Leah White, the first in our three-part series on family caregivers, knows the challenges women face when balancing caregiving and career all too well.

White was a 20 year-old student at the University of Tennessee when she dropped out to care for her mother, who had been suffering from memory loss (she forgot the date of White’s wedding that year) and was eventually diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. By this point, White also had two young children, and the stress of caring for both her mother and kids created a “strained working relationship with whoever my employer was, because there were times when I would just get up and say I had to leave, which is hard for any employer.”

White eventually moved to Washington state, and finally graduated from college three years ago at age 33. She now works as program manager for the Washington State Women’s Commission, a state agency. She says she’s fortunate in that her husband, now a civil engineer, had the means to support her during her challenges.

“I made decisions that were best for caregiving for my children and my mom, and those set me back,” says White, whose children are now 13 and 9. “I will continue to work on these issues. The Women’s Commission will continue to work on these issues. And I hope that, for people experiencing a family emergency, (they) have better wraparound services to help them navigate that space.”

Two-thirds of the estimated 48 million family caregivers in the United States say they have difficulty balancing jobs with caring for an adult, according to a new analysis of a 2023 survey conducted by AARP and S&P Global. Twenty-seven percent of working caregivers shifted from full- to part-time work, and 16% even refused a promotion. According to the Mayo Clinic, about 110 of every 100,000 adults between the ages of 30 and 64 have young-onset Alzheimer’s.

Seattle magazine talked with White, whose mother died eight years ago at age 61; and Jefferson Ketchel, a Spokane resident who works as director of Foundational Public Health Services for the Washington State Department of Health. Ketchel spent years helping care for his mother-in-law, who also has Alzheimer’s. All opened up about the numerous challenges and emotional heartbreaks about caring for a loved one in cognitive decline.