Question

Define and describe the following three concepts (Midlife Crisis, Empty Nest Syndrome, & Sandwich Generation). In your opinion, are each of these experiences universal? Under what circumstances might each of these experiences occur?

Answer 1

The concepts of midlife crisis, empty nest syndrome and sandwich generation are experiences of people in their middle age.These concepts have become a universal phenomena as the society of today's world have similar patterns of nuclear family relationships irrespective of different cultures.Most of the individuals across the cultures who has a family go through these experiences in their life during their middle phase of their lives.The concepts are as following:

• Midlife Crisis: An individual in his/her 40s and early 60s experience this crisis.Person in between this age group experiences decline in their physical ability,they have to accept aging both in looks and ablity.People find it difficult to accept their aging physical appearance as skin starts loosening, greying hair and a decline in physical rigor.They also face financial and economic burden at this stage as they have to take care of their children and parents at the same time.Sometimes this is accompanied by the death of a near one.All these issues concerning the aging,finances and personal issues faced during the midlife is midlife crisis.
• Empty nest syndrome: The emotional pain of parents and caretakers when their children leave home for the first time. Most of the parents go through these experience of loneliness and be sadness when be their children the home for the first time.They miss their children and long for them .It takes time for the parents to adjust to a life without their children around whom their life revovled until now.This is empty nest syndrome.
• Sandwich generation: The midlife people who are addressing needs of both their growing kids and their aging parents are sandwich generation.They have the responsibility looking after both the younger and the older generation at the same time.This sometimes creates choas in their life as they have to work for additional financial resources, looking after their kids or parents during an emergency hospitalization,or care for the ailing parents at.At this stage often the individual neglects his/her own needs and self for the sake of their responsibility.