7-Layer Dip
The fall of the sandwich generation
I have often heard the expression that we are the sandwich generation. Stuck between raising littles and assisting our parents as they age. We are the meat or the filling in the middle holding both sides together. As I have embarked on a new chapter in my life where my parents are requiring more care and I have two young children in the home I often am drawn back to this analogy and find it to be rather simplistic. What I wouldn’t give to be a nice slab of turkey holding onto the pieces of bread on both sides. Sounds pretty simple right? But recently I went to a lovely birthday breakfast with one of my friends and during that conversation we started to talk about all the complexities the sandwich analogy holds.
Sandwiches can get complex, no doubt. Add in some toppings, condiments, some fillings and we could be looking at a rather ornate sandwich. But at the end of the day a sandwich is smushed between two pieces of bread, can be compact, is mostly intact and its general premise makes it flexible or mobile, they can be eaten anywhere. What I don’t feel these days…compact…intact…flexible…mobile or really anything that resembles the beautiful sandwich.
What I feel like most days is a HOT 7-layer dip. Not that nice one that you get from the grocery store with the ingredients clearly delineated. I am talking about the one you made at home for the Superbowl, you put it in the oven to warm up and suddenly you have a messy mix of weird layers. All of them bleeding into the other. Some overpowering in some areas and others completely lacking. When you go to put your chip in, you honestly have no clue what you are going to get. Is it sour cream, guac, salsa or refried beans? I don’t really know but I guess I will go with it.
Life has become messy. I cannot contain it in an easily portable sandwich. I am doing my best to make sure all the contents are still in the bowl but its spilling over the sides. Something doesn’t smell right and quite frankly it doesn’t even taste good anymore.
I am giving this time in our lives a new analogy. The hot 7-layer dip. Never in the history have women needed to provide or manage so much childcare, work full time (and potentially be the breadwinner), care for aging parents, after school activities, children sports, our own health care, a social life, a side hustle, a household (if we are lucky), all while looking like a perfect turkey club sandwich that just went to Zumba. The dip runeth over.
So if you are feeling like a hot 7 layer dip…here at MomSense we are with you. The best thing you can do is find that friend to vent to. Find that person to send your voice notes after drop off. Share the days where the dip is firmed up but also talk about the days where the layers are melting. And know that what you are experiencing isn’t unique and it’s really hard. And you are doing the best that you can. And maybe go to the grocery store on particularly hard days, grab yourself a 7-layer dip and eat it in the parking lot. Might turn your day around (not that I know this from experience 😊).
