The Sandwich Generation Series: Part 5
After a week of stories exploring Australia’s Sandwich Generation – the over-60s caught between caring for ageing parents and still-dependent children – one truth has risen to the surface with painful clarity: the middle is crumbling.
What began as an act of love – helping Mum with her shopping, paying off the kids’ debts, babysitting grandkids “just for a few hours” – has, for many, become an unrelenting burden. The people in the middle are stretched to breaking point, their savings eroding, their health declining, their own dreams of a restful retirement quietly dissolving under the weight of everyone else’s needs.
This week, Starts at 60 has shared stories about the financial, emotional and relational costs of being sandwiched. We’ve heard from experts, carers, and families who say the pressure has never been greater. But behind every statistic is a heartbeat – real people juggling impossible choices.
In this final instalment, we bring you four deeply personal stories from our readers: two over-60s still caring in both directions, an older woman who feels forgotten by those she once served, and a younger voice already caught in the squeeze before her time.
Together, they reveal the tenderness, frustration and quiet heroism of a generation trying desperately not to break.
Case Study 1: Helen, 62 — “Everyone needs me, all the time”
Helen, 62, thought this would be her time to exhale. Her two children – 15 and 17 – are nearing adulthood, and she dreamed of travel, long lunches and slow mornings. Instead, she’s become the family’s engine room.
Her 88-year-old mother, Joan, is in aged care after a series of strokes. Helen drives two hours several times a week to sit with her during specialist visits, advocate for better care, and handle finances. Then she races home to ferry her kids between sport, school, and friends – all while working part-time to help pay the bills.
“I’m constantly moving,” she says. “I can’t remember the last time I finished a cup of tea while it was still hot.”
Helen is haunted by guilt. Guilt for not seeing her mum enough, guilt for being snappy with her children, guilt for wanting time alone. Her siblings help “when they can”, which means rarely. She’s the default daughter, the dependable one.
“I love them all,” she says softly. “But I’m disappearing inside their needs.”
Case Study 2: Mark, 59 — “I feel like an ATM with a heartbeat”
In Brisbane’s northern suburbs, Mark’s house feels more like a share-house than a family home. At 59, he and his wife are once again living with their three adult children – all of whom have returned for financial or emotional reasons. One’s between jobs, another’s saving for a rental bond, the youngest is still studying.
Meanwhile, Mark’s 83-year-old father, Leo, lives nearby and is slipping into dementia. Most mornings start with a phone call: “Son, I can’t find my pills.” Mark drops everything, drives over, and resets the medication pack before heading to his own job.
He laughs, but it’s hollow. “I feel like an ATM with a heartbeat,” he says. “Everyone needs something – money, time, help, advice. I can’t keep up.”
Weekends vanish in errands: mowing his father’s lawn, fixing his kids’ cars, paying overdue bills. His wife calls him “the glue”, but lately he feels more like the elastic band – stretched, fraying, and ready to snap.
“I used to imagine my 60s would be a reward,” he says. “Now it feels like another round of obligations.”
Case Study 3: Dorothy, 87 – “I worked my fingers raw for them – now I’m a burden”
Dorothy, 87, speaks with the precision of someone who’s spent a lifetime holding her family together. She raised six children on factory wages, buried her husband young, and kept a tidy house until her knees gave out. Now, from her aged care room in suburban Sydney, she wonders what all that sacrifice was for.
“I made sure my kids had everything – shoes, books, chances I never had,” she says. “And now, I feel like they resent me for still being here.”
Her daughter Catherine visits weekly, managing medications and care plans. She’s kind, Dorothy insists, “but tired – always tired.” Still, Dorothy can sense the subtle impatience in every sigh.
“They talk about me as though I’m a project. A problem to manage. I used to be their mother. Now I’m just another responsibility.”
The words catch in her throat. “I worked my fingers raw for them, and I’d do it again. But I wish they could look at me and see the woman I was – not just the old body I’m trapped in.”
Dorothy’s story is the unspoken other half of the Sandwich Generation: the parents who once carried the load, and now bear the guilt of needing care. They’re not ungrateful – they just want to feel valued, not pitied.
Case Study 4: Sarah, 48 – “I’m already sandwiched, and I’m not even 50”
Sarah, 48, is younger than most in this series, but her story feels painfully familiar. A single mother of three – 22, 19, and 16 — she’s still clawing her way out of debt from a messy divorce. Her mother, Joan, 75, has early dementia and refuses to move from her suburban home. So Sarah juggles work, rent, school costs, and now home care coordination.
“I didn’t plan for this,” she admits. “I made some bad choices – married the wrong person, had kids early, never built savings. But I didn’t plan for life to be this expensive either.”
She works full-time, but after bills and car repairs, there’s nothing left. Most nights she eats toast for dinner so her kids can have meat. When she visits her mother, she often cries on the drive home – from exhaustion, from fear, from the endless feeling of not being enough.
“I love them all. But I can’t breathe. It’s like life is pressing down from both sides and I’m just trying to keep my head above water.”
Sarah’s story is the early warning for what’s coming – a younger wave already feeling the crush, already realising there’s no safety net between love and collapse.
What These Stories Tell Us
Across all four lives runs the same invisible thread: love that costs too much. Every one of them is trying to do the right thing – to care, to give, to keep families afloat – and yet the weight of that goodness is breaking them.
This week, Starts at 60 has shown the Sandwich Generation for what it truly is: not just a social label, but a lived crisis. One built on compassion, obligation, guilt, and endurance.
As we close this five-part series, here’s where to revisit the journey so far:
Day 1: Trapped! How the Sandwich Generation Feels
Day 2: How the Sandwich Generation Can Protect Their Own Health
Day 3: The Financial Toll of Caring Across Generations
Day 4: How to Negotiate Roles Without Fracturing Relationships
And now, with Day 5, we hear their voices — raw, real and weary — echoing the same quiet plea: see us, support us, and let us rest.
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