I was on vacation when I received the call. My mom was in the hospital. I was in my early 20s, and I rushed back to see her. Sadly, I didn’t arrive in time. It was a lot to deal with. My parents were divorced, and I didn’t have siblings. I can see now that my mom did everything she could to put her affairs in order, and I never managed her care. Fast forward 20 years and I’m faced with my father’s multiple health problems. He’s on the precipice, with continuous emergency visits, and I constantly worry about handling his care.
That’s the double shift. Not the two jobs you’re working. The two selves you’re trying to hold at the same time: the one who shows up fully for the people who need you at home, and the one who shows up fully for the work that needs you on the screen. And the exhausting weight of knowing that you may be shortchanging one of them.
Generally, there’s empathy for a childcare crisis. People understand “I had no one for pickup.” Elder care isn’t usually covered by company time-off policies and health benefits. So, you manage it in the margins.
The WFH model can be double-edged: it allows you the ability to provide in-home support or duck out for doctor’s visits AND the work is everywhere, which means so is the guilt.
I don’t have a clean framework for this one. The women I know who navigate this responsibility without burning out are the ones who got honest about what they could carry and stopped apologizing for the rest. They named the constraint and asked for what they needed. And when the system couldn’t give it to them, they made decisions from that reality.
“Full-time RTO means either pay for childcare I can’t afford or quit,” a Reddit post from June. That’s the math women are calculating. It’s two impossible demands and a decision you should never have had to make.
Where do we turn? A supportive manager, personal and familial support systems, or dropping what can’t be held anymore. Protect the hours that matter and let go of the rest. I acknowledge that there still may be costs (e.g., promotion, work trips). A client shared that he worked from his father’s deathbed due to work pressure.
I could go on a rant about how we need better social support systems, but in the meantime I see you. This is hard. I’m managing my father and my 18-month-old daughter. I scan through social service websites and run the numbers on daycare and senior care costs. If there’s something you’ve figured out that works, I want to hear it. Those strategies don’t get shared often enough.