A reflective story about caring for aging parents as a Millennial and stepping into motherhood — a deeply personal take on what it means to be part of the sandwich generation.

I became a caregiver long before I ever became a parent.

In my late twenties, while most of my friends were climbing career ladders or backpacking through Southeast Asia, I was learning how to manage my father’s dementia care — navigating neurologist appointments, care facilities, and insurance forms I didn’t understand. My twenties weren’t marked by freedom or self-discovery. They were defined by responsibility.

For twelve years, I took on the quiet, consuming work of caregiving — the kind that demands your energy, your patience, and often, your identity. There were moments when I didn’t recognize myself outside of that role. Everything revolved around my father’s care and the slow, inevitable progression of his illness.

And if I’m being honest, there was resentment too.

My brother wasn’t there in the same way. He was deep in his own struggles — raising two young kids and navigating the fallout of a difficult relationship. I understood, but it didn’t make it easier. At the time, it felt like I was carrying both the emotional and logistical weight of our family while also trying to keep my own life intact.

Looking back now, I can see that we were both stretched thin — just in different directions. He was trying to hold his young family together while I was holding our father’s memory in place. We were both doing the best we could with what we had, even if it didn’t feel fair at the time.

Now, as I prepare to welcome my first child, life has shifted in an unexpected way. My brother, whose children are older and more independent, has taken full responsibility for our mother’s care. For the first time in more than a decade, I’m not the one managing doctor’s calls, home visits, or pharmacy runs.

It’s an enormous relief — one I didn’t even realize I needed. The pressure that once felt constant has quietly lifted, and I finally have space to focus on building something new: a career reborn, a family of my own, and a sense of balance that has long been missing.

But with that relief also comes reflection — and a strange sense of envy.

I can’t help but notice that my brother is now doing this work in his 40s, with a level of stability and perspective I didn’t have when I was in my twenties. Back then, I was barely learning how to take care of myself while trying to take care of someone else. There was no roadmap, no safety net. Just instinct, exhaustion, and love.

Millennials are the first generation to fully experience what it means to be the sandwich generation. We’re caring for aging parents while raising (or preparing to raise) our own children — often while rebuilding careers disrupted by economic uncertainty, global crises, or burnout. We’re doing it all later, but also longer. The timelines have shifted, but the expectations haven’t.

I sometimes think about how different things might have been if I’d had the chance to take on elder care now, in this stage of life. But then I remind myself that early caregiving shaped me in profound ways. It taught me how to stay calm in chaos, how to advocate for someone who can’t speak for themselves, and how to find meaning in the smallest gestures — a smile, a moment of recognition, a shared memory that still flickers through the fog.

As I step into motherhood, I realize those same lessons will serve me here too. The patience, the empathy, the endurance — they’re all the quiet strengths I cultivated through caregiving.

It wasn’t the path I expected in my twenties. But maybe it prepared me for this next one in ways I couldn’t see at the time.

We, the millennial sandwich generation, are learning to hold both — the hands of those who raised us and the ones we’re now preparing to raise. It’s messy, it’s exhausting, and it’s deeply human.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s what love looks like when it spans generations.