Marcus—A Sandwich Generation Father
This case study is a composite of several men I have worked with who are senior executives and fathers in the sandwich generation. If you are a father and need to rebuild your centre, this case study is for you.
Marcus is a senior executive in Perth with two teenagers at home and ageing parents starting to need more support and assistance. He’s in the sandwich generation. Work still wants outcomes. Home wants patience, tone, and timing. His kids are doing what teenagers do: pulling away, pushing back, and living more in their own world.
The major change wasn’t one dramatic event. It was a quiet shift in the ground under him. Teenagers started living more in their own world. His parents started needing more. Work kept demanding outcomes. Marcus didn’t fall apart. He just lost his way inside a life that had subtly changed shape.
Marcus feels this as something sharper than stress. He feels redundant as a father. He had always prided himself on being close to his children. Now he’s “here,” but not wanted in the same way, and he doesn’t know what role fits.
The Problem: Going Flat at Home
He used one word for what he was going through and feeling: flat.
Flat meant he was still functioning, still delivering, still competent. It also meant less warmth at home, less humour, and less patience. He could sit at the table and feel absent from himself. He was either snapping or withdrawing, then carrying the regret.
The Wake-Up Moment: “You’re here, but not here.”
After another argument, one of his teenagers finally named it: “You’re always here, but you’re never here.”
What’s At Stake for a Sandwich Generation Father
Marcus had three basic questions:
- External or Surface: How do I balance work, teenagers, and ageing parents when I’m running on empty and still expected to hold it all together?
- Internal: How do I carry authority at work, be the son my parents need, and stay connected at home—when my kids don’t need me the way they used to?
- Heart Level: I thought success would make life feel solid. Why do I feel unhappy—and useless—when I’ve done everything right?
Companion resource guide (download): Sandwich Generation Fathers—Mentoring Through The Maze
The Risk: Becoming a Stranger at Home
Under the practical questions was a survival fear: if nothing changes, I become a stranger in my own house.
This is how men drift off-course: nothing “big” happens, but the roles quietly change, and you keep using the old rules.
What Drives It: Role Strain (Work vs Home)
What was happening wasn’t a lack of skill. It wasn’t a motivation problem. It wasn’t just stress. It was trying to carry every role at once—and feeling like he had to stay competent in all of it.
Marcus kept using the same operating rules he used at work—logic, control, outcomes—to manage a home that runs on respect, communication, and love. He was trying to “manage” adolescence like a performance issue and trying to manage parental decline like a project plan.
Those two loads don’t resolve through competence.
Teenagers are wired to push against authority to build their own identity. When a father responds like a boss, the friction rises. Parents’ decline creates a constant background watchfulness: the next fall, the next call, the next hospital trip. You can keep turning up and still feel like nothing you do is good enough.
The Pattern: Always “On Duty”
Marcus’s pattern was simple. He stayed switched on all day. At work, that protects outcomes. At home, it turns into constant scanning. The kitchen, the tone in the hallway, unread mail, the teenagers’ messy bedrooms, the next argument, the next problem to solve. His body stayed “on duty.” You cannot give or receive warmth or humour when you are constantly alert and tense.
His flatness was a consequence of always being ‘on duty.’
What He Tried (and Why It Didn’t Shift)
He had already tried the usual things. He tried being more involved. His kids experienced it as an interrogation. He tried stepping back. He experienced it as a failure. He tried reasoning his way through the conflict. That sharpened the arguments. He tried pushing harder, being better, and doing more. That only increased the load.
His parents still wanted independence, but that took time. The time he felt he didn’t have with the pressure of everything else. This led him to be short-tempered and impatient with his parents.
Mentoring Aim: Change What You Can Control
This is where many men quietly doubt any “solution.” They’ve tried talking. They’ve tried reading. They’ve tried being the bigger person. The load doesn’t stop. Teenagers stay teenagers. Parents keep declining. Work keeps coming.
We didn’t aim to fix the family. We aimed to change what Marcus could control: his pattern when he felt tense and under pressure, and his next actions.
This is non-clinical mentoring, not therapy. We work on decisions, scripts, boundaries, and follow-through.
The Framework: Reset → Map → Act
The method was Reset → Map → Act.
Start with Function, then Reflection, then Action.
Reset: Reduce Drain + Create Contact Windows
Reset meant stopping the parts of the week that were draining him the most. In the first call, we picked one issue and set one boundary.
For Marcus, this was late-night parent admin. The boundary was no more midnight logistics. No more problem-solving. If it could wait, it waited until the following day. Sleep came first because sleep protects judgement.
We also built two small contact windows with his teenagers each week. No advice. No interrogation. Just being near them without trying to manage them. This mattered because it gave him a way to be present without chasing a result.
Map: Name the Loop (Work Rules vs Home Rules)
Mapping meant naming the loop and separating work rules from home rules. Once Marcus could see the cycle, it stopped feeling like a character flaw. It became a predictable pattern with interruption points.
Key Distinction: Outcomes vs Conditions
We used one distinction that did most of the heavy lifting:
At work, you lead outcomes.
At home, you create the environment.
In a corporate environment, you are judged by outcomes. At home, you need to be present to create an environment characterised by respect and repair. Marcus could not force his teenager
to talk. He could create the environment that made talking more likely: being in the room, staying non-reactive, keeping the offer open, and repairing quickly when he missed it.
Act: Scripts, Boundaries, Follow-Through
Act meant turning that map into resources he could use on a bad day.
We built conflict-interrupt scripts because, under stress, judgment drops and reactivity rises. That’s when lectures start, and the whole house hardens. A script removes improvisation and stops damage.
One script we used:
“I hear you. I’m taking ten minutes so I don’t say something I regret. We’ll talk after.”
That line kept him in the room without escalating. It modelled self-command without domination. It also gave his kids evidence that he could hold himself steady.
We added a simple repair line after ten minutes:
“I went too hard. I’m resetting. Try again.”
Short. Real. No speech.
Parents Plan: Maintenance / Critical / Relational
Then we built the parents’ plan, because a big driver of Marcus’s flatness was quiet dread.
We separated tasks into maintenance, critical, and relational. Bills and paperwork are maintenance. Medical decisions are critical. Visits and calls are relational.
Then we made a delegation decision. What can a sibling carry? What home help can be engaged for his parents? What can be delayed without guilt? The goal was to stop Marcus from spending his best energy on maintenance work and to ensure he had enough energy for the relational parts that actually matter.
Results: More Bandwidth, Fewer Blow-Ups
Within six weeks, the home felt different. Not perfect. More workable.
There were fewer blow-ups because Marcus stopped escalating. There was more contact because he stopped chasing outcomes. His teenagers weren’t suddenly grateful. They were still teenagers. The shift was in the conditions. More steadiness. More ordinary moments. More humour returning.
The other shift was internal. Marcus stopped carrying his parents’ situation as a private burden at 2.00 am. He had a plan. He used it. That reduced decision fatigue. It gave him more bandwidth at work because home was no longer taking up his recovery time every night.
The flatness began to lift, not into high energy, but into engagement.
Marcus’s Words
Marcus summed it up in one line: “I feel like I can be present again.”
If This Is You: Next Step for Sandwich Generation Fathers
If you’re a father in the sandwich generation—teenagers at home, ageing parents needing more, and work expecting outcomes—going flat inside is often a pattern problem, not a character flaw.
If you’re carrying a senior role, teenagers, and ageing parents, and you’re going flat inside, this is often a map problem. You don’t need a new personality. You need a structure that fits your current life.
Companion Resource: Marcus Case Study Guide + Next Step
Next step: Map your next step—rebuild your centre.