What Is Parentification?

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Many women in midlife are taking care of both their children and their parents—and reaping the emotional cost.

Parentification can make these tasks more complex as women navigate parenting and caring for aging parents.

Long-term policy change and individual commitment to self-care can provide steps forward.

I recently went to lunch with two of my oldest female friends. As it often does, the conversation turned towards family and parenting: how our kids and partners were doing, and most importantly, how we were navigating the eternal balancing act of working, taking care of ourselves, and remaining vigilant over the emotional development of our children (we’re deep thinkers in this bunch).

Among other things, one major theme that came up was this: Parenting at our age often involves raising children, reparenting ourselves, and renegotiating the relationship with our aging parents in ways that dredge up decades of emotional baggage from our own childhoods.

Understanding the Emotional Caregiving Sandwich

The term "sandwich generation" was coined by social workers Dorothy Miller and Elaine Brody in the 1980s to describe women in midlife who were not only........

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