The sandwich generation's real problem is not scheduling. It is debt.
More than half of working Americans in their 40s and 50s caring for an aging parent spent $5,000 or more of their own money last year; a third borrowed to cover it, and the cost lands on the caregiver, not the state or the employer. The advice that helps is real but small:
- Do the legal paperwork early, before a crisis makes you pay emergency rates: power of attorney, a healthcare directive, a will.
- Ask your employer what caregiving benefits exist. Half of these workers only raise it when they have to, or keep quiet for fear of their careers.
- Say the number out loud to your siblings before you quietly absorb it alone.
None of it changes who pays. It only makes the paying less ruinous.
