Parentification is the process of role reversal whereby a child is obliged to act as parent to their own parent or sibling. In extreme cases, the child is used to fill the void of the alienating parent's emotional life. Two distinct types of parentification have been identified technically: instrumental parentification and emotional parentification. Instrumental parentification involves the child completing physical tasks for the family, such as looking after a sick relative, paying bills, or providing assistance to younger siblings that would normally be provided by a parent. Emotional parentification occurs when a child or adolescent must take on the role of a confidant or mediator for parents or family members.
Prehistory
noted in 1948 how emotional deprivation could lead parents to treat their children as substitute parent figures. "Spousification" and "parental child" offered alternative concepts exploring the same phenomenon; while the theme of intergenerational continuity in such violations of personal boundaries was further examined. Eric Berne touched on the dangers of parents and children having a symmetrical, rather than asymmetrical relationship, as when an absent spouse is replaced by the eldest child; and Virginia Satir wrote of "the role-function discrepancy...where the son gets into a head-of-the-family role, commonly that of the father". Object relations theory highlighted how the child's false self is called into being when it is forced prematurely to take excessive care of the parental object; and John Bowlby looked at what he called "compulsive caregiving" among the anxiously attached, as a result of a parent inverting the normal relationship and pressuring the child to be an attachment figure for them. All such aspects of disturbed and inverted parenting patterns have been drawn under the umbrella of the wider phenomenon of parentification – with the result that on occasion "ironically the concept of parentification has...been as over-burdened as the child it often describes".
Choice of child
For practical reasons, elder children are generally chosen for the familial "parental" role – very often the first-born children who were put in the anomalous role. However, gender considerations mean that sometimes the eldest boy or eldest girl was selected, even if they are not the oldest child overall, for such reasons as the preference to match the sex of the missing parent. Thus where there is a disabled child in the family to be cared for, "older siblings, especially girls, are at the greatest risk of parentification"; where a father-figure is missing, it may be the eldest son who is forced to take on his father's responsibilities, without ever obtaining the autonomy that normally accompanies such adult roles. Alternatively a widower may put a daughter into the social and emotional role of his deceased wife – "spousification"; or a mother can oblige her daughter to play the caring role, in a betrayal of the child's normal expectation of love and care.
Narcissistic
parentification occurs when a child is forced to take on the parent's idealised projection, something which encourages a compulsive perfectionism in the child at the expense of their natural development. In a kind of pseudo-identification, the child is induced by any and all means to take on the characteristics of the parental ego ideal - a pattern that has been detected in western culture since Homer's description of the character of Achilles.
Disadvantages
The almost inevitable byproduct of parentification is losing one's own childhood. In destructive parentification, the child in question takes on excessive responsibility in the family, without their caretaking being acknowledged and supported by others: by adopting the role of parental care-giver, the child loses their real place in the family unit and is left lonely and unsure. In extreme instances, there may be what has been called a kind of disembodiment, a narcissistic wound that threatens one's basic self-identity. In later life, parentified children often experience anxiety over abandonment and loss, and demonstrate difficulty handling rejection and disappointment within interpersonal relationships. All results of parentification are negative. There are no positive byproducts; the 'maturity' and 'emotional resilience' are directly linked to their underlying anxiety and displacement in the family dynamic.
Case studies
Carl Jung in his late autobiography reports that his mother always spoke to him as an adult, confiding in him what she could not share with her husband. Laurens van der Post commented on the grown-up atmosphere surrounding the young Jung, and considered that "this activation of the pattern of the "old man" within himself...was all a consequence of the extent to which his father and mother failed each other".
Patrick Casement reports on a patient – Mr T – whose mother was distressed at any and all his feelings, and who therefore protected her from them – mothering her himself.
Literary examples
The Tale of Genji tells that for "Kaoru's mother...her son's visits were her chief pleasure. Sometimes he almost seemed more like a father than a son – a fact which he was aware of and thought rather sad". Charles Dickens' "Angel in the house" characters, particularly Agnes Wickfield in David Copperfield, are parentified children. Agnes is forced to be the parent of her alcoholic father and seems to strive for perfection as a means of reaching the "ego ideal" of her deceased mother. Agnes marries late, has relationship and intimacy problems, and has some self-defeating attitudes; in one scene she blames her own father's misfortunes on herself. However, she proves to be resilient, resourceful, responsible and even potentially career-driven. She also manages to marry the protagonist David and the two live happily together for 10 years with children by the end of the novel. The theme of parentification has also been explored in the Twilight series, with particular reference to the character of Bella Swan.
