For many people, the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady – or Santa Marija, as it is better known in Malta – on Wednesday, marks the height of the vacation season.
Factories and establishments in a position to cease operations for some time do so, allowing their employees to have a well-deserved, and certainly desired, break with families and friends. However, there are also many people who, holiday season or not, simply have to continue fulfilling their duties.
A particular group of people whose duties keep them always on the go and make it far from easy for them to have extended vacations are the so-called sandwich generation. These are the hard-working members of the community who are simultaneously caring for children and parents with the extra pressure this puts on them and on their lifestyles.
Multi-generational, multi-responsibility caregiving is no new phenomenon. Adults have been meeting the needs of their aging parents while raising their own children since time immemorial. In our culture, it is one of the most valued traditions. However, in present-day circumstances, the phenomenon and its impact on many of those concerned is taking new dimensions.
Continued advances in the medical sector are helping people to live longer. More and more women are, fairly enough, pursuing careers outside the home. Adults are marrying and having children later in life. Various factors are seeing more grown children to stay or return home to reside with their parents. More women, including mothers of very young children, are finding themselves having to return to full-time jobs or increasing their working hours to help make both ends meet as they struggle with their household budgets.
The collective outcome of such and other trends includes a reality of more men and women, in their 30s, 40s and 50s, finding themselves “sandwiched” into a position of simultaneously parenting their children and talking care of their aged or ailing parents.
Moreover, although both men and women may assume caregiving responsibilities, which, in themselves, ease the pressure on public-financed services, many a time those who really bear the brunt of such a responsibility, with all its significant burdens, are the women.
Therefore, the time may have come for society to focus more attention on the challenges being faced by Malta’s own sandwich generation because there are a number of issues that need to be addressed.
For instance, how many of our adults are supporting two generations? How many caregivers hold down full- or part-time jobs in addition to providing care? What is the percentage of women in comparison with men? To what extent can one say that it is more common for caregivers than for non-caregivers to experience anxiety and other symptoms of emotional stress? Is it true that, overall, female caregivers are at greater risk than men for developing these symptoms?
There are also other issues such as the impact certain stressors, like financial concerns and marriage/family tensions, place on the caregivers and the notion that caregivers who neglect their own needs while caring for others may be endangering their own physical health in the process.
Whichever way one looks at it, there are sufficient reasons to solicit a joint effort by the social partners to look into the situation of the growing sandwich generation in our midst and their particular concerns.
The basic target should be a coherent support strategy that also takes into account the social value of these people’s significant work and personal sacrifice.