Mother and father: how not to mix up the roles

What do parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles do for a child? They love, kiss, teach, pamper, educate… and lead him to the point where he becomes an independent, whole, emotionally mature person from a helpless newborn. This is the main role of parents and close relatives, says psychologist Marina Ponomareva. But at every stage of a child’s development, some of them come to the fore, and some move backstage. It is good when all family members understand the general scenario and the features of each role.

mother protects

“From the moment of birth, the mother plays a major role in the life of the child,” says Marina Ponomareva. “She takes care of meeting his physiological and emotional needs: feeds, looks after, monitors the daily routine, touches him, smiles, talks to him, gives him toys and introduces him to the environment.” The mother helps the child to develop the world of his feelings, teaches him to deal with his own body, gradually realizing its boundaries. Even with time, when the child grows up, the mother still protects him. Caring for emotional needs is important at every stage of development. If the mother fails to cope with this task or becomes a source of threat herself, the child takes it hard.

“I still remember how my mother, in the presence of classmates, yelled at me, shouted that I would shame her in front of the whole school,” recalls 38-year-old Andrei. – In my opinion, even the biology teacher was shocked and regretted that she had called her. At the age of 11, it was a real disaster. I wanted to disappear, to fall through the ground. That day was the boundary after which my mother ceased to exist for me as a loving being. I realized that now I am responsible for myself.

Now she is under 70 years old, but we are still far from each other. Echoes of those years were my uneasy alliances with women. I don’t trust anyone and I’m still not married, although I have regular sex with different partners. Now I’m working on this with a psychologist, I want to afford a long relationship.

Mother is unconditional love and support, Marina Ponomareva is convinced. And children must be sure that they can count on it. Based on the relationship with the mother, we create a relationship model for life. However, many mothers work, they are often not at home. Then another family member can give a sense of security and love. In this case, grandparents are connected to education.

“Their main task is to pamper their grandchildren,” says Marina Ponomareva, “as well as emotionally support parents, share experiences.” The older generation in the family can take care of the grandchildren, spend time with them, thereby unloading the parents. And it also provides a connection with the family and past generations – this is how the child realizes himself as part of something big and eternal, and this gives him inner support and emotional stability.

But mom and dad still remain in the first place for the child, adds family psychotherapist Maria Dyachkova. In a family where the roles are distributed correctly, grandparents do not replace father and mother, they do not confuse the child by calling the grandson “son” or the granddaughter “daughter” or criticizing the parents.

father structures

The role of the father in the family, in contrast to the accepting and supporting maternal one, is structuring. It comes to the fore from about the age of three. One of the important tasks is to give a model of behavior in society, to teach the rules adopted in it. It is the father who explains what is bad and what is good, introduces the outside world through common deeds. Includes son in “male” activities. He is the authority, the personification of law and order. Every mother at least once said: “If you don’t listen, then I’ll tell dad.”

And indeed, the word of the father in moments of “wrong behavior” for the child is more significant than the word of the mother. The father is a guide to the social world and a guarantor of security. “The following picture is circulating in social networks: the mouse-father leads the mouse, which says: “Well, you said that it’s dangerous here.” And behind you can see the tail of the pope, all in mousetraps, – says Marina Ponomareva. “This is a great metaphor for how a father teaches by example the rules of the world and at the same time helps his son or daughter to be self-confident.” On the one hand, it provides security, on the other hand, it provides independence.

Another part of the father’s role is to help mother and child come out of the symbiosis in which they have been since the birth of the latter. The father is the one who supports the mother in whose arms the child is, but he also creates a distance between them in time, which allows the child’s psyche to develop correctly.

Rough and noisy games with the father contribute to more active stimulation and development of motor skills, orientation in space. And emotional involvement and business style of communication develop speech, logic, thinking. “Dad is a festival, an experiment, some kind of event. And mom is the basis, basic security, regime, ”admits Maria Dyachkova.

Don’t change places

“A necessary condition for the development of a child, the norm, when a parent is a parent, and a child is a child,” Maria Dyachkova is convinced. – It’s not scary if the roles of mom or dad are mixed up or not fulfilled in full – the child will get a deficit either at school, having found emotional contact with the teacher, or among familiar adults. It is much more terrible when the child and the parent change places or the parents stand on an equal footing with the children. Or when an adult gives a child rights that he did not subscribe to.

