The Parentification of Girls and Women

What is parentification and how does it impact women and girls? 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Steph.
I've never told you protection of I Hiart Radio. So
you kind of asked me this question previously on an
update episode or a classic episode, so I'm going to

(00:25):
ask you kind of similar. Did you get baby dolls
as a kid? I did? I did. The first one
that comes to mind was actually fairly disturbing experience where um,
you might be familiar with this, Samantha, but up in Cleveland, Georgia,
there is a cabbage patch doll like museum slash shore

(00:51):
and my parents took me when I was about eight
years old. And for anyone who doesn't know, like this
is my child memory, so it's not the best, but
I just remember this is a big room, big tree inside,
and you know, every thirty minutes or so, this woman
in a nurse's outfit would come and like shout out

(01:12):
to everyone, like a new cabbage patch baby is born.
And it's scared the hell out of me. I took
one home and it what happened to be the one
that eight and they had to recall those because you
would fall asleep and in the middle of night you
you'd wake up and you'd hear this wrong, and it

(01:35):
would be eating your hair. So it was disturbing a
lot of levels. Oh yeah, so it exists, still exists.
The baby Land General Hospital, yes, and yeah, it's actually
apparently was a converted old clinic. It looked creepy inside.
I like, I remember that big room really well, and

(01:56):
then you would go down some steps and then they
would just be these big bin of like cabbage patch
dolls of all sizes. But I remember that room and
that nurse coming out and holding up the baby. Oh yeah,
so that's the only kind of baby dolls I really
remember getting. I'm sure I got a couple of more,
but I didn't love dolls in general, so it wasn't
a thing for me, but I would get them. But

(02:17):
the pabbage patch doll I do remember, and the fact
that they had like the hardhead plastic head, and then
the cushy body, but then they had that signature on
their butt. Always thought that was weird. Did you ever
when you had these dolls? Did you play like your
mom and this is your baby? Was that something that
you did. I did have one that I did that with,
but it was specifically made for that, And I think

(02:40):
what I really liked about it was the mechanics, although
looking back now it's kind of gross, but you would
like feed it and like peas and carrots on a spoon,
and it would kind of shoot back in the spoon
to look as though it ate it right, you would
change its staper and and I feel like I I
did have that project in school where you had to
I guess it wasn't a baby doll. We had to
take like the egg for a weekend or something. I

(03:04):
think it has that too, And I've never really played
with them. I don't think we actually ever did the
baby project, and I think it's still happening today. I
don't know they actually do other ways. And of course
we see the sitcoms and the hilarious nous. Uh. I
believe it was in the Buffy episode where he boiled
the egg so it didn't break. Ah. Nice so Xander,

(03:25):
good old Xander. But today we're not necessarily talking about
dolls and such, but we are talking about women and
children essentially, or young girls being taught to be a parent.
So today we're going to discuss and talk about it briefly,
and we've already talked about it briefly in our Trauma
Mini series. I know I brought up the term, but
wanted to do a whole episode dedicated to it. And

(03:47):
it's a long and complicated subject and the effects of
perunification in women. Of course, we're talking about parentification. In
the studies about perunifications, it does typically lean towards what
happens with young girls and women because it's that whole
gender narrative of who is the parent and who it
takes the responsibility of being a parent. So that just

(04:08):
go ahead put that there. And of course, again I
have mentioned it because it's something that I've experienced with
working with peritified children as well as the families. And
again we're gonna go ahead with this here. We're not professionals.
I guess I'm not technically a professional anymore, as in, like,
I'm not studying this. I don't treat it, you don't
treat it. So um. And we're getting all of this

(04:29):
from research and different articles, but we think that it's
important that we talk about it because it's not talked
about too often. Um. And again we're gonna also put
a trigger warning here because it's not necessarily that we're
gonna talk into anything really dark or deep We're not
going to talk about abuse, but I know for a
lot of people just hearing some of these things that
could trigger up emotions from your past. Maybe it is

(04:51):
you are a victim of parentification, or you have a
really hard relationship with your parents due to something like this.
It can be triggering. So go ahead and put out there.
We're gonna do a deep dive of the effects as
well as some of the articles and some of the
reasons why this might happen. Yes, and also please know
when it comes to issues like purtification, it is a

