Over the last 15+ years, I’ve worked with many adults who struggled with the aftermath of parentification in their youth.
Parentification is when a child takes on roles and responsibilities usually meant for a parent. This happens when the child has to care for siblings or even the parents themselves.
When parents parentify a child, the child often feels overwhelming stress, pressure, emotional burden, and (eventually) a loss of their childhood.
Parentification can lead to difficulties in the child’s social and emotional development, affecting their relationships and well-being as they age.
The Two Main Types of Parentification
The two main types of parentification are emotional and instrumental.
Emotional parentification occurs when a parent expects a child to overly support their emotional needs.
Instrumental parentification is when the child feels responsible for aspects of the physical maintenance of the family in ways that are developmentally inappropriate.
A third type of parentification is a situation in which both emotional and instrumental parentification are occurring simultaneously. For example, a child might be tasked with caring for their siblings while also playing therapist to their parent.
When it comes to instrumental parentification, there is a lot of nuance in what might be considered parentification versus simple age-appropriate responsibilities. Asking a seven year old to set the table for family dinner can be developmentally appropriate. But many would agree that asking that same seven year old to make breakfast for their younger siblings and do the dishes afterwards each and every morning would be more rigid of a responsibility than what is appropriate or beneficial to the child.
For this reason, spotting and healing from instrumental parentification can be more challenging in some people. They may maintain the position of ‘It was good for me’ or ‘It made me more responsible, capable, and self-reliant’ for longer.
With emotional parentification, there tends to be less nuance, and more damage done. A child, feeling responsible for their parents emotional well-being, can break under the weight of the pressure. Emotional parentification is maladaptive for the family system and tends to be more severely detrimental to child development.
Roots of Parentification: Why Would Parents Parentify a Child?
There are many reasons why a child would become parentified by their parents or caregivers.
Some common reasons would be:
– Young or emotionally immature parents not feeling capable, prepared or worthy of fully owning their parental responsibilities
– A death in the family causing one or both parents to feel overwhelmed and to place their responsibilities on their children
– Insecure parents wanting their children to be shining examples that they can get their ego needs met through
– Financial difficulties leading to children working or handling household tasks to help the family survive
– Parents having a lack of community and/or a difficulty with asking for help, and choosing to lean on their children more than cultivating their own adult relationships
– A parent with severe mental health problems may not be able to provide proper care and support
– If a parent is chronically ill or disabled, the child might take on caregiving duties to help out
While the root causes of the parentification can differ wildly, the secondary, downstream impact of the parentification is more consistent.
Signs And Symptoms Of Parentification In Adults
Adults who were parentified children typically experience two phases of symptoms: before and after awareness of parentification.
Before awareness, these adults struggle with boundaries and over-functioning for others. They find it difficult to be aware of their own needs and have trouble with emotional self-regulation. They also experience anxiety and fear of or resistance to relationships where their need isn’t clear. In essence, they feel safest when they feel needed.
After awareness of parentification, these adults tend to experience grief, anger, and they can often struggle with maintaining awareness of their own needs, self-regulation, and emotional self-awareness. After awareness, the realization of how much of their childhood was lost to being a parentified child really lands, and they tend to experience a lot of loss, sadness, and grief.
Long-Term Effects On Parentified Adults In Relationships
Adults who were parentified as children tend to struggle with consistent themes in their relationships with other adults.
If you were a parentified child, several of the following themes listed below might sound familiar.
– You often fear or feel resistance to intimate relationships where you aren’t obviously needed (so you end up dating under-functioning people – or projects – that can barely get by without you)
– You often date selfish, entitled, egocentric, messy, or even narcissistic people who think that the world revolves around them
– Feeling guilty when you set boundaries or acknowledge your personal limits in relationships
– You prioritize others’ needs over your own, neglecting self-care and personal boundaries, leading to resentment, burnout, and needlessly sabotaged relationships
– You can struggle to be vulnerable, fearing that others will excessively rely on you or that you might be let down
– Having focused on others’ needs as a default in your childhood, you might struggle with self-identity and understanding your own desires and goals
– You often find it difficult to relax and enjoy yourself, always subconsciously feeling a need to be productive or helpful
While by no means an exhaustive list, these are some of the more common meta-themes I have observed in my clients over the years.
