Rachel

Rachel is a social impact strategist and community-minded leader whose days are a constant mix of client work, childcare, and elder care. She prides herself on staying organized with color-coded schedules and hard stops for family time, but her busy life often demands multitasking and emotional labor that leave her stretched thin. She feels lucky to have a supportive husband whose partnership helps make it all work – together they show how life can run (at least a bit) smoother when both partners pitch in. Still, the constant switching between work, childcare, and elder care takes a toll, leaving her drained and straddling the line between balance and burnout. 

Rachel is part of what’s called the "sandwich generation" – adults who juggle caring for young children and aging parents at the same time, though women shoulder this responsibility far more often than men. About 8.4% of U.S. mothers have three concurrent workloads: paid work, raising children, and providing elder care. Studies show that sandwich caregivers are more likely to report high levels of stress, cut back on paid work hours, and face career impacts than those without overlapping caregiving roles. ¹

In Rachel’s sculpture, the gold stitches represent a half hour of her paid labor and silver stitches represent half an hour of her unpaid labor. Empty spaces in the rows represent a waking half hour that Rachel was not working.

¹ National Council on Family Relations, Mothers’ Work, Childcare, and Eldercare (2024)