(05:12):
sticky topic. Um a majority of those who may have
been partified or could have been parentifying a child. It's
not malicious, but oftentimes as a result of necessity or
outside forces, whether it is untreated issues within the home
or even due to economic stressors um single parents who
can't afford daycare for example. Of course, that doesn't gain

(05:33):
the fact that it does have an impact, and we
wanted to look at some of those impacts. So let's
start at the beginning with the definition. So the definition
of parentification is a fairly complicated one with its overall
effects as well as the depth of who it affects.
But the term was originated in Debt by both Remaining
Notes and Spark in nineteen seventy three, they used it

(05:54):
to describe quote a common component of relationships wherebyt par
rental characteristics are projected onto an individual, and typically that
individual is a child. Perentification is a subcategory of a
term called boundary dissolution, which is characterized by a distortion
of reversal in the normative parent child roles. Parentification is

(06:14):
the process of children being assigned an adult role, taking
on both the emotional and functional responsibilities that typically are
performed by parents, which may be the result or is
a result of the parent taking on the dependent child
role overall. The bigger, more damaging level of parentification is
to find it's something that can cause trauma and is
overall a boundary violation in which the roles of parent

(06:37):
child are flipped and the child becomes the caretaker, mediator,
or protector of the family. Now, that's not to say
giving some responsibility or autonomy to a child is unhealthy.
Charge your goals for children to learn to be somewhat
self aware, and teaching responsibility can foster a sense of
accomplishment or teacher level of discipline that leads to confidence

(06:58):
and nurturing that can help children to become functioning adults,
such as teaching children how to do laundry, money management,
or how to use a stove properly. But this is
accompanied by a healthy relationship and support of the parent,
which often follows with acknowledgment of what is being taught.
Right so now. According to the research from Jennifer Inglehart
from Columbia University, there are two types of permentification, instrumental

(07:22):
and emotional. Instrumental can be seen as healthy to a
certain degree, like the assignment of functional responsibilities such as
paying bills, shopping, helping with cooking, or running the day
to day care of the household. Again, an extreme version
of this, when we see the responsibility being fully placed
on a child, it is dangerous and can be detrimental
in the development on a young child. Example of that

(07:43):
would be parents are incapacitated and the child is responsible
in feeding and dressing and taking care of all the
other children as well as themselves and maybe even the parent. Yes,
and emotional parentification is the expectation that the children will
fulfill specific emotional or psychological needs of the parents. This
is when we witness or experience. It's being the emotional
rocker support of the parent, being the confidant of a

(08:04):
parent during rough times, example, during a divorce, telling the
child the ugly details of the other parents are why
marriage didn't work, or using the child as their sounding board.
This type of prunification is noted to cause more trauma
and damage than instrumental fortification. Emotional pronification often uses the
child as the one to give emotional care and may

(08:24):
even be expected to give quote, unwavering support and or
crisis intervention, and if not able to meet that need,
can cause the parent to lash out or be withholding
and later we will talk a bit about the results
when it comes to mental health and attachment issues, but
it is again something to remember that there there is
a balance. When a child is expected to be the
bearer of the family, whether emotional or otherwise, the outcome

(08:47):
can be traumatic. Right. The effects and outcomes of fortification
is of course varying from person to person, but the
effects can run deep and even generational. Again, there's a
difference from teaching responsibility, and we're going to harp on
that a lot because we know that when it comes
to parenting that's a sensitive issue when we're not trying
to tell you how to parent, but we don't want

(09:09):
to shy away from a topic. So there, yeah, is
a difference from teaching responsibility versus abuse. But here we're
going to talk a lot more about the extreme of
the trauma of parentification, so just be a reminder. Research
has shown that overall outcome for permentification of children can
include internalized problems like depression or anxiety symptoms, as well

(09:29):
as somatic symptoms like headaches and stomach aches. Parentified children
can also show external problems like aggressive or disruptive behaviors,
self harm symptoms that mimic a d h D, and
similar behaviors. It can also lead to difficulties and interpersonal relationships,
academic problems, perhaps due personally to absentee is um and
with all that, the overall effect of extreme pronification can

