Chapter III · Other Thresholds
threshold
/THRESH-hohld/noun
A passage a person is expected to cross without ceremony or vocabulary. Matrescence is one. It is not the only one, and the others are just as unnamed.
Matrescence is not the only passage a person is expected to cross without a word for it. There is the grief for a parent who has not died yet. There is holding both ends of a family at the same time. There is caring for someone until the caring has quietly swallowed the person doing it. Same shape, different threshold.
In this chapter
Sandwich generation meaning, and why it lands differently the second decade
The sandwich generation means one adult caring for a child and an aging parent at the same time. What the definition does not contain is a length.
Caregiver identity and the invisible labor nobody counts
The labor has a name. It has had several since 1987, published in real journals by women who saw it clearly. Naming it did not get it counted.
Caregiver burnout: when caring for others erases caring for you
Caregiver burnout is described almost everywhere as exhaustion, and exhaustion is the part of it I recognize least. What goes first is not your energy.
What is the sandwich generation? (And why it hits mothers hardest)
The sandwich generation is caring for an aging parent and your own children at once. Here is who counts, and what the name leaves out about the person in the middle.
The sandwich generation: naming the crush you have been carrying
The crush of caring for a small child and an aging parent at the same time is not a scheduling problem. It is a second transition.
Anticipatory grief: when you grieve a parent who is still here
Anticipatory grief is grief that starts before the loss. If it arrived while you were becoming a mother, it is not two problems. It is the same threshold twice.