
To this day, BOTH dgtr/son say best thing I ever did.

Married husb#2, cared for his mother (COPD) to her dying day, loved her with all my heart, such a loss. Then we inherited her farm house. Husband ran our computer business while I slaved on the house: cleared 25 years of hoarding ("ma" had lost a mother after moving her into the house & caring for her for 3 years, a grandson to a drunk driver & then (his mother) her daughter to suicide..all within the same 3 year period that she found out she was terminally ill ...so shopping was her therapy) but since the house had no maintenance and there had been shoddy work on it, leaving gaps everywhere... I dealt with mouse droppings on everything.... Live mice, snakes, poop from 2 dogs/4 cats, etc.!!
Husband held down the fort at our small computer repair shop and I did the bookkeeping in the evenings. I worked every day on the house for a full year. I ripped up 4 rooms of carpet & hauled myself/sealed the floors, caulked windows and foundation gaps, refinished/repositioned wood trim, gutted a bathroom almost entirely by myself, took down kitchen cabinets & paneling (bug nests behind), moved furniture to basement & back again, cleaned and cleaned!!, reinstalled cabinets, wallpapered/painted, the list goes on (don't even get me started what all I did in the yard)...right up to the day husband #2, after 9 years together, announced he was getting back with his high school prom date, saying he hadn't loved me "for years". This came just after I got my diagnosis of 4 herniated discs in my lower back. I went to pain clinics, received treatments but next up was surgery. (Thankfully, a year later, I found a natural treatment instead). Found out dear husb#2 hadn't added me to the deed for the house and he had personal debt so I got nothing but heartbreak.
Through this period, my grandbabies came along & I struggled to see them as often as possible. One of my greatest joys was to sew an elaborate beautiful baptism gown for my grand daughter the week after we moved into the refurbished house.
So, .... Over the next 15 years I was the FLEXIBLE GRANDMA!! While other sIdes of family got nasty with my kids, ruining the holidays for them, I tried my best to be accommodating!! I let them fit me into their schedule, and I traveled to their homes every other year! They couldn't seem to get to my house more than once a year, tops. I didn't care what DAY, what time, or where, or who all was there.
Even did a Christmas/Valentine's day party which was so much fun my kids thought we should make THAT a tradition...but somehow every year too busy ...so I gave up.

Now that the grandkids are teenagers (except a 7 year old grandson), they LOVE to come to our house! so I guess I still managed to develop bonds with them.
My darling current husband & I do make our holidays special, just the two of us, but lately i want to pitch out my passed-down family china...what do I need them for?? And that makes me angry! And HOW do I not feel bitter when my mom sits there whining about missing her "good old days"??
Couple all this with a childhood of sexual abuse in a totally dysfunctional family... I just WISH I had some good old days to reminisce about.

Our elders' warped perceptions sure can strike a nerve. And in most cases, they aren't even trying. They're just being themselves -- as dictated by mental short-circuiting, boredom and wishful thinking.

cr0105, it often takes more than one pass at a post to get such complicated and complex feelings correctly phrased. Do I understand you correctly that you wish you had the memories your mom does? You feel you sacrificed yourself and lost out on having family gatherings at your house?

One thing I've thought about lately is that our parents did what was expected of them re:holidays and Sunday dinners. For years. Then we did as well because they were the parents - mandatory holidays with the family. No thought to whether we would prefer to start our own traditions. And now, we have a generation of our kids who are ok with telling us they will be at staying home or take a trip for the holiday. In a way, I envy their being able to create their own holidays. I knocked myself out every Mother's Day, being a daughter not a mother. I'd rather have been on a picnic at the zoo. But what I'm feeling and I think the OP may be referring to is playing by one set of rules for decades, only to have them changed on us. I know this is a source of contention with my mom each holiday, birthday, etc. because I no longer want to be doing all the doing to keep these days like they always were (and as she thinks they still should be).

