By Contributor,Dr. Liz Doe Stone

Copyright forbes

At the very moment women reach peak leadership, they’re asked to manage one of the most emotionally demanding projects of their lives: getting their kids into college.

For many executive women, the myth of “having it all” has always come with fine print: you can have it all, just not all at once. Balancing a demanding career with the invisible labor of running a household already requires constant triage. When college admissions season arrives, another layer of responsibility is added—one that is both emotionally charged and deeply underestimated.

It’s not just the logistics of applications, recommendation letters, college visits, and FAFSA deadlines. It’s the mental load: the endless cycle of anticipating needs, planning next steps, and monitoring progress. It’s the very imbalance that Fair Play—Eve Rodsky’s framework for dividing household labor—was designed to fix: when women disproportionately shoulder the hidden, time-consuming tasks that keep families functioning.

During the college process, this mental load balloons into a full-scale second job. And it often collides with what is already the most demanding season of their lives, forcing women to make impossible choices about where their energy goes.

The Triple Bind of Midlife Women Leaders

Executive women in midlife face a perfect storm:

Peak career pressure. By their late 40s and 50s, many have reached senior leadership. The stakes, and the scrutiny, have never been higher. They’re managing multimillion-dollar budgets, mentoring the next generation, and navigating industries in flux, all while holding themselves to impossible standards of performance and presence.

Perimenopause. Hormonal shifts bring sleep disruption, brain fog, and heightened stress reactivity—symptoms that quietly erode resilience just as demands intensify. To better understand this dimension, I spoke with Dr. Jessica Shepherd, Chief Medical Officer at Hers and author of Generation M. As a gynecologist and menopause expert, she has seen firsthand how unacknowledged this stage of life can be—and how damaging the silence has been. “Perimenopause has long been silenced because it was confusing as far as symptoms…and women often felt it was the beginning of a very stigmatized stage in their lives,” she explains. “Many times, the emotional toll on navigating this space is overlooked and can be very demanding. Mood changes in perimenopause are well studied and show there are complex neuroendocrine changes…Relationships often change and can suffer.”

Caregiving for aging parents. The “sandwich generation” is real. Many are supporting elderly parents while parenting teenagers who are navigating the admissions gauntlet. Doctor appointments overlap with college tours; power of attorney forms share desk space with scholarship deadlines. Even with privilege and resources, the weight of responsibility is relentless.

Layer the college process on top, and it’s no wonder burnout rates are accelerating. Data shows that women leaders are facing higher burnout than men and are leaving corporate roles at the highest rate in years. The stress of admissions season only compounds that exit risk.

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“Depletion Disguised as Competence”

Daisy Auger-Domínguez, a C-suite executive, author, speaker, and advisor, is one of those leaders navigating this moment firsthand. In her book, Burnt Out to Lit Up: How to Reignite the Joy of Leading People, she reframes burnout not as a temporary state, but as a systemic condition.

“Burnout isn’t just being so tired that a weekend of rest won’t fix it,” she explains. “It’s not simply an occupational phenomenon; it’s become a life phenomenon. What used to feel like something that only happened in moments of crisis has quietly become the condition of the modern workplace.”

For women leaders in midlife, she says, burnout “often hides behind high performance—depletion disguised as competence. We’re showing up to board meetings, mentoring teams, running households, and quietly negotiating the emotional labor of everyone else’s needs.”

“At this stage,” she adds, “burnout isn’t about hours worked; it’s about everything we’ve carried since our twenties, layered with the constant vigilance of being everything to everyone.”

The Invisible Labor of Admissions

Nowhere is that dynamic more visible than in the college process. Auger-Domínguez calls it “a full-time job disguised as parental involvement.”

“Women leaders, especially those used to managing complex systems, often slip into the role of family COO—building spreadsheets, coordinating deadlines, scheduling visits, managing emotions. But the invisible labor isn’t just logistical—it’s emotional,” she explains. “We’re the steady voice through teenage anxiety, the holder of grief as parents watching our children become what we dreamed of, even when we’re not quite ready to let them go.”

And it all happens in the margins. “Late at night when the house finally quiets, between meetings and text messages, in airport lounges and car rides, in the precious hours we swore we’d rest. It’s another layer of cognitive load that quietly drains us. We tell ourselves it’s just a season, but the truth is, it’s another arena where women over-function so everyone else can thrive. And we whisper to ourselves, if not me, then who?”