3 Examples Of Parentified Children
To paint a picture of what a parentified child can look like, I have made three amalgamations of groupings of clients that I have worked with in the past. I have changed, combined, and edited any and all identifying information to protect anonymity.
Jodie
Jodie’s parents were barely 20 years old when they had her, and they were in over their heads.
Within three years of being born, Jodie had two younger siblings and she found that she received a lot of love, attention, and validation when she took good care of them.
Innocent comments from her parents (“You’re such a good big sister!”) progressively turned into rigid expectations.
It got to the point where bathing, feeding, and helping her younger siblings with their homework was such a given, that if she ever shirked her responsibilities, she would get in trouble with her parents.
The more praise and recognition she received for being such a good older sister, the more she assumed that this was just what every family was like. As Jodie’s responsibilities grew, her parents happily backed off more and more, and she would often overhear them bragging to their friends about how little they had to do around the house and how easy being a parent was for them.
The weight of the pressure felt suffocating for Jodie. She desperately yearned to go outside and play with her neighbourhood friends. But anytime she hinted at wanting to do so, her mother would ask a battering ram of questions about her unmet duties. ‘Have your brother and sister finished their homework? Is the laundry done? Why are there still dishes in the sink?’
When Jodie went to bed at night, she would cry herself to sleep and feel guilty for doing so.
David
David was the youngest of four siblings. Due to his parents often tumultuous relationship, David’s mother would often come to him for emotional support when he had been as young as six years old.
She would recount the details of their arguments to him, and seek his counsel. Initially, David felt a special connection with his mother in her coming to him for advice, and so he was happy to oblige her.
As time went on and the fights became more regular (with David’s mother coming into his bedroom and asking for help within minutes of the fights ending), David came to feel a sense that he always had to be “on” and prepared with the perfect thing to say to her. He feared that if he was ever not available to counsel her or if he ever failed to have the perfect thing to say, his family wouldn’t stay intact. He also came to feel that there was no room for his emotional problems in his relationships with his parents, and so he progressively buried his feelings and his needs.
David’s mother would often joke that she was so glad that she didn’t need to waste thousands of dollars on seeing a therapist because she had him to speak to, and that she was so glad that he was just a good listener and so intuitive about people.
Inside, David felt like he was drowning.
As an adult, David dates emotionally unstable women who need saving from their bad decisions and emotional immaturity. He has difficulty prioritizing himself and attending to his own emotional needs.
Susan
Susan’s father died suddenly when she was six years old. Her mother sat her down to break the news to her, and ended the conversation by saying, “I’m going to need a lot more help from you over the next little while. Especially with your brothers, as this will be much harder for them than it is for you.”
With that, Susan had her marching orders. She felt she had to swallow her pain, and tend to her brothers needs over her own.
She cooked breakfast for her two younger brothers, got them dressed, and walked them to school every morning. Over the following years, her mother’s arthritis became so bad that she was bedridden, and Susan had to also tend to her needs.
Caught between a rock and a hard place of needing to maintain a happy face for her increasingly dependent brothers and also tending to her mothers basic needs, Susan felt exhausted and alone. Her mother (fearing “what the others might think”) further exacerbates the situation by pressuring her to get straight A’s at school so that nobody suspects how bad her home life has become. With her mother uttering regular threats like, “You don’t want someone to come take you away, do you?” Susan feels she has no choice but to stay in line and do what her mother demands.
As a child, Susan kept her distance from any friends, never wanting to allow anyone to get close enough to her that they could see her pain.
As an adult, Susan suffers from panic attacks, crippling migraines, and her shoulder/neck/upper back area feel like cement.
3 Ways Adults Can Heal From Parentification
If you were a parentified child and many of the themes above resonate with you, then you might be wondering what you can do about it. The good news is that this is absolutely something you can make progress on. I have witnessed incredible transformations in my clients, over and over, using the consistent use of the following tools.
