S/o What makes someone parentified?

amother

Hawthorn

Thu, Mar 14 2024, 2:40 pm

Did your parents show appreciation or did it become the expectation?
Did you ever feel like you should skip a class activity, or play practice, or studying because you had a responsibility to cook?
Did your parents ever absolutely insist that you don't cook?
You mentioned siblings. Did they push a rotation or insist they helped?
We're there complaints about what was served?
Did your friends know that cooking was your responsibility?

amother

Coffee

Thu, Mar 14 2024, 2:42 pm

amother Candycane wrote:

Agreed. It's considered trauma and depending on how strong the parentification was, emotional abuse.

Trauma is a response to what was done. What was done is not trauma.

As an example, 2 soldiers may have been together in a war and both experienced the same traumatizing attack that even left them both with similar lasting injuries. Yet one soldier might be traumatized and the other not.

Even if the behavior of OP's mother objectively qualified as parentifying, there's no reason to assume OP is traumatized if she says she has suffered no ill effects.

As for emotional abuse, that's a real stretch to call, having cooked suppers every night (and I say this as someone familiar with both parentification and emotional abuse).

amother

DarkCyan

Thu, Mar 14 2024, 2:42 pm

amother OP wrote:

As a teen, I cooked supper for my family every night as well as Shabbos and Yom Tov (I used to stay up the night before Yom Tov to get it all done.) I do not feel resentful, and feel that it taught me skills for life.

Was I parentified?

I would say yes, you were parentified.

All the better if it had no negative consequences.

I think there a factors that make it better or worse.

What makes it worse is
- when it starts very early in life
- when one child has to do the lion's share of housework rather than everyone chipping in evenly
- when parents do not give the child love and emotional stability
- when parents get angry when the work is not done or when something happens
- when the task is impossible for the child (educating siblings who will not listen, doing work too hard for the age)
- when parents are unwell, especially psychologically

amother

Thu, Mar 14 2024, 2:42 pm

amother Hawthorn wrote:

Did your parents show appreciation or did it become the expectation? yes they thanked me in front of everyone, bought me presents before Yom Tov sometimes
Did you ever feel like you should skip a class activity, or play practice, or studying because you had a responsibility to cook? Not usually
Did your parents ever absolutely insist that you don't cook? No
You mentioned siblings. Did they push a rotation or insist they helped? No
We're there complaints about what was served? No
Did your friends know that cooking was your responsibility? Yes I was proud of it

amother

Hawthorn

Thu, Mar 14 2024, 2:51 pm

amother OP wrote:

I'm not a professional but I have years of therapy dealing with my own parentification.

I would say that you WERE parentified but you don't have trauma because you apparently had the tools to handle the parentification. They appreciated you, they gave gifts, they didn't criticize.

But I would keep an eye on the anxiety, the feeling burnt out, and your own giving your kids chores (too much or too little) as your family grows older.

Goody2shoes

Thu, Mar 14 2024, 3:04 pm

amother Coffee wrote:

Everyone experiences trauma at one point, the difference is how they deal with it, if they have the right tools ect....
Parentification is a trauma, OP might have been able to deal with it in a healthy way. Op says she suffers from anxiety, this to me is an indication that there is some trauma.

I won't go as far as to point out any abuse because we know so little of what really went on.

flowerpower

Thu, Mar 14 2024, 3:17 pm

amother Vermilion wrote:

She can be fine, yet still had been parentified as a child.
One doesn't negate the other.
(And I think that the fact that she started this thread & asked this question, means that there's something niggling in her mind.)

Because she read toxic stuff here to make her open her eyes. That being said I dont do it to my kids. Don’t worry. They don’t help very much.

amother

Sunflower

Thu, Mar 14 2024, 4:11 pm

When I was in high school, a few friends and I were discussing recipes for Shabbos. We liked experimenting in the kitchen. Most of us were youngests in mostly-empty homes and our mothers in no way relied on us to cook, but we did sometimes - for fun.

Another classmate joined the conversation. She was the oldest of a large family with special needs siblings. As I shared a new recipe that had turned out well, she said "I just need the easiest recipes - pour sauce, pour crumbs, bake." I remember how resigned she looked as I realized that she had much heavier responsibilities than I did.

I didn't know the word for it at that point, but she was definitely a parentified child.