Control, Uncertainty, and the Illusion of Winning

For women used to high-control environments, the unpredictability of college admissions adds a destabilizing twist. “Executive women are used to clarity,” Auger-Domínguez says. “We build strategies, measure impact, and adjust course based on data. College admissions laughs in the face of all that. It’s emotional, opaque, and impossible to ‘win.’ And really, what does winning even look like?”

She likens the experience to early motherhood: “When my daughter was born, I remember feeling like I was losing my mind. A dear friend said, ‘Of course you feel that way. You’re used to being competent and in control. And in this role, you know nothing and control nothing.’ That’s exactly what this stage feels like again.”

That loss of control, she says, “can feel like failure, even when it’s not. It’s a mirror reflecting how deeply our worth has been tied to outcomes. The process demands surrender, but surrender doesn’t come easily to women, especially women of color like myself, who’ve had to fight for every inch of authority and credibility.”

Living It in Real Time

Auger-Domínguez isn’t speaking in hypotheticals—she’s living it. “I’m deep in it—the tours, the essay edits, the family decision matrix, the FAFSA calculations. I’ve essentially built an operations manual that changes on a weekly basis. But beneath the logistics, there’s this swirl of pride and grief. You’re helping your child step into their future while reconciling how fast your own life has moved and realizing how much you’ll miss the person you’ve devoted seventeen years of your life to raising.”

Among her peers, she sees “a quiet exhaustion we’re only just starting to name, a kind of sisterhood of ‘wait, I didn’t sign up for this… what in the fresh hell?’” The dual burden is relentless: “We’re leading through seismic change at work while managing transformation at home. It’s double-duty strategic planning and emotional coaching by day, strategic planning plus emotional coaching by night. And for many of us, it’s happening just as our own energy reserves are shifting with menopause.”

What Needs to Change

Three shifts could lighten the load:

Redistribute the mental load. The invisible labor of planning, remembering, and coordinating can be as exhausting as the work itself. Rebalancing that load requires shared ownership, not sporadic “help.” Divide responsibilities by category, finances, logistics, family schedules, and give each partner full accountability from start to finish. When ownership is clear, energy and empathy return to the household.

Outsource strategically. Executive women can’t lead effectively if every minute outside of work is consumed by logistics. Outsourcing elements of home, family, or care, whether expert college admissions guidance, eldercare coordination, or trusted household support, creates the bandwidth to think strategically, lead decisively, and rest fully. The most sustainable leaders aren’t doing it all; they’re curating networks of expertise that reflect the value of their time.

Shift workplace expectations. Employers serious about keeping women in leadership must acknowledge the triple bind: peak career demands, caregiving, and personal transition. Companies that offer flexibility, normalize career ebbs and flows, and invest in mental health resources don’t just support women, they future-proof their leadership pipeline.

How else can women move from depletion to renewal? Auger-Domínguez offers two clear steps.

“First, protect your energy as a strategic priority. You can’t delegate your well-being. Build a system—what I call the Replenishment Rhythm—to restore yourself daily. One non-negotiable act of care each day: a walk, a laugh, a creative moment, a boundary, a breath. Not as self-care theater, but as energy maintenance.”

Her second principle is to practice shared leadership at home. “Just as we delegate, empower, and coach at work, we can do the same in our families. Build a decision matrix, share responsibilities, stop defaulting to ‘I’ll handle it.’ My husband is great at reminding me when I’m taking on too much. After two decades together, we’ve learned to divide responsibilities based on our strengths. But let’s be real—the operational shorthand is my superpower.”

Ultimately, she says, “When we move from survival to revival, we stop trying to prove our capacity and start protecting our clarity. Burnout doesn’t just drain our energy; it also erases our perspective. And that’s what we, our teams, and our families need most.”

The Bigger Picture

The college process is more than a family milestone; it’s a stress test of gender dynamics and invisible labor. For executive women, it collides with perimenopause, eldercare, and peak career pressure to create burnout conditions that no amount of “self-care” can fix.

As Auger-Domínguez reminds us, burnout “isn’t an individual failure—it’s a collective signal.” Until workplaces, families, and institutions reckon with that truth, we’ll continue to lose talented women just as they hit their stride.

Dr. Shepherd’s advice mirrors that call for intentional care: “I want women to know they are not alone and deserve the space to express their journeys. Women for so long have been dismissed and not given the time to focus on their transition into the next half of their lives.”

Recognizing, redistributing, and supporting women through this season is not just about fairness. It’s about the future of leadership itself.

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