Sandwich parenting

Kate Peers - 18 May 16

I sat on the maternity ward returning my answerphone messages.  Message one : childcare; the boys were fine and all was well. Message two : daycare; my dad was not behaving himself.  He was refusing the healthy meal that the carer had made, requesting biscuits instead and didn’t want to take his pills. Uh oh, dad was in trouble again.

Nothing prepared me for sandwich parenting. When I was first pregnant, I raced out and bought What To Expect When You Are Expecting.  When I had my baby, I had a range of books on how to look after one from Gina Ford to The Baby Whisperer.  I was slightly out of my depth at times but at least I had books, the internet, plus a million other mums with their advice to turn to when I needed help.

Looking after your parent, well it can be a whole different ball game.  There are no books.  There are no advisors. You simply have to muddle through and learn as you go and my god it’s a steep learning curve.

Let me make something clear.  My dad never refused healthy food or his piles of pills because he wasn’t sound of mind, he just didn’t like being told what to do at the age of 80. He also wanted to enjoy his life and not be necking pills for everything from high blood pressure to twitchy leg syndrome (who even knew that such a thing existed)? To be quite frank I didn’t blame him one bit but he went and got cancer, had treatment and became very frail, he needed to eat to stay strong.

Can you imagine your child rocking up to your house telling you to stop drinking, quit chocolate and start a new diet of smoothies and couscous?  As he frequently told me, he used to change my nappies and had been coping pretty well for his entire life without the “micromanagement” of myself and my three siblings. Yet, he was ill and couldn’t have coped without those carers and his children going in to help support him.

A big issue with sandwich parenting is distance.  I’m in Sussex and my other siblings are spread out across the UK and US.  This in itself caused a logistical nightmare for us over the last few years of dads life. I was up and down the country to Cheshire for months and in the end would get calls to tell me he wasn’t going to make it.  I had to literally drop everything (including my 6 month old baby) handover to my husband and speed up the M6 praying I’d get there in time. Those drives were long and tough.

Shopping trips to Boots involved buying nappies for the babies and nappies (incontinence ones) for my dad.  Who knew that eventually we will lose control of our bladders?  Boots told me it is one of their best selling products.  I seriously need to work on my pelvic floor exercises, the thought of it frightens me.  Dad took it with a pinch of salt, he had bladder cancer so put it down to that but he told me that lots of his friends were using them and it was pub conversation in their late seventies (yikes).

There were times as dad became more ill that I would be feeding my toddler and then feeding him.  I never lost sight of the similarities between old age and the early years.  We seem to go back to basics and one of the last things that I did for my dad was feed him ice cream in hospital. Having my children often with me provided humour and comfort. They were so adorable with him, my eldest trying to demonstrate to dad how to get out of a chair when he was at his most frail “just do it, just stand, watch me, grandpa.”

Now I know that not all parents will need this form of care but many will. You may have to navigate looking round nursing homes at the same time you look round nurseries. Whilst understanding the minefield of working tax credits you will be presented with 80 page forms to get support for your parent to stay at home and have some simple day to day support that you as a mother cannot provide all the time.

The morning that he died I got the call from the hospital, “come now” they said, as soon as you can. I was luckily up north that week visiting him in hospital but had my 8 month old baby with me. I rang round everyone that I knew to get someone to take him, I handed him to a friends mum with zero instruction and raced to hold my dads hand as he took his last breaths. I walked out of the hospital totally wiped out but was straight back into mum role, I had to pick up the baby and sort him out. Tea still had to be made.

I wouldn’t change a thing about how I dealt with sandwich parenting.  I know that I couldn’t have tried any harder to support and care for my dad right until the end. What I would change is that someone somewhere could write a book for people like me and maybe you who often need a crash course in caring for old people, navigating our way through the financial aspects and logistical aspects of it all not knowing where to go for advice and how to deal with the overwhelm of it all.

One of the last things that dad said to me was how very lucky he was to have four children who gave him so much love.  Logistical nightmare yes, but I owed it to him to care for him the best way that I could just like he was there for me every single time I needed him in my life.

Kate Peers

Mum to three boys under nine. Writer, sea swimmer and social media manager.

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