Parentification: How Growing Up Too Fast Hurt Me
In what situations, or for what reasons, would it be okay to teach a 12-year-old how to use a gun? For sport? For self-defense? During war? Consider this.
It’s 1991, Phoenix, AZ. I am 12 years old, and I live with my mother and 9-year old brother. After ending her second abusive relationship, my mother is adjusting to her life as a single woman and single mother, in a small apartment. She is only 29 years old and, for the first time, in a home without a man. Since 16, my mother had lived with a man in her life and home, going straight from the care of her parents into a marriage to someone 8 years her senior. After divorcing my father and breaking up with a long-term boyfriend (a man 6 years her junior), she is left to fend for herself and her children. She is afraid. So she buys a gun.
I was unaware of the gun purchase until the infamous day she called me into her bedroom.
Whenever she called my name, I was nervous. I knew that if I obeyed and stayed silent, there was the possibility of avoiding harm. Possibility. I walk with trepidation to her room. The gun is displayed on her bed; I am immediately afraid. The gun is small, black, and looks heavy. I look away from the gun and up at my mother.
“You need to learn how to use this,” she says. “No,” I respond.
It was unusual for me to oppose my mother. I was an obedient child. I hated getting in trouble. I hated when others were mad at me, or were upset because of me.
My mother repeats, “You need to learn how to use a gun. It’s for protection.” “No,” I insist. Although my voice is soft.
My mother begins to get agitated at this point. She was not accustomed to being disobeyed. She raises her voice.
“You need to learn how to use this gun. What if we get robbed and you need to shoot the burglar?”
“No, I don’t want to touch it,” I reply, looking down. Still, quiet, but standing my ground.
“What if we are getting mugged? What if an intruder comes into our house?”
“No.”
I’m not quite sure why I didn’t want to touch the gun. I don’t know why it scared me. I knew about guns. I knew that a person could be shot and killed by a gun. I also knew that it was dangerous to oppose my mother. I’m not sure why I took such a risk at that. moment.
I yell, “I’m never going to shoot a gun! I am never going to learn!” I am surprised at the intensity of my reaction.
My mother is now boiling. An outburst from my brother or me always ignited our mother’s rage. When she was enraged, her face turned red and contorted, her eyes narrowed. I could see her crooked front teeth as she yelled.
The next thing (shouted) out of my mother’s mouth is, “What if I am getting raped?! What are you going to do!?”
This is an inappropriate thing to say to a 12-year-old. This is NOT a situation that justifies teaching a child to use a gun. What this is, is an example of a form of child abuse called parentification. The term was first introduced by researchers Boszormenyi-Nagy and Spark in 1973, and has been studied by psychology, child development, and mental health researchers since. Parentification generally refers to the consequences of burdening children with inappropriate tasks for their age and developmental stage (Hooper et al., 2011). It can include performing inappropriate roles for parents or siblings (e.g., caretaking, protecting, providing for financially) or being forced to do tasks that exceed the child’s age, abilities, and resources.
I was a parentified child. This is one of many examples of how I was parentified. To this day, I still suffer the pain and damage of being given responsibilities that were far too sophisticated, complex, unreasonable, and heavy for a child.
Prior to this gun experience, when we lived with my mother’s boyfriend, another incident occurred that has forever stuck with me. I was 11 at the time, my brother 8, my mother 28. She and her boyfriend were fighting (they fought often). But something was different about this fight. For one, her boyfriend was drunk. What I found out later was that he was also violent. He had been a gang-banger. It was believed he murdered someone at the age of 17. We met him at that same age. By the time of this incident, he was 22 years old. He was on the verge of physically assaulting my mother during this fight. My brother and I were “playing” in our bedroom. I put that in quotes because I wasn’t really playing. I was only pretending. I was listening; yelling, yelling, yelling. My brother was still young, and I didn’t want him to be scared. He was playing next to his bed, and he looked as normal and goofy as usual. Then I heard quick movements outside of our bedroom, someone was coming towards our door. I was hyper-alert. I can still feel my eyes widening, trying to keep my body so still and silent, in the case that I needed to hear the tiniest sound that would indicate further danger. My mother burst into the room. She was holding the cordless phone.