This happens sometimes when a second child is born in a family. And they say to the eldest 7-10 years old: “You are big now.” Yesterday he was small, but today he has already grown! Often he is forced to follow the younger, to deal with him to the detriment of his own desires. They scold if a brother or sister cries. In fact, parents throw their roles on him. And he does not know how to cope with them due to his age. And how does he feel? He gets angry, taking out his discontent on the cause of his misfortunes – on the younger.

“I am ashamed to think about it, but at the age of 10 I bullied my younger sister,” admits 24-year-old Ella. – Mom left it for me, and she went to a nail salon, a fitness room or a cafe with her friends. Dad was always working. I still don’t understand why she couldn’t call her grandmother, because she never refused. When my sister went to school, I took her away, then met her from school, did homework with her, cooked breakfast for her, sewed up her tights. My girlfriends went to the cinema, walked with the boys, and I worked as a nanny all the senior classes, and then the first two years of the institute. Now my sister and I communicate well. But there is still resentment towards my parents that they used me.

Psychologists have a special term – parentified children, Maria Dyachkova explains: “when a minor takes on the function of an adult.” And not only in relation to younger children, but also to parents. For example, this can happen if the parents separate and the son takes over part of the father’s responsibilities. “You are now the main man in the house,” is a dangerous phrase for a growing boy. She symbolically denies him the opportunity to live his own life and play the role of his son. Now he is “married” to his mother. Of course, the boy does not perform all male functions (for example, sexual). But he is imposed responsibility for his mother’s mood, well-being. Often such children begin to work at the level of adults.

Sometimes daughters replace the mother of a departed or deceased husband. Or “adopt” mothers. In the future, such women have little chance of finding their own family, because they are responsible for their mothers, despite the fact that they are sometimes quite energetic and able-bodied. This can also happen when one of the parents is sick and unable to perform the function of an adult. Breaking out of the vicious circle is quite difficult, often only with the help of long-term psychotherapy.

“To break away from my mother, who is always suffering and ill, I even went to another city,” says 43-year-old Valentina, “but I still spend every vacation with my mother. We work at our summer cottage, which I hate. Periodically, I decide once and for all to end this eternal guardianship of her and begin my life. But every time, as soon as my mother sighs heavily on the other end of the wire, I break down and rush to her. Like a rat to the pipe of the Pied Piper. I realized that I couldn’t cope on my own, and turned to a psychologist.

Another shift in roles when mothers become girlfriends to daughters is to discuss relationships with dad or other men. “There is no place for a child of any age in the bedroom of the parents,” Maria Dyachkova is categorical. – Sometimes mothers proudly tell how frank they are with their daughter. Yes, it is important for a teenager to have emotional access to parents. But this friendship is not equal, there is always a parent-child hierarchy in it.

Quite often, an overwhelming emotional burden is thrown on children without even realizing it. “In my practice, there was a case when an 11-year-old boy was awarded the right to decide the fate of the whole family,” continues the family therapist. – He was talented, but he did not know how to communicate with his peers, he could not stand ridicule. And the parents, having at the same time two more children, each time transferred him to another school, changing the school and kindergarten for the other two, respectively, and renting a new apartment. From the point of view of parental functions in relation to this child, they are great, they are “for him”. But the subtext of this story is this: you alone have the right to decide how our family lives. For the child’s psyche, this is a difficult test.

Often a child is put on the throne from the moment of birth. And he is forced to be small all his life – he is simply not allowed to grow up. “Such teenagers often seem infantile, helpless. They don’t know how to take care of themselves, ”the psychotherapist notes.

It is easier for children to grow up if parents give them personal space. It is often more difficult for a mother than for a father to let a child go into adulthood, because she “identifies herself with him,” explains psychologist and coach Tatyana Lyavenko. “But motherhood is a series of “releases.” When giving birth, we release it from ourselves, the cut umbilical cord is an act of separating the child from the mother. Weaning, going to kindergarten, the beginning of school life, the army, college … To let go means to give him the right to his own path.

It can be difficult for mom and dad to accept that their roles will end at some point. And in time to leave the scene of a child’s life, giving way to him, is a great difficulty, but also the great wisdom of loving parents, Maria Dyachkova is convinced. For growing children, this means that they are trusted, that they believe in them and their strength, that they will succeed. Isn’t that what all relatives ultimately want: both parents and grandparents?