Traditionally, we are accustomed to believing that in a parent-child pair, the first naturally takes care of the second. However, in some cases, parents take a deliberately weak position, forcing children to grow up prematurely. What such confusion leads to, psychologist Marina Myaus reflects.
Caring for financial well-being, responsibility for children and for one’s own life – all this falls on the shoulders of an adult. And sometimes it is easier to shift the part onto the shoulders of a son or daughter. As a rule, the mother introduces such ambiguity of roles in the life of the child. How can her deliberate helplessness be expressed?
What adult roles do children play
Mom’s best friend/girlfriend
A mother pours out her heart to her son or daughter: she tells how things are in her personal life and at work, she advises. The child feels obliged to support his mother, because his own safety completely depends on her well-being.
“This does not mean that you cannot be frank with children,” says psychologist Marina Myaus. – If a mother does not hold back her tears, but replies to a worried child that she does not cry, this is unhealthy. Trying to completely repress your feelings is also traumatic for children, so the middle ground is important.”
babysitter for younger
There is nothing reprehensible in the fact that older children help their parents with younger ones, but when they are made responsible for the kids around the clock, this becomes an unbearable burden.
“The younger brother appeared when I was five years old,” says Olga. – As far as I can remember, my mother inspired me that I was an adult, I should take care of him and yield in everything. I took him to kindergarten, fed and played while my mother was not at home. She did not let me go with her friends, because there was no one to leave her brother with. I grew up feeling like I had never been a child.”
“Shifting responsibility for your baby to an older child is also a form of violence,” the psychologist is sure. – The elder is deprived of his own childhood, subconsciously made guilty for everything that can happen to the baby, as if sharing the responsibility of parenthood. This is an unbearable burden for someone who is still a child himself, who needs not only the experience of responsibility that is important for children, but also the confidence that it is the adults in the family who are responsible for all their children.
little getter
“As a child, we had our own house, and my mother grew vegetables and fruits for sale,” Victor recalls. My duty was to sell apples. I was only thirteen and I wanted to do other things in my free time. But my mother said that we should earn a living.
“Forcing a child to earn money, that is, forcibly entering adulthood, is also a signal of an abusive relationship,” says Marina Myaus. “The responsibility for the material well-being of the family rests entirely with the parents, and involving children in solving financial needs deprives them of the feeling of stability and protection, without which healthy growing up is impossible.”
Mom’s lifeguard
“There were scandals between the parents,” Olga recalls. – My father was cruel to my mother, raised his hand to her. My brother and I tried our best to protect her. Many times they suggested that she leave her father, they said that we would support her, but she always forgave him.
“The role of a protector, ensuring the mother’s physical and psychological safety, is impossible for a child,” recalls the psychologist. “Sometimes such sacrifice is expected from children and women who are left without a husband. “Stay with your mother”, “talk to me” – the child in this case is forced to provide her with constant moral support, to save her mother.
What happens to grown children?
Generally, there are two extremes.
Eternal Rescuers
These are responsible, accustomed to keep everything under control of neurotics. They are ready to solve the problems of the parent until the end of his days. However, often they develop a rescuer complex in relation to the entire environment, which is used by those who like to shift their problems onto other people’s shoulders. The need to constantly answer for someone develops the qualities of codependency and extreme anxiety. In the end, this leads a person to moral burnout.
Eternal children
In contrast to the rescuers, these children, growing up, demonstrate complete infantility. Grown up boys hide from life with its unbearable, as it seems to them, responsibilities in a variety of addictions: gambling, alcoholism, drug addiction. Girls support the image of unadapted to life, weak creatures.
“At the same time, a woman can perform quite adult actions and build a brilliant career, but in personal relationships a defensive reaction is triggered, and she suddenly turns on a “stupid little child” so that no one loads her with impossible tasks, like in childhood, ”Marina Myaus notes . Hiding in a relationship for a partner, often an order of magnitude older than yourself, is also one of the possible scenarios.
“A person is so tired of feeling like an adult that he surrenders to a symbolic parent in order to finally feel like a child,” the expert explains. “When a woman gets married, she immediately gives birth, leaves work and tries to find refuge from life in marriage.”
Parents who demand constant involvement in their adult lives traumatize their children. “The child’s psyche is not able to withstand the psychological bar that falls on it, and, growing up, the child often turns into an anxious neurotic,” says Marina Myaus. “It is important for parents trying to alleviate their burden at the expense of a child that this is a time bomb that will catch up with children in adulthood.”
If you yourself have experienced the experience of such parent-child relationships and, having matured, are experiencing difficulties, you should contact a specialist who will help you understand what happened, process it and move on.