“Rachel, take this. Call Tony’s friend, John. Tell him to come get him, he’s drunk.” She was breathing really heavily. “And there is a big knife under your dresser. Use it if you need to.”
In a flash, she was out of the room and had locked the door behind her. I looked over at my brother; he seemed okay. I bent over to look under my dresser. I had to get down on my knees and lay my head on the floor. There was a large knife there, like the kind you use to chop vegetables in the kitchen.
I dialed John’s number, which was included with the “important numbers” list that was taped to the phone. It rang. “Hi John, this is Rachel.” My voice felt so small, and it was quavering. I was shaking. “My mom told me to call you to come get Tony. He’s drunk.” John’s voice was kind, even though he didn’t say much. “I’m coming right over.” Tony was eventually picked up and my mother let us out of the bedroom after he was gone. My memory ends there.
Some of the damage that has been linked to parentification is immediate and includes stress and anxiety for the child, physical pain (e.g., stomachaches), self-blame and guilt, dissociation, and substance use. There are also long-term effects. These include co-dependency and difficulties in romantic relationships (e.g., continually dating the troubled, and toxic, boyfriend that needs “saving”), challenges in creating healthy boundaries with others, maladaptive people-pleasing, mental health issues (e.g., depression, anxiety, OCD), and severe issues with self worth. (See Hooper et al., 2011; Jankowski et al., 2013 for references.) G. Jurkovic writes, in his book titled Lost Childhoods: The Plight of the Parentified Child, “Children’s distrust of their interpersonal world is one of the most destructive consequences of such a process” (1997). I have suffered all of the above, both in childhood and in adulthood.
However, I have also developed strengths that stem from being parentified. I am a gifted caregiver, and excellent at defusing moments of panic and chaos. I am a good comforter, and a peace-maker. I nurture many people in my life in addition to my own family, including friends, strangers, and my trauma clients. I am a strong empath. I help to facilitate healing in others. Similar outcomes have been found in adults who have experienced childhood parentification (see Hooper, 2007; additional references below).
I say none of this to justify the fact that I was abused by being forced into roles and duties that were too “adult” for me to take on at the time. But to share my gratitude in how my suffering has been transformed into good for others. The transformation of my suffering has come through my own healing.
The more I heal from various childhood abuses and traumas, the more strengths emerge. My healing has been the combined result of medications, healthy living (nutrition, exercise, self-care, spiritual practices), supportive friendships and relationships, therapy/counseling, and in particular, trauma-focused therapy and inner child work.
If you have been parentified, first, I am so sorry. I am so sorry that you endured the burden of taking on responsibility that was not yours to take and that made you question your own worth. I am so sorry that you were forced to grow up too fast, and that you missed out on being a kid. I want you to know three things.
- Healing is possible.
- You will find that there are strengths that will arise from your suffering as you travel your own healing journey.
- If you were parentified, it was abuse.
And you have the right to heal from abuse.
References
Boszormenyi-Nagy, I., and Spark, G. (1973). Invisible loyalties: Reciprocity in intergenerational family therapy. New York, NY: Harper and Row.
Hooper, L. M. (2007). The application of attachment theory and family systems theory to the phenomena of parentification. Fam. J. 15, 217–223. doi: 10.1177/1066480707301290
Hooper, L. M., DeCoster, J., White, N., and Voltz, M. L. (2011). Characterizing the magnitude of the relation between self-reported childhood parentification and adult psychopathology: a meta-analysis. J. Clin. Psychol. 67, 1028–1043. doi: 10.1002/jclp.20807
Jankowski, P. J., Hooper, L. M., Sandage, S. J., and Hannah, N. J. (2013). Parentification and mental health symptoms: mediator effects of perceived unfairness and differentiation of self. J. Fam. Ther. 35, 43–65. doi: 10.1111/j.1467–6427.2011.00574.x
Jurkovic, G. J. (1997). Lost childhoods: The plight of the parentified child. New York, NY: Brunner/Mazel.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/healing-together/202001/14-signs-you-were-parentifiedchild