1. Audit and renegotiate when and how you give your energy to others
Adults who were parentified children often continue to over-function for others in their lives. This could mean financially supporting friends or family in enabling ways or always being the shoulder to lean on. It might involve listening to friends, being available 24/7, and having no energy left for themselves.
The most effective way to stop the impact of a parentified childhood is to honestly assess energy given to others. Take stock of when and how you give your energy to others and act on what you find.
Adults who were parentified children might need to renegotiate or end draining friendships that have lasted for years.
Like water through a strainer, until we strengthen our personal boundaries and give from within our honest limits, we will continue to feel exhausted, resentful, and perpetually at our limit. This work is difficult, but it is necessary.
2. Grieve the childhood you didn’t have
Parentified children are expertly adept at rationalizing how “it wasn’t really that bad.” They convince themselves that they’re “just being dramatic.” That “other people had it a lot worse” than they did. And sure, yes, there’s always someone we can find who had it worse. But that doesn’t make it any less significant that someone robbed them of a large chunk of their childhood, burdening them with adult responsibilities at an inappropriate age.
The healing journey always begins with the reversal of denial. With allowing yourself to acknowledge that the pressure was suffocating. That you wanted desperately to just play like a normal child.
And when that denial lifts, and you acknowledge that, yes, it really was that hard, you can then feel the pain underneath.
You can make room for the hurt, the sadness, the anger, the loss that the denial previously masked.
This grieving process is often something that you will feel echoes of for many years. You can feel emotional residue when you see a child of the age you were when you were parentified simply being afforded the opportunity to exist as a child. Carefree, relaxed, well-loved. Or it can bubble up when you parent your own children and give them the childhood you wished for.
Grief has no timeline, no end point. Our inner child feels disappointed about not having the childhood they wished for. So make sure you make room for this hurt. Give it space. Let it breathe.
3. Consistently prioritize your own needs, and regularly attune to your inner emotional world
The real focal point of parentified children is that they felt that they had to put others needs ahead of their own. As a result, they tend to struggle to be aware of and consistently prioritize their own needs as adults.
Many may feel the greatest emotional resistance to this step. However, it is some of the most impactful work they can do.
Truly sit with questions like:
– What brings me the most joy?
– When have been the happiest periods in my life, and why?
– What can I do for myself today that will make me feel more peace, and more well-loved?
Then, from the material that you glean from completing these sentence prompts dozens of times, it’s then up to you to do those things. Ideally, on a regular basis.
So if you know that you love going swimming, then go swimming.
If you know you love going to the movies by yourself, go see a movie this weekend.
And if there’s a kind, loving, supportive friend that you always love spending time with, make plans with them.
Whatever things bring your heart joy, make those things a consistent priority in your life. Even if you feel emotional resistance to those things (because they feel selfish, unnecessary, or not a productive use of your time). Especially if you feel emotional resistance.
By consistently making yourself and your needs a priority, you communicate to yourself that you matter. That your needs matter. That your inner world is worthwhile and you deserve to feel good with how you spend your time and energy. In essence, you want to flood yourself with the opposite messages that you internalized as an overlooked, over-functioning parentified child.
Over time, this practice of prioritizing your own needs has a snowball effect. You will come to feel that you do indeed matter. That your needs are important, and you are worth investing in and listening to. As your self-esteem rises, you will feel more calm, peaceful, and relaxed day to day.
Do you feel comfortable making yourself a priority for a day or two but then tend to fall off? It could help to write down the things that bring you joy on a piece of paper and placing it somewhere you will see on a daily basis. That way it’ll be more difficult to ignore.
Healing From Parentification Takes Time
Just as the pattern wasn’t created in a day, it will take longer than a day to heal.
By consistently attuning to your emotions and needs, and making yourself a priority, you will begin to make progress.
The more you show up for your own needs, the more you reinforce the identity of being someone who matters. This will help you transform and put this old pattern to bed.
I wish you all the best in your journey over the coming months.
Dedicated to your success,
Jordan
Ps. If you enjoyed this article, you may also benefit from the following resources:
– Apply for 1-on-1 Coaching with Jordan
– 3 Ways To Reparent Your Inner Child
– How To Fully Release Difficult Emotions That Hold You Back