(09:50):
be seen in an impeding in identity development and personality information.
It can affect interpersonal relationships, including with their own own children.
It can also be associated with later attachment issues, psychological distress,
masochistic and narcissistic behaviors, and even lead to possible substance abuse.
But it isn't always negative. Some researchers speculated that purification

(10:13):
may be beneficial and can lead to better interpersonal confidence
and stronger family bonds, as well as quote a higher
level of individualization, differentiation from family and self mastery and autatomy.
But typically this is more likely for a child who
has experienced low levels of parentification that is accompanied by
healthy relationships with adults that reward and recognize the child's
achievements and efforts. So we did want to talk about

(10:39):
how women are particularly affected. But first we're going to
pause for a quick break for words from our sponsor
and we're back, Thank you sponsor. So how does this

(10:59):
a women? Well, not surprisingly, according to research, pernification issues
affect more women than men, and that is partially due
to the level of responsibility placed on young girls to
be caretakers with the family. Like when you're not talking
about as young kids, we get dolls and being told
how to be nurturing and how to care. This is
what you want to be eventually, right, you want a kid?

(11:20):
And you know the whole patriarchal narrative that women stay home, cook, clean,
and take care of the family while the men go
to work and bring home that bacon, which means a
chunk of the research focuses on the mother child dynamic
as well, and not as much research leans on the
father child relationship, although it does, but it's newer, so
that is something to be said. And when we talk

(11:41):
about it a little more um as it comes out,
we see kind of how it pours out differently. Again,
the nurturing versus playful and protective the whole thing um
And as one article writes, quote patriarchal values that support
the pernification of a female children have been in a
place for centuries. The leave that female children are particularly

(12:02):
adept as caretakers, emotional laborers, and the dumping ground for
disowned family wounds and secrets. And all of this should
include the perspective that for so long girls have been
seen as being more mature than boys are and are
more likely to be given that type of responsibility and expectation.
So perhaps society itself is perenifying young girls. And as

(12:25):
we read through the many different perspectives and overlapping theme arises,
and that is the competition between mother and daughter. Again,
we are looking at the more extreme version of perenification.
Many talk about the idea of love and validation as
a finite source and being taught that one must earn
such things and with that, as one psychotherapist states, the quote,

(12:47):
patriarchy has deprived women to such a degree that when
they become mothers, they often turn to the love of
their young daughters, starving and ravenous for validation, approval, and recognition.
And because typically paranting is a quote gendered practice, and
therefore we see the heteronormative role suggest quote that fathers
spend more time and play activities with their children or

(13:08):
the primary instrumental and emotional parenting role is usually undertaken
by the mother, which can also relate as to why
we see more women and young girls mentioned in these studies, right,
and when we're talking about the play level, it's that
whole princess narrative that the oftentimes we see fathers have.
This is my princess. You know, all of these things
that are laid out on two young girls. But it

(13:30):
actually can be a form of prunification when you put
them up into a pedestal that they validate their roles
as fathers. So it's IFFI like, oh God, because what
happens when they're disappointing them. So that's kind of that
whole Like my girl, my young girl, I have to
protect her, and then if they step out of line,
like they become sexual. So that's definitely another thing that

(13:51):
we can look at, but we're not gonna necessarily talk
about in this episode. But when it comes to promunifications,
young girls are more likely to take on that parent
role when there's a parent missing from the typically heady,
normative two parent household. Again, we want to mention that
pernification may manifest differently for men that it does for women.
So young kids, young boys who are being pernified, such

(14:13):
as the boys being more protective and provide for their family.
Wild girls, you know, take care and nurture the family.
So definitely two different, very gendered ideas that society places
on what they should be doing. Prime example Supernatural Yes,
Oh I told you it's been suggering for me watching Yes,
which may continue again in adulthood with men over compensating

(14:36):
to be hyper masculine in their actions and ideas. Something
also to think on. And all of this birth order
can play a major part into who may be more
likely to be permnified as well. So when we talk
about the middle child, the oldest child, and the youngest
child that can play a key role in all of
this conversation. So we talked a little bit of the
effects of extreme promnification earlier, including depression and anxiety, but

(15:00):
added that the many layers of low self esteem and
inability to have healthy attachments and even complex PTSD. Many times,
if someone has experienced this, they also experienced a lot
of shame and guilt throughout their lives, whether it's a
need to take responsibility for all misgivings or failures around them,
or shouldering all the responsibilities as well. They become hyper
vigilant of criticism and or the possibility of upsetting someone,

(15:23):
and within that maybe a level of distracting or deflecting
from a bad situation. And for adults who took on
roles of parents as children, it is likely that they
have become highly sensitized to errors, imperfection, and unfairness in
the world. They have a harsh inner critic inside of them,
constantly telling them they're not doing things correctly or perfectly enough.