Linda22, I think you well stated the OP's feeling. And I do understand. Once my FIL actually said that they had to do the holidays the way his parents wanted, even thought he and my MIL hated it, and now it was our turn. Yes, I can see where there is the feeling that the rules changed - the grandparents generation got what they wanted, the new generation gets what they want now, but our parents generation is short changed. Definitely understand.

A wise woman told me years ago that she and her husband spent one Christmas with her family, the next at home, the next with his family and so on. Gave them Christmas in their own home every other year.

And yes, our generation is getting short changed in this transition. I really regret all the time I spent doing what parents wanted, esp in the latter years so they (she) could keep life as it was. I wish I'd have been able to set boundaries for myself and family. We were brought up to "help" parents without realizing they were asking well beyond reasonable help. But Kimber, advice from an old fart - I hope you do bend here and there on the family requests for togetherness at holidays. Balance, balance, balance.

Yes.. I thank you for "hearing me" & what I was trying to convey.

I sometimes wonder if this current generation of young people who state their opinions and live their own lives have it RIGHT...And like the former generations had to make sacrifices in order to get to this point.

So maybe our generation caring for parents will be the sacrifice so future ones don't have to. How many of us here say, "All I know for sure is, I'm going to make sure MY KIDS don't have to take care of me!!" and we fully intend to line things up to the best of our ability to make sure they don't have to go through this ordeal.

I tell myself to suck it up! Former generations had to go through the Depression and wars, etc.

But, it still feels like life handed me a bunch of hardships!! And although I managed to rise above those with my optimism & sense of humor intact, ..this caring for parents is the most challenging ordeal ever...and I honestly wonder "what did I do? To deserve the amount of heartache & suffering I have had and continue to have... Why me??".
I can't picture ever again feeling truly happy.

Thanks for listening..maybe this discussion should have been in "Today's Whine Moment" 😝

Linda22 - yes, we try to balance but I'm a bit raw right now. We promised to spend all of Christmas day with my mom - Mass, big dinner at her house, presents. BUT because in the afternoon of Christmas Eve - we stopped by to see my dad in the nursing home (divorced 30 years - hate each other) - we arrived to her apartment to find the door locked, the apartment dark, and no Christmas Day event. That was to "teach us" for stopping by to see dad. And now she whines how she had been looking forward to Christmas Day but it was ruined and how she should get used to holidays on her own because no one cares. Yes she will have to!!! I'm not going to see my son cry again because he blamed himself for grandma being mad and not at home. he is to young to really get why - just blamed himself.

My INLAWS have been pitching a major hissy the past three weeks ON EVERY PHONE CALL. They got it into their heads that we need to spend two weeks with them for my MIL, mine, and my son's birthday to have a party for her and have all kinds of chores lined up as well. We had $8000 in unexpected house and car repairs so we have NO MONEY for the $2400 plane tickets, plus we can't just take two weeks off. At most we can string five days together. No understanding, nothing - just bi#ching at my husband each and every phone call, text, and email. We had wanted to spend five days end of August but just haven't got the cash and we don't intend to do as my MIL says "just charge it" and pay the high interest until it is paid off over several months. (my ILs see each and every attempt NOT to do what they want as a battle they must win or die trying)

So yes, I'm a bit boiled about the holidays and birthdays and other events. We can't win so we've decided to do what we want to and can afford to do. They will yell regardless.

Kimber,
Wow it sounds like your in laws aren't understanding at all. I'm sorry things are rough. And for your little boy to feel guilty over a grownup who is acting like a child! That's really sad.
Although I can understand how, in your situation, the Holidays are far from picture perfect, I am still interested to know if there are others around my age who feel like they've gotten neglected by their offspring. I have never, nor would I EVER, assume my grown children should take on ANY large expense just to visit me! And I am absolutely positive they know that. If anything, they have been taught by my always yielding to them that they can always put Mom on the bottom of the list. I believe I should've held my ground ONCE in the past 20 years. 😞 Now it's too late.