Raising your kids and caring for your parents at the same time

What makes this different from ordinary stress

Support usually focuses on one end of this or the other — parenting or eldercare. The sandwich generation lives at the intersection, where the demands actively collide: the school call comes during the hospital visit, the money for camp becomes the money for home care, and your marriage becomes logistics.

I work on both ends because I've spent twenty years on both — childcare and caregiver decisions on one side, eldercare navigation on the other. You don't have to explain the whole system twice.

What we work on

• Splitting care with siblings who aren't carrying their share
• Talking to a parent who refuses help — without it becoming a fight
• What to tell your kids about a grandparent's decline, and when
• Protecting your marriage when logistics eat every conversation
• Deciding about in-home help, moving a parent, or a care facility
• Getting some of your own life back before you burn out entirely

How sessions work

Sessions aren’t only talking. I use the Care Map Method™, the framework I use to organize our work alongside a standard clinical assessment, to look at what’s driving the stress across four areas, then build a plan you can actually use. It isn’t a separate tested treatment.

The aim of the first session is for you to leave with a clearer picture and one thing to try next.

Why families choose to work with me

I’m a Columbia-trained licensed clinical social worker with twenty years of experience, and I’ve spent that career on one thing: how families give and receive care. I’m the author of Secrets of the Nanny Whisperer (Penguin) and a national parenting and caregiving expert for outlets including the Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS, The New York Times, and TIME.

That background matters in the room. If you’re deciding whether your mother can still live alone, whether to fire the nanny, or how to split care with a sibling who isn’t helping — those are the exact decisions I’ve spent two decades helping people make. In therapy we can work on the stress and the decision underneath it.

Sessions, licenses and insurance

Sessions are online by video for adults who are physically located in California, New Jersey, Oregon or Maine during each session. Licenses: California LCSW #136364; New Jersey LCSW #44SC05528100; Oregon LCSW #L16530; Maine LCSW #LC26593.

Through Alma, I’m in network with Aetna, Cigna, Carelon, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and Optum plans including UnitedHealthcare, Oscar and Oxford. Coverage depends on your specific plan, not only the insurance company’s name. Alma checks it before your first session, including any copay or deductible, and handles the billing. How using insurance works.

Check Insurance and Availability on Alma →

Questions people ask

Is this therapy or coaching?

These sessions are individual psychotherapy with a licensed clinician, booked through Alma. Care Map coaching and the Care Map call below are private-pay services, separate from therapy, that aren’t billed to insurance.

Do you take my insurance?

I see clients through Alma, and through Alma I’m in network with Aetna, Cigna, Carelon, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and Optum plans including UnitedHealthcare, Oscar and Oxford. Coverage still depends on your specific plan. Alma checks it before your first appointment, including any copay or deductible. Please share plan and health details through Alma’s secure intake, not by text or email.

Where do I need to be during sessions?

Sessions are online by video, and you need to be physically in California, New Jersey, Oregon or Maine during each one. Your insurance plan can come from another state; what matters for licensing is where you are during the session. Alma checks whether your plan covers sessions with me.

Want a plan built around your situation?

A private-pay consultation, separate from therapy and not billed to insurance.

A Care Map call maps what you're carrying across all four domains and produces a written plan — what to change, what to delegate, and what to stop doing.

CARE MAP CALL · 60 MINUTES · $189

Questions first? Text (818) 308-1358 or email tammy@caremapmethod.com. Please don’t send health or insurance details by text or email.

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