(15:45):
They live with constant pressure to fix things, correct things,
and to make things right again, being highly judgmental and critical, right,
So we talked a bit about the biases within permitification,
where and why there may be more research on the
mother child role, but they are all also examples where
we see fathers who lying, as I mentioned before, on
young daughters to be the wife within the family. And

(16:06):
we're saying this in caretaker level. And again that's not
to say that this there isn't a healthy balance in
assisting and contributing to the family. Babysitting your younger siblings
is not a bad thing for a short amount of time.
Helping your younger siblings with homework when your parents are
kind of busy, that's not a bad thing. Having tours
not a bad thing. What is being looked at here
is when this expectation that the child will become the cook,

(16:28):
become the housekeeper and an overall caregiver of the household. Here,
the level of negog can be detrimental and could even
lead to harmful expectations within romantic relationships. As one research
states quote that perentified child may develop anxious and or
avoidant orientations towards relationships, and those beliefs are then carried
forward into young adult romantic relationships. That is, having had

(16:50):
a developmentally inappropriate caregiving role thrust on them as children
may put these young adults at higher risk of perceiving
themselves as only valuable to others in so far as
they serve a purpose, so that we're talking about the
fact that you have to earn love once again, or
you have to earn your place in that home and
it continues to stay. Alternatively, they may take on too

(17:11):
much responsibility and feel that they are solely responsible for
the happiness of those around them. And yeah, we do
have some examples we want to go over because there
are many blogs and post out there with personal accounts
of genification, and it's important to acknowledge the damage this
type of trauma can have and why we do need
to keep researching it and its effects. Many talk about

(17:35):
how these types of issues end up robbing individuals of
their childhoods and why that is problematic, and with that,
they may have never gotten a resolution or had a
conversation with the parents that were the cause of these
types of trauma, and more often than not, parents are
are We're unaware of what they are are we're doing,
whether it's a misguided effort to prepare children for the

(17:56):
real world, or because more often than not shoulder and
are so empathetic that it feels like an easy solution
are just talking with someone and sometimes um and typically
seen in paternal parents, the excuse that my child is
smart and mature, they can handle it is used to
treat their child as a confidant, our cohort. Right, So
some of the examples actually was so one of my

(18:18):
favorite things on Reddit is uh am I the whole
which is the whole reddit that I'm not gonna lie
because it's I'm sure half of them are made up.
But there was a reference to one specific one where
the father was asking if he was all because he
had his sixteen year old daughter take up the mantle
of the mother after the mother died, including the fact

(18:38):
that he was going to keep her from going to college,
take away all of her after school activities because he
needed help with the younger siblings. Again, of course, we
want to talk about the fact that there are issues
which when it comes to death, when it comes to sicknesses,
that yes, because are given a little more responsibility, but
to that level that he was not allowing her to
go to college, how much of a damage that he

(19:01):
could cause for this young woman, as well as the
bitterness that is going to come out of that in general,
and how it's going to ruin their relationship. But of course,
again this doesn't go back to the fact of what
you have to do. Sometimes you just have to do
some things, and the fact of the matter is you
have to have that assistance. But I think in this
specific article, he wasn't saying that he did couldn't find help.

