Move over Avo-on-Toast, there’s a new food analogy in town and Millennials, it’s coming for you.
As a decade your 30’s used to be considered the sweet spot. You’ve established your career, maybe settled in a relationship, perhaps you’ve started a family or are thinking about it. You’ve done the figuring out. You know yourself. You’re making life happen, rather than feeling like it’s happening, to you.
Or so you thought. Research from across the globe shows this may no longer be the case, and that a potent mix of societal trends and increased responsibilities are creating a generation of overwhelmed and exhausted women who, far from living the dream, find themselves struggling to come up for air.
Meet the Sandwich Generation.
First up, what is the Sandwich Generation?
Well, it’s us. And you.
Often characterised by women who are balancing both the role of a mother and parental carer, a 2015 study expanded the definition to add ‘and worker’ to the description.
It’s not a new idea.
Coined in 1981 by Professor Dorothy Miller, it was initially considered the domain of middle-aged women. Driven by societal trends, such as having kids later in life and an ageing population, researcher Megan Godwin now believes the “sandwich” incorporates women as young as in their early 30’s.
I’m sure you can relate. For many of us modern life looks like bringing up a young family, looking after our parents, career progression, running a business, paying a mortgage, marriage, divorce, laughter, loss.
Factor in the gendered nature of care (one thing that hasn’t changed) and it’s no surprise that as a generation we’re exhausted, overwhelmed, isolated.
It’s a lot.
An article written by the ABC (Australia), explored the growing pressures on those who find themselves in the sandwich generation, and the impact it’s having on wellbeing, "as a woman, trying to have a full-time career, trying to be a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a colleague, there is a lot of guilt of trying to be everything to everyone,"
There can be negative health and relationship implications too.
But it’s this messiness; the conflicting emotions, the duality of reality, the moments in between milestones that truly make up a life. There’s no escaping it and most of the time we wouldn’t want to, but that doesn’t mean that at times it doesn’t make you want to scream into a pillow.
Despite this, women included in a study entitled ‘Working Sandwich Generation Women Utilize Strategies within and between Roles to Achieve Role Balance’ felt passionately that trying to achieve and maintain the balance of being a mother, carer and worker, aka the juggle, was a central life goal; it made them feel good about themselves.
Interestingly the women all shared the same, if not very similar strategies for achieving this.
Managing time and energy is obviously crucial, as it would seem is mindset and motivation, here common themes include focusing on living with integrity, being the best you can, doing what you love, loving what you do, remembering why and searching for signs of success.
There were five strategies shared in the study however, that really spoke to us. That we felt cut straight to the heart of what is really needed, in the moment. Because this is where we, as friends, sisters, daughters, partners, can really show up for the ones we love when life happens. They were:
Maintaining Health and Wellbeing, AKA, finding time for self.
You can’t fill from an empty cup, and you can’t hold it all together if you don’t look after yourself, first. A bath. A walk. A run. A podcast. Eating healthy, nutritional meals and getting a good night’s sleep.
Reimagining Perfection.
You’re not superhuman, and that’s ok. Releasing unnecessary expectations of themselves allowed the women in the study to overcome feelings of guilt and resentment, instead fostering a sense of contentment in their decisions.
Let’s normalise this. Please.
Releasing Responsibility.
9 times out of 10, someone else could do it. Asking for help is of course, much harder than it sounds (we explore why here), but by loosening their grip and delegating select jobs to others, for example their partner, the participants freed up their own time and energy.
Nurturing Social Connections, and by extension, sharing the load.
The power of your Inner Circle; the lasting, resilient, life affirming relationships that see you through life’s moments, milestones and meltdowns.
Recognising the significance of these relationships, the women in the study actually prioritised opportunities to chat and talk things through with friends, often combining it with exercise, a play date, or similar.
And these social connections, more specifically the psychological benefits of caring affectionately for others, foster a sense of reciprocity, a collective desire to share the load.
Really interesting though, was how the load is shared; instead of the linear you-scratch-my-back-I’ll scratch-yours approach you might as first assume, it's better described as an intricately woven collective. As one woman shared:
“Life works in a way that you don’t necessarily get direct help from the person that you’ve helped… It may be someone else that’s giving you help and you’re helping someone else, but it all irons out in the long run.”
The Inner Circle working together, harmoniously, as one living entity.
So, what does this collective look like in action? And how can you actively support your inner circle with these strategies (and be supported in return)?
We imagine this…
- Someone picking up the kids from school, so you get an extra hour to finish that proposal and feel good about the work you’ve done.
- Or someone organising a food delivery, so you can spend some quality time being fully present and connecting with your kids with a slightly reduced mental load.
- Perhaps sending a cleaner around, to tick that one thing off the never ending to do list?
- Maybe it’s a homemade pie dropped off by a friend earlier that day, because they know you’re going to be pushed to get a healthy meal on the table.
- Arranging a playdate, to ensure you and your kids get some quality time with the important people in their lives.
- Booking a manicure and arranging childcare, giving you some much needed alone time, and a chance to feel like YOU again.
- A journal, skincare or beautiful, nourishing tea to prompt them to take 5 minutes out of the day for themselves (and to remind them that they are being thought about and cared for).
- Embracing the chaos and normalising an 'imperfect' house, messy buns and releasing guilt (the more we do it, the more we'll do it).
- What about just spending time with them? Proper, present, phones-away time?
This is why We Are The Helpful, a curated gifting marketplace offering help, not just stuff, exists; to ensure that no one in our inner circle, or yours, ever feels like they're doing it alone.
We couldn’t exist without you – it's your real life stories and experience of what actually helped in those moments that informs every gift on our site.
If you have a story you’d love to share, we’d love to hear from you.
Drop us an email at kate@wearethehelpful.com and we’ll talk, soon.