ShishKabob

Thu, Mar 14 2024, 4:14 pm

amother OP wrote:

You'll have to trust me on that one. You're only getting a very tiny window into my life. But yes I would say overall my home was definitely loving and mostly functional

You are in a good place bh. Many women have anxiety without being 'parentified'. So it's likely that it's not related one with the other.
I don't know why everyone is so hung up about this.
I agree with FlowerPower on this one.
Years ago, it was very accepted and expected that children should help out at home. And if the mother and father were struggling to make ends meet and they had jobs, the children would pick up the slack as responsible people. It was also expected that children that worked would contribute to the expenses of the home etc and they would use the money they earned to marry themselves off.

I'm not so sure that our parents were worse off because of this.
I'm not so sure that I am worse off because of this.
I don't think I was parentified however I did have lots of responsibilities at home and there were times of special circumstances and I would put my schoolwork aside and put my home duties first.

I felt very safe and secure growing up bh. I wasn't threatened or told that I can't opt out or whatever.

It sounds like the op had a normal house growing up bh and she is going to get tons and tons of schar for easing the burden from her mother/parents.

We live in an upside down world where people are so scared to help out their parents G-d forbid, because 'if the parents can't take care of the kids, they shouldn't have them', or if they need some extra help from their kids it's not ok..

I'm not so sure that this new age setup is helping us have more responsible, even keeled, mentally and emotionally healthy children that are happy with themselves. I'm seeing a lot of the opposite.

Please make me see the light.

(I'm not talking about extreme, abusive situations)

amother

Taupe

Thu, Mar 14 2024, 4:59 pm

I read the op and at first I was a little horrified but then I thought about it and there were chores I did growing up that others would be horrified at

We didn't have cleaning help and I often cleaned the bathroom for shabbos. My mother would have done it if not (maybe that's the big difference) but I pitched in a lot at home. Cleaning bathrooms is gross and a big job. We also cleaned chicken, peeled vegatabled, washed thd dishes, did our own laundry and set the table. Regularly.
I don't see anything wrong with it, we were happy to help out.

I appreciate that we always had a home cooked meal after school, I would not have wanted to have the responsibility of cooking.
But if it didn't bother you to cook then great!
Sounds like your family didn't take it for granted, if you decided you didn't want to they probably would have bought out

amother

Hunter

Thu, Mar 14 2024, 5:27 pm

did you have siblings? did any of them cook also? who cleaned the house and went shopping etc? were you a child that liked to stay home and cook and still had friends and were happy? dd has a friend who likes to stay home and cook and bake and still has friends but she might be parentified also because she gets up early and make lunches for school also. I am not sure if this girl is different and likes staying home and cook or it is because her mother is very demanding. this girl also doesn't like to go to sleep away camp or any sleepover unless really necessary.

amother

DarkCyan

Thu, Mar 14 2024, 5:37 pm

ShishKabob wrote:

Making dinner every night is extreme and abusive.
Having to keep up all night to prepare yom tov is extreme and abuse.

Now, of course, it could have been worse if the parents were abusive on top of it, and is this case they were not.

I wonder: How could fathers just insist that they "can't cook" and just pass the puck to their daughter who is in elementary school?
Shame on this father.

amother

Almond

Thu, Mar 14 2024, 6:01 pm

Being mandated as a child to provide meals for the household with the result that if you didn't, no one, not even your parents, ate properly- that is parentification.

Being responsible for some food items such as 'making the salad is Chani's job' is fine.

Parents, at the very basics must feed, clothe and provide shelter. Yours didn't feed you

I was a parentified child. My tasks were
- food shopping
- preparing all evening meals
- making lunches for school for the family
- bathing, dressing and putting all younger siblings to bed
- picking up younger siblings from school
- laundry
- making shabbos and yomtov meals
- cleaning up from all meals
- looking after siblings who woke up/cried overnight
- taking unwell siblings to PCP

I was given a free pass to leave school early for this and also not to do chesed visits (hugh school had weekly chesed with families) because it was recognized by the school that I was basically doing chesed at home. I did really badly at school and failed lots of exams because I had no time to study.

I was so traumatized that I decided never to get married, never to have kids and I hate cooking for shabbos- we eat simple meals. Bh I had a lot of therapy, found an amazing dh and have an amazing family but it was hard.

My parents didn't hate me or do it on purpose, they were caught up in a situation they didn't understand and we all suffered.

A hundred years back this was all normal- childhood didn't exist for our families who lived hand to mouth. Bh we don't live in that world now.