Carer burnout - the sandwich generation edition
Defending Against Carer Burnout: What I've Learned from Being in the Sandwich Generation
I'm a CPTO and co-founder of a startup, a fractional CPTO, a son to aging parents, and a father to a 17-year-old. I also have two ridiculously cute kittens, which somehow doesn't simplify things. From the outside, this might look like a typical portfolio of roles for a senior leader in tech. From the inside, it's a constant exercise in not drowning.
I'm part of what's called the sandwich generation. The term refers to people caring for aging parents, and raising children, while holding down demanding careers. I've learned the hard way that the traditional notion of work-life balance is not just inadequate for this reality; it's actively harmful.
The Myth of Contained Stress
For years, I operated under the assumption that stress was compartmentalised. Work stress lived at work. Home stress lived at home. I could manage each separately, and everything would be fine.
That illusion shattered pretty quickly.
A typical Tuesday might start with me heading into the city for my portfolio client work, ready to focus on meetings and strategic work. Then my phone rings. It's Dad, with that particular urgency in his voice that means he needs something *now*. Or Mum sends a message, apologising profusely for disturbing me, but she needs help with something that's making her feel increasingly incompetent in a world that's changed faster than she can keep up with.
In the evening, I come home to dinner with the family. If my daughter has had a great day, I want to be fully present for that joy. If she's had a terrible day and is grumpy, I need to be on my game to not react defensively. Then there's the evening call to check in on my parents, triaging whatever new concern or crisis has emerged.
None of this is "life" as opposed to "work." It's all work. Some of it I do for love, but it's still labor that requires energy, attention, and emotional regulation.
The Wake-Up Call
Five years ago, I would have tried to solve everything immediately. I prided myself on getting things done, on being the person who could fix any problem. Password manager for my parents? Done. Tech support session? Let's power through. Daughter having a meltdown? Here's the solution.
I was steamrolling over feelings, over nuance, over the actual human experience happening around me. And then I'd be genuinely confused when my "solutions" didn't stick, when people seemed more stressed rather than less.
I was sleepwalking into burnout, using what I thought were recovery activities, reaching for a drink the moment I got home, binge-watching something mindless. They were actually just numbing strategies. They weren't helping me recover. They were helping me avoid feeling how much distress I was actually in.
What Actually Works
The shift started with acceptance. Not resigned acceptance, but deliberate recognition that this is my reality. The stress is real. The demands are real. The emotional labour is real. And pretending otherwise, or wishing it were different, is itself a source of unnecessary stress. Also, I'm not particularly special in this regard. This is how it is for most people in the sandwich generation.
Here's what I've built into my system:
Movement as Recovery
I lean heavily on movement now, particularly walking. Where I used to minimise walking by finding the nearest bus, taking the most efficient route, I now deliberately lengthen it. Walking to work, walking home, using my commute as intentional recovery time. It helps me arrive at work feeling grounded, having already done something for myself, and it helps me process the day on the way home.
Writing to Quiet the Noise
Reflecting through writing has become essential. It helps me quiet the noise in my mind, process what's actually happening rather than just reacting to it. This isn't fancy journaling; it's just getting thoughts out of my head and onto paper so I can see them clearly.
Meeting People Where They Are
This is the hardest one. When my parents are stressed about being scammed, can't figure out myGov, or feel technologically illiterate, they don't need a methodical problem-solving session. They need reassurance that what they're feeling is okay, that it's not their fault, that the world has genuinely become more complex and confusing.
The advice to be hyper-structured and rational completely misses the point when one or both parties are in distress. You have to connect and acknowledge the feeling first. You have to meet them where they are. Only then can you start to actually help.
Explicit Boundaries and Agreements
I have an explicit contract with my mum: she can call me whenever she likes. I may or may not be able to answer immediately. If it's truly urgent, she'll call twice or send a text. And I've been clear with myself and my team: if my parents have an emergency, I'm stopping whatever I'm doing to respond. That's the deal.
I practice this in meetings. If my phone rings and it's my parents, I respond to triage it. I role model for my team that this is real, this is okay, this is life. It's a balancing act, but it's deliberate, not accidental.
Knowing When to Stop
One of the hardest skills I'm still learning: recognising when I'm maxed out and actually calling it. Hour three of tech support for my parents on a Sunday afternoon? I'm learning to say, "I think I have to call it now. We'll continue this another time." Even though I feel the urge to just knuckle down and get it all done.
This goes against every instinct, every internalised behaviour from being their child for all these years. The pull to get their approval, to fix the problem right now, to make them happy. It's powerful. But when I'm in that desperate place, when my system is crumbling, I'm not actually helping anyone.
What I Wish My Peers Understood
If you're leading teams, here's something that can be hard to remember in the rush: your people are not just the sum of their to-do lists.
When you focus only on deliverables and commitments and "we agreed" conversations, you force people to hide huge parts of what makes them tick or not tick. You end up placing unreasonable demands on someone who is quietly drowning, for reasons you haven't asked the right questions to understand.
Give people control. Ask them what they need to do their best work. Don't assume that extracting maximum output is the goal. The strategic advantage comes from people who have headroom, who are working at 70–80% capacity on average, not 110%.
Yes, this seems inefficient. It seems like you're leaving productivity on the table. But people who have room to breathe, room to recover, room to handle the inevitable crises that will come up, those people will give you far more in the long run. They won't burn out. They won't quietly rage-quit. They'll actually be able to think strategically and solve complex problems.
This is particularly true for the sandwich generation, who find it very hard to travel with headroom. We're already maxed out. We desperately need that buffer, and we're often too buried to advocate for it ourselves.
The Ongoing Work
Am I confident I'll avoid burnout? No. I'm confident I'm working on it. I feel healthier. The likelihood is higher than it was.
But I fully acknowledge this is ongoing work. It's not set-and-forget. Life throws things at you from all directions, which is a dominant feature of the sandwich generation experience. Stress can spike rapidly. It's easy to tip back into old behaviours, old patterns of trying to control everything, of numbing instead of recovering.
The difference now is that I have systems. I have awareness. I'm learning, on the fly, to stay grounded and accept things as they happen rather than pushing them away. I'm learning to slow down in the moment, to check in with myself: Is this actually necessary? Am I solving the real problem, or am I just trying to reduce my own distress?
And I'm learning, slowly, imperfectly, that the problem isn't about getting things done. The problem is about going through life skilfully, with awareness, with genuine presence for the people who need me. And I'm learning the power of rest and recovery and how to talk back to the ingrained idea that it's self-indulgent.
That's the work. That's the practice. And it's worth it, because the alternative is clear: the sleepwalking, the numbing, the pretending that stress is contained in its neat little boxes. That's the path to burnout, irritability, and a whole lot of collateral damage to the relationships that I care most about.
So I keep at it. One small, deliberate choice at a time.
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PS: If you're in the sandwich generation, check out Vera. They've got some excellent resources for us.