They're either raising minor children or providing various kinds of support to their adult children as well as their own aging parents.



The Pew survey report concludes that changing demographics within families have prolonged for baby boomers a period of being "sandwiched" between the needs of their parents and their children. Many Boomers are still raising their own children.

The Pew survey says that in the past year:

- Fully one-half of them were raising one or more young children and/or providing primary financial support to one or more adult children.

- Twenty percent of them were providing some financial assistance to a parent.

What the survey found about Boomers:

- In their financial exchanges with parents and adult children, they are more likely to give than receive. For example, of those with a living parent, nearly three-in-ten (29%) report that in the past year they provided financial assistance to a parent, while 19% report that they received financial assistance.

- When it comes to providing financial support for children, their parental role usually extends beyond the time when a child is a minor. Some 63 percent report that they have at least one adult child (ages 18 and older), and of this group, about two-thirds (68 percent) say they are supporting an adult child financially, either as the primary (33 percent) or secondary (35 percent) source of support.

- Baby boomers view financing a child's college education as a parental responsibility. Sixty-six percent of them--and 62 percent of the adult public in general--describe paying for a child's college as a parental responsibility.

This generation, the largest in American history, is the first to be faced with the double challenge of continuing the parenting of their own children while at the same time assuming parenting-related responsibilities for their own parents. Previous generations typically relied upon traditional resources--nursing homes, primarily--to provide care for their own parents.

Boomers, on the other hand, have a significant number of alternative-care options to consider, many of which are of relatively recent vintage, unavailable to their predecessors. These include adult day care, in-home health care, and adult care--all of which allow the aging, infirm parent to avoid (or at least, delay) what surveys find they fear most: moving out of their long-term home into an assisted-living or nursing facility.