The Parentified Child: Right sizing your role

In the revolution and in everything.....

The hallmark of being a parentified child is taking on parental tasks and operating primarily to support your parents. The tasks are varied and include performing as a proxy parent for siblings, completing household tasks and being the emotional coach or best friend for your parent. This pattern is more common than you may think, it has become normalised in our society to a large extent.

Often as children we may have enjoyed this role or felt recognised and celebrated for it. Descriptions like ‘mature for her age’ or ‘precocious’ often actually reflect parentification.

Occupying this role may have been the only way we got any attention. In providing the caretaking for our siblings/parents we may have got some praise or a feeling of being loved. It can seem like such a positive things to be our Mum’s ‘best friend’, confidante or ‘a little adult’, sadly it is actually the opposite because in this dynamic we, the CHILD who needs nurturing, are essentially ignored.