\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n \tRelated story \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tThe Hills Alum Whitney Port\u2019s Rare Video With Son Sonny Shows the Delicious Way They Bond\t\t<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n \t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n \t \n\tMillions of adults are caught in the \u201csandwich generation<\/a>,\u201d raising their own children while simultaneously managing an older parent\u2019s health. It\u2019s a balancing act that leaves caregivers feeling stretched thin and overwhelmed by guilt.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tFor Port and her four siblings, the biggest hurdle has been finding a way to keep their mom safe at home without burning themselves out. They ultimately turned to Care.com<\/a>\u2019s Senior Care Advisor service to hire professional at-home help, but getting Vicki to accept the assistance took time.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cOriginally, when we had care for her, she was very, very resistant to it. I\u2019m honestly in a pretty bad way with it at the moment,\u201d she continued. \u201cI think part of my helplessness feeling right now is because I\u2019m not there knowing what\u2019s going on every day. But I then think about if she were to come live with me, could I handle that? And I don\u2019t know. And that\u2019s where I\u2019m at right now. Because she can\u2019t be on her own.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn an Instagram post<\/a>, Port shared a clip from the episode and reminded viewers in the caption that not having all the answers is normal and OK.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThere are so many moments in caring for a parent when you just don\u2019t know what the right thing to do is,\u201d she wrote. \u201cYou want to fix it. You want to make it better. And sometimes you simply can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe family\u2019s journey started about a year ago after they noticed Vicki beginning to isolate and experience memory slips. Having lost their dad<\/a> in 2013, Port and her siblings were left to figure out this new chapter on their own.<\/p>\n \n\tToday, Port is working through the heartbreak of becoming a parent to her own mother.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s more like I\u2019m the mother and she\u2019s the child,\u201d she told People<\/em><\/a> in 2025. \u201cThe dynamic has reversed now. It has forced me to reflect on how much she\u2019s given us. And it has made me want to show up for her so much more.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tEven so, the grief of losing their old bond is a heavy burden to carry. \u201cBut it\u2019s sad every day that I can\u2019t necessarily have full-on deep conversations about everything that\u2019s going on in my life like we used to,\u201d she added. \u201cThere\u2019s like a little hole there.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAfter watching her own mother sacrifice her well-being to care for her husband and parents, Port knew she couldn\u2019t ignore her own needs while juggling so much.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI watched my mom be a caregiver. I watched my mom take care of my dad, take care of my grandparents, and, honestly, I watched how much it tore her apart,\u201d Port told People<\/em><\/a>. \u201cAnd I didn\u2019t want that to be the case for me or my siblings. I didn\u2019t want us to sacrifice our entire lives and jobs and livelihoods.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tTo survive the hardest days, Port said she borrowed a strategy from Real Housewives of Orange County (RHOC) <\/em>star Heather Dubrow<\/a>: scheduling time for emotional breakdowns.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI have to allow myself to have these cathartic moments of release, but then pick myself up and do the things that I need to get done,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s creating a space and time for myself, because the more that we shut it down, the more they\u2019re just gonna show up in our own personal sickness.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"LOS](\"https:\/\/www.sheknows.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-sheknows-2020\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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\n<\/section>\n<\/p>\n\n\t\tThe Guilt of the \u2018Sandwich Generation\u2019\t<\/h2>\n
\n\t\tManaging the Heartbreak\t<\/h2>\n
\n\t\tMaking Space to Cry\u00a0\t<\/h2>\n