(19:23):
He was just refusing to do it without her. So
it was kind of like, right, I don't know if
you know what you're doing, but this is bad as well.
As we have so many different blogs of people telling
their own stories, whether it's having a mother that was narcissistic,
having parents that were alcoholics, and what that looks like.
And I know within my own family there's dosinant stories

(19:44):
of them taking care of themselves or their younger siblings
while the parent has gone to try to retrieve the
father figure from a bar and because they're so focused
in trying to take care of their spouse that they
neglect the children. And who has to take up that
mantle for myself? Of course, being an orphanage, I'm not
necessarily perentified because I wasn't taking care of others, but

(20:06):
it's definitely independent. And I was definitely lost a lot
of childhood because I had to grow up real quick.
So there's definitely conversations of what does this look like?
And even though during that point in time, of course,
I think boomers versus millennials would say I have a
different conversation for sure, because it was expected of them
to take on this mantle. But the fact that matter

(20:27):
is it does cause trauma, and we have to look
at the later repercussions of what might have happened. And
speaking of we did want to look at some outside
factors that can lead to purnification. But first we're going
to pause for one more group break for word from
our sponsored air back. Think you're sponsored? So yeah, why

(21:00):
does perunification happen? There are again number of reasons, and
we've already talked about a few of those. Uh And again,
like we said, alcohol is substances, use disorders, serious medical conditions,
and maturity of parents. Parents own neglect or abuse, so
that kind of transfers into their own families, financial hardships
and mental health issues. Um. And again we want to

(21:21):
emphasize that not all promunification is to the extreme that
it can cause these types of trauma and effects were
we've already talked about. Um, I'm sure everybody's like, why
are you saying that over and over again? Because there
again is a balance. There's always a balance, And but
we also want to mention things like financial hardship and
socio economic issues and reasons for prontifications as a symptom

(21:43):
of a much larger problem. If a family can't afford
the assistance or are not qualified for us to be
in school, pre K, whatever whatnot, and have to depend
on their oldest child for child care or anything of
the such, we can't really talk about what the parent
is doing without king about what our society is making
our parents do without. And I think that's something we

(22:04):
have to remember, and I know that's one of the
big debates that was happening with Senator Elizabeth Warren saying
that we need to be able to give state childcare
and we need to be able to provide it because
what we're looking at, the people who can afford childcare
are those who have the money. And so if you
have that money, then you know you're great, that's great,
That's on you and if you're prentifying your child, that's

(22:25):
a whole other conversation that, yeah, it's probably pretty traumatizing
for your kid, whether or not you want to talk
about it. But we look at the socio economic status
is when we look at women who are working in
a single parents in a minimum wage job that's trying
to provide their basic needs, then we really can't talk
about what they're not doing right or what they're doing wrong,
because we are upholding a system that's trying to punish

(22:51):
them for the most they can do without giving them
any help. And again, my name is gonna be on
a list, I know, but I think that's I saw
as a social worker more often than not that the
neglect cases that happened to me, if it wasn't drug
abuse cases or alcoholic cases or any of those, it
was because they were making do with what they had.
And so part of that includes transportation. So if they

(23:14):
don't have a back and forth to get this child
from daycare, then who then what we're gonna do. If
they don't have family support, then what are they gonna do.
It's kind of that horror level. And I definitely have
friends who are part of the social work system because
they had to live that life as a perentified child
and they want to help. But again, when you have
a government that ties hands and keeps saying, you know, bootstrap, bootstrap,

(23:39):
there's only so much you can do, so just put
that there again. We also want to talk about parents
with disabilities. It's kind of that same thing. We as
a society are not providing the necessary funding or appropriate
assistance for families to maintain autonomy, and that is a
big conversation. There's no real answer or a solution to
how to appropriately help. We're not helping. And if we're

(24:01):
just expecting them to make their own solution with a
very minimal amount of any kind of help, then why
do we expect that they're going to be on the
same footing um And as in fact, we could go
again into the bigger issue of the ablest idea that
they as a marginalized community should do without a level
playing field when it comes to family. So we're not

(24:21):
going to put them on the same level and give
them the same opportunities or same expectation as an able
body family. But the fact that we're trying to hold
them in that same expectations once again, not giving them
the same resources that was given to others. That's not
something that should be expected, and that's something that we
need to reconsider as we're talking about all of this

(24:43):
as well. And also, yeah, and when we talk about
and we mentioned it a couple of times, about addition
and substance use, it's also one of the big reasons
for pertification, whether they're incapacitated because of this type of disorder,
or whether it's expected that, whether children learn for themselves
that they have to be the ones that take care

(25:04):
of things. My own experience when I would do child
abuse investigation cases, this was one of the big concerns
with alcohol and drug related issues. It was coming into
a home finding let's say, the parents passed out in
the back and the child in the kitchen by themselves,
operating a soave. So I had a case where a
six year old was sitting there making dinner for herself

