Researchers have used the term “sandwich caregiver” to describe adults who are raising dependent children while also caring for aging parents or other older relatives.

The pressure can be immense.

A parent may be helping a teenager prepare for college while helping an aging mother make decisions about housing. One phone call concerns a child’s school behavior. The next concerns a father’s medical appointment. Money, attention, time, and emotional energy are pulled in opposite directions.

Adults may not intend to reduce children to a single strength, but our words have weight. We ask about the tournament before asking how the child is doing. We introduce a daughter by explaining that she is “our artist.” We tell everyone that our son has always been the outgoing one.

In the podcast conversation that prompted this article, we discussed an early study in which children ages three to six were more likely to trust a robot than a person, even after the robot had proved less reliable. The finding is preliminary, but the question it raises is important: What happens when children begin trusting the voice that feels easiest rather than the person who has earned trust through love, sacrifice, truth, and presence?