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Parents Face Widespread Burnout and Identity Loss under Caregiving Pressures, New Care.com Report Finds
DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The care crisis facing U.S. parents is reaching a breaking point. According to Care.com’s newly released 2026 Cost of Care Report,
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[{"type":"text","content":" DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--\nThe care crisis facing U.S. parents is reaching a breaking point. According to Care.com’s newly released 2026 Cost of Care Report, parents report lost sleep (90%), feeling burnt out (89%), sacrificing other goals in life (88%), and feeling burnout at work (84%) as a result of challenges finding, managing, or paying for care. More than half have discussed caregiving challenges with a therapist (54%), and more than a third have considered suicide or self-harm (34%), up from 29% in last year’s report.\n\n\nThe national survey of 3,000 parents—now in its 13th year—shows that care demands still sit at the center of family stress. Family and caregiving responsibilities are the second most commonly cited top source of stress (cited by 36%), second only to finances (44%), and ahead of work/employment/career (36%), the economy (33%), and their own mental health (33%).\n\n\n“Parents are being pushed well beyond their limits by the demands of caregiving,” said Brad Wilson, CEO of Care.com. “If this continues, care pressures risk pushing more parents to cut back or step away from their careers. That will only deepen financial strain and emotional stress, trapping them in a system that continues to fail them.”\n\n\nHighlights from the 2026 Cost of Care Report:\n\n\nParents Are Juggling It All — and Still Need More Help\n\n\nParents describe a care ecosystem that is fragmented and time-consuming to manage. On average, parents balance four different child care arrangements, ranging from babysitters to daycares to relatives. And that’s not all as parents today have much more to juggle than just children: in the past year, 57% of parents paid for pet care, 46% hired a housekeeper, and 37% hired senior care help. Yet 45% say they still don’t have enough help.\n\n\nWith so many caregiving needs to manage, finding care has become a constant, time-intensive challenge. Parents sought roughly three new or alternative caregiving solutions in the past year, and 52% searched for two months or more to find a new caregiver solution, while using nearly 3 apps or websites to find care.\n\n\nParents Lose Themselves Under the Weight of Care\n\n\nBeyond stress, the report reveals how care pressure is reshaping how parents think about themselves. Eight in 10 parents (80%) spend almost every waking hour focused on someone else, not the...