HAVE YOU BEEN ‘PARENTIFIED’?


Parentification was first coined as a concept by family therapist Salvador Minuchin (1967) to refer to children who assume parental responsibility in the home.

Parentification is a kind of role reversal, boundary distortion, and inverted hierarchy between parents and other family members. A parentified child is burdened with excessive responsibilities, and robbed of their innocent childhood.

Parentification can be ‘instrumental’, where you were to complete physical tasks for your family, such as taking care of relatives, grocery shopping, or taking care of your siblings.

Most likely, however, what you had experienced as an emotionally gifted child, was ‘emotional parentification’. This is where you were put in the role of a confidant, secret keeper, or emotional healer for family members.(Golick, 2016)


In her seminal work The Drama of being a Child, psychologist Alice Miller (1995) describes how parentification is sometimes a result of parents using their child to fulfil the needs that were not met in their own childhood. These parents inappropriately depend on their empathically gifted children to provide them with mental and emotional support as well as refuge in unconditional love. Doing so places the child in an impossible position of having to be responsible for his parents’ happiness and well-being.

When parents lack the stability to lead their family, it is often their emotionally gifted child who step up to take over the catering role. Your parents might not have intentionally ‘used you’, but they had limited capacity to step up to the role of a parent. The burden of these responsibilities—that should rightfully belong to the adults—forced you to grow up too fast, too soon. In a way, you were both your own parent and also your parents’ parent, giving you no one to look up to, seek guidance from, or learn from.  Defenceless, and unsupervised, the world might seem like a terrifying place.   


As a result of parentification, you have learned to reduce and repress your needs to make room for others at home, to the detriment of your freedom and growth.  When your energy was devoted to playing counsellor for others, you might have missed out on the times where you should be allowed to be playful, spontaneous, make mistakes, and focus on nothing more than your own growth and learning. 



“There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.” 
― Shannon L. Alder




This week’s experiment: The Family Roles


Look through your family album, and reflect on who in your family might be the carrier of these roles:

  • The Golden boy/ girl- The high achiever, pride of the family

  • The Hero - the one who is the leader, organiser, and who everyone counts on to solve problem

  • The Rescuer- The one who takes on others’ emotions and problems, jump into rescue, and always busy prioritising others over thie own needs.

  • The Mediator: The one to keep peace, to act as a buffer when conflict arises between other members.

  • The Scapegoat: The one who is blamed for all the bad things that happen

  • The Blacksheep: The one that does not fit in, the misfit, outcast, the ‘weird one’.

  • The Lost Child: The subservient, obedient, quiet one who is hidden and unnoticed.

  • The Clown: The one who acts as a cheerleader and uses their gift of humour to defuse conflicts in the family. Their own true feelings might be hidden.