Maria Zakich, right, has a laugh with her mom, Grace Rousset, 86, while exercising at the Rehabilitation Institute of Southern California in Orange, California. Maria is part of generation that is caring for aging parents as well as their own kids at home.

SANTA ANA, Calif. —Most Americans recognize July as the month when the nation shoots off fireworks and gathers at parades and patriotic ceremonies to celebrate Independence Day.

Far fewer probably know that July was also the month designated to honor those whose lives have more to do with dependency.

July was National Sandwich Generation Month, a time to celebrate the growing numbers of men and women handling the dual responsibilities of caring for aging parents while still having children at home. Many also have full-time or part-time jobs.

“I knew that,” Maria Zakich of Anaheim, Calif., said with a smile, “because I'm the turkey in between.”

Zakich, 49, is fairly typical of the sandwich generation.

She is helping to care for her parents, Roger and Grace Rousset, 90 and 86, while welcoming home one daughter from college and seeing another off to a four-year university this fall. She also helps out at her husband's company and does some occasional work as a hairstylist.

According to a recent survey by Pew Research Center, the adults with children and a living parent age 65 or older who define the sandwich generation are more likely to be:

Middle-aged, between 40 and 59

Hispanic, rather than white or blackAffluent, with an annual household income of $100,000 or moreAlmost half of the middle-aged adults — four in 10 — say both their parents and their adult children rely on them for emotional support.Zakich's parents are able to still live in their own home in Newport Beach, Calif., partly because one of Zakich's six siblings, brother Paul Rousset, moved from his home in the desert to stay with them. And her other brothers and sisters help out when and where they can.Zakich spends a lot of hands-on time with her parents. She takes them to doctor appointments, where she often is needed to translate complicated medical issues into Spanish, the language her parents grew up speaking in Argentina. She handles their finances. She does her mother's hair.Grace Rousset has difficulty walking, so three afternoons a week Zakich goes with her mother to the Rehabilitation Institute of Southern California in Orange, where they exercise together in the pool. Mostly her mother walks in the water and socializes with other adults in the pool, prompting her husband to joke that she does more talking than walking.Zakich has been providing some level of care to her parents for 10 years, while raising daughters Lauren, 22, and Emily, 18. But she says the past three years have been busier.Being part of the “sandwich generation” is a juggling act that comes with challenges and rewards. Not just for the caregiver, but for the aging parent and for the children at home.

Maria Zakich poses with her daughter, Lauren Zakich, 22, left, and her mom, Grace Rousset, 86, in Orange, California. Maria is part of generation that is caring for aging parents as well as their own kids at home.