(25:26):
and her two year old brother and asking where is
your parents? And they were there technically, but they weren't there,
and that child being so excited to tell me that
she could do this on her own, and she taught
herself how to do this. It's heartbreaking at the same
time that you're glad that they're able to do that,
and you know you want to praise them for being
that smart and a while a good job, but you're

(25:48):
heartbroken because you had to teach yourself that and you
don't have the mill that a parent should be providing
for you, or that guardians should be providing for you
and caring for you at least watching you do this
so nothing disastrous happens. So they've definitely had many of
those cases, and um, yeah, within that, oftentimes I see
trauma bonding. So when I would investigate some of these cases,

(26:09):
Now six year old was a different case because they
were younger and they didn't realize what was happening. Many
children and adults don't know that that's was happening. But
having like fourteen year olds try to lie to me
about when their parents pass out, I had those cases,
or that the parents were gone for days at a time,
or what happens at night when things happen and they
think they can get away with things. There's a lot

(26:31):
of this trauma bond because they don't want to leave
their family, or they don't want to abandon their family,
or they don't want to tell on their family. And
of course that also goes into the fact that the
only oftentimes solution was foster care. And I hate foster care.

(26:51):
And I say that as it is such a harsh
environment no matter how great a situation, but being pulled
away from your family, being pulled away from something that
you think is stable, is traumatizing. I definitely saw this
as a part of that as well. So you have
this trauma bond plus the protification. It becomes a whole
narrative as an adult, and it becomes usually generational because

(27:12):
that's what you're taught. Obviously, it's something that has affected
me and has broken my heart over and over again,
but something that we definitely have to talk about within
our systems as well. Right, and then something else we
want to touch on our divorce and domestic violence maybe
one of the more common cases of why a child
may have a role reversal in these circumstances. Children may

(27:33):
become the confident our protectors of their parents. They become
mediators between the parents, or some may believe and be
told that their behaviors are the cause of the problem
within the families. Because children are fairly empathetic overall, they
are the ones who may be providing comfort, our support
for their parents, right. I think that's going to resonate
with a lot of people, especially in our generation, when

(27:54):
we talk about being the other for their parents, or
trying to hide things from the parents, are being told
not to say things to their parents. Um, and of
course it happens today too, and how damaging that really
is for an individual and why we need to stop
that in general. But yeah, also we do want to

(28:14):
talk again a little more in depth look at some
of the signs of parentification. So we talked about a
few of them earlier, everything from compensating to signs of
a d h D, but we wanted to add some
more so anxiety, especially when it comes to caring for
others or always constantly definitely had that as an issue,
may growing up being told I was bossy, but I

(28:34):
was really just anxious to make sure everybody was okay.
And I think that's that's happened to a lot of
girls as a young age. Depression, suicidal ideation, compulsive overworking
in order to fulfill responsibilities at school, at home, at career.
And this is a type of compulsive caregiving as well
that happens feelings of constant guilt and shame, social isolation,

(28:56):
and then constant warrior concern or trouble of having fun
or playing, constantly need to be in control lack of childhood,
needs to be a peacekeeper, sacrificing your own needs for
others to the detriment of your health. And we have
a feeling many of you will recognize some of these
signs or any of the effects we talked about earlier,
or even the examples that we talked about earlier. As

(29:19):
in fact, the National Alliance for Caregiving shows that at
least one point four million children and adolescents in the
US alone experienced permunifications of some sort as of twenty nineteen.
And this is one of those things that's often overlooked
as part of the problem or trauma. So I'm betting
that the numbers are higher. So to s pit that
caveat there and uh, with all those heavy things, what

(29:41):
are some ways that we can work through the issues
that are related to being perentified? Well, no surprise therapy.
Different types of therapy are being used to address the
trauma due to experiencing parentification, including trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy,
which could help change helpful thought patterns, dialectical but your
therapy which could identify and change self destructive behaviors e

(30:04):
M d r r I movement to sensitization and reprocessing
to help with the trauma comprehensive resource model which involves
quote psychology, spirituality, neurobiology, and somatic techniques and other types
of therapies including art therapy and equine assisted therapy. Yeah,
which we've used here often. In Georgia, I think they
have a pet therapy as well as equine assisted therapy

