Caregiving, Menopause, and the Sandwich Generation: When Women Are Carrying Too Much
Many women find themselves in a season of life where everything feels like it is happening at once. They are caring for aging parents, supporting children through key developmental stages, managing work and financial pressures, and at the same time navigating significant physical and emotional changes related to perimenopause and menopause. This is often referred to as the sandwich generation—women caring for both older and younger generations—but that term rarely captures the depth of exhaustion, grief, and identity shifts involved.
As a counsellor, I see how caregiving stress accumulates quietly over time. Women in this stage are often expected to remain emotionally available, organized, and resilient, even as their own needs increase. Hormonal changes during perimenopause and menopause can intensify anxiety, low mood, irritability, sleep difficulties, brain fog, and emotional sensitivity, yet these experiences are frequently minimized or dismissed. When layered onto caregiving responsibilities, many women begin to feel depleted, overwhelmed, and disconnected from themselves. They are still functioning and showing up for others, but at great personal cost.
Caregiver burnout in women is not a personal failure, it is a predictable response to chronic emotional labour and systemic expectations. Care work remains undervalued and unevenly distributed, often falling on women without adequate support. Limited workplace flexibility, gaps in elder care services, and a lack of accessible menopause-informed healthcare further compound the strain. Many women internalize this exhaustion as a personal shortcoming, when in reality they are responding to an unsustainable load.
Counselling for caregivers and women navigating midlife transitions can provide a much-needed space to pause, reflect, and receive support. Therapy can help with caregiver burnout, emotional overwhelm, boundary-setting, nervous system regulation, grief related to changing family roles, and the complex emotions that arise when supporting aging parents while still caring for children. For many women, this work is also about reconnecting with identity beyond caregiving and learning how to care for themselves without guilt.
If you are a woman in the sandwich generation, feeling chronically exhausted, emotionally stretched, or lost in constant responsibility, you are not alone—and you do not have to navigate this season on your own. I offer trauma-informed counselling for caregivers, women in midlife, and professionals experiencing burnout, with a focus on sustainability, emotional wellbeing, and compassionate support through life transitions.