(30:26):
has been really helpful in allowing a child to process
being a child, So that is something. And yeah, getting
in touch with your inner child can also help. And
I know this sounds cliche, but for those who have
experienced pronification, many have stated that they were not allowed
a childhood or that their childhood was taken from them.
And being a child needs to be able to grow,

(30:47):
to learn to make mistakes, and being able to be
selfish to a healthy extent, and and think of what
you need and what you want. And an article from
Psychology Today's stays quote, become a parent and friend to
your inner child. Take inventory of what you did not
receive as a child. And what needs still need to
be met. This is different for everyone. Maybe you didn't

(31:07):
have a structure as a childhood, so you need it now.
Maybe you had to intell too much structure as a
child and you need freedom. Yeah, so part of that
is honoring your inner child. And this involves create structure
for yourself if that was something you didn't get as
a child, playing or or enjoying something that you want
to do or love to do. Be kind to yourself,

(31:30):
create safety and boundaries for yourself. And I'm actually working
on this in therapy right now because I did have
some purnification as a child and it's I still struggle
with it. And like in the first time we I
was supposed to like homework that get in touch with
my inner child, and it was so much harder than
I thought it was gonna be. And I was upsetting.

(31:52):
And she was like, well, what would you say to her?
And I was like, I don't know, I don't know.
So it is. I mean, it's an ongoing work in
progress for me. Something else is learning to care for yourself.
That's something we've talked about self care on and on
on this podcast. It is often denied to young children

(32:14):
who are parentified because it is seen as selfish or
self indulgent, and for many people those words are bad words.
But we need to learn to let that go and
remember we can't help others if we can't help ourselves.
Being selfless seems like a nice idea about what happens
when we empty ourselves out completely and there's just nothing
that it can easily become a cycle that in turn

(32:35):
puts more pressure on others to take care of you,
which means if you have children who have to take
that mantle up to care for you, that can lead
to them being parentified as well. Right, And again, yeah,
we've talked about self care a lot and why it's important,
but I think it's specifically in regards to parentification because again,

(32:55):
the compulsive caregiving is really taxing and traumatizing in itself
and is a result of being perentified. Self care it's
almost impossible to do if you really haven't worked through
why you need it, So it is very important that
you are able to give that to yourself. And we're
not talking about you have to go for a spaw
day or whatever. We're just talking about whatever that might be,

(33:16):
whether it is to take a step back and watch. Shoot,
what if you love cartoons as a kid, you aren't
allowed to watch it because you had to care for
everything else and you didn't have the time watch a cartoon.
Enjoy that, Enjoy what that brings out in you. And Yeah,
there's a lot we didn't talk about, especially in this episode,
that we probably could address. And I know that y'all
as an audience probably have a lot of experiences and

(33:39):
a lot of advice and a lot of things that
you have worked out that you can send to us,
and we would love to hear that, because that's the
best way to learn, is when you have someone that
you can relate to in so many aspects. And again,
perortification comes through so many different forms. Mine was specific
to being abandoned. Like my issues are probably more reactive
attachment issues, which I do want to dig in to

(34:00):
us well later on. But also it takes me to
grow up very quickly and survival skills, and that's kind
of what this is. And whether it's you learning that
you have to provide for others or feeling like that's
how you have self worth, that's a big conversation and
to break that down and what that looks like when
you finally start letting that go. And again, this is
definitely an issue that should be talked about and remembered

(34:21):
when we look at what's happening with our society and
while we are the way we are, I think that's
one of the big things that we have to be
able to do. It's not necessarily excuse people, but understand people.
And again, this is a small portion of a much
larger picture when it comes to relationships, when it comes
to ourselves and understanding ourselves. And if you have something

(34:42):
that you think we missed, please let us know. We
love hearing more infralimation and we love to learn with y'all.
So yeah, give us that info, yes please, and you
can send that to our email. It's just step Media,
Mom Stuff that I Hurt Me and dot com. You
can find us on Twitter, a mom Stuff podcast, or
an Stagram and stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as
always to your super producer Christina, Thank you for caring

(35:04):
for us, yes, and thanks to you for listening Stuff
I Never Told Me, his production of I Heeart Radio.
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