Some people who have to be responsible for their siblings or parents as 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren grow up to be compulsive caretakers.

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Laura Kiesel was only 6 years old when she became a parent to her infant brother. At home, his crib was placed directly next to her bed, so that when he cried at night, she was the one to pick him up and sing him back to sleep. She says she was also in charge of changing his diapers and making sure he was fed every day. For the majority of her early 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥hood, she remembers, she tended to his needs while her own mother was in the depths of heroin addiction.

From as early as she can remember, Kiesel says she had to take care of herself—preparing her own meals, clothing herself, and keeping herself entertained. At school, she remembers becoming a morose and withdrawn 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 whose hair was often dirty and unkempt.

It was a dark time made even bleaker by her mother’s violent outbursts. “During dope sickness, she would unleash a lot of fury onto me,” Kiesel, a 38-year-old freelance writer, told me. “I became the buffer or scapegoat of her rage to divert it [from] my younger (much more defenseless) brother.” (Kiesel’s mother is no longer living.)

At one point, she said she learned to take her small brother and kitten into their bathroom and barricade the door to keep them safe. “I felt a lot of weight on my shoulders, like my brother could die without me there,” Kiesel remembered.

She started breaking out in severe hives for months at a time, which she believes were triggered by the “burden of loneliness and responsibilities at that age.” Becoming responsible for an infant at such a young age came with a toll, she explained. “I sometimes picked on my brother or was quick to shove or slap his arm because I was overwhelmed and didn’t know how to handle the shrieks of a 2-year-old when I was 8.”

“It’s been a challenge for me to separate out feeling like I’m a parent to them.”

Eventually, at age 9, Kiesel and her 3-year-old brother were taken in by their grandparents, but the trauma of their former living situation stayed with the 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren. By the time Kiesel was 14, she said she suffered from daily panic attacks, OCD, and depression. It wasn’t until she was older, she said, that she began to understand the connection between her 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥hood experiences and numerous chronic illnesses.

Kiesel’s story is one of what psychologists refer to as destructive parentification—a form of emotional abuse or neglect where a 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 becomes the caregiver to their parent or sibling. Researchers are increasingly finding that in addition to upending a 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥’s development, this role reversal can leave deep emotional scars well into adulthood. Many, like Kiesel, experience severe anxiety, depression, and psychological distress. Others report succumbing to eating disorders and substance abuse.

relationship with him over the years, fraught with bouts of estrangement and codependency. Though they remain close,  there were periods where she and her brother didn’t speak for months at a time. “My brother is constantly on the edge of some crisis (a health crisis from his drinking, homelessness, etc.) so it is a worry that never goes completely away,” she told me in an email.

“Chronic, unpredictable stress is toxic when there’s no reliable adult.”

Her brother, Matthew Martin, 32, acknowledges the role their upbringing has played in these dynamics. “She was the only protector that I had,” he recalls. “My mother was a hard-core addict from very early on.” Throughout his 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥hood and early teens, he says he relied on Kiesel for the emotional support his mother couldn’t provide.

“We’ve had our fair share of arguments about [my addictions] and it’s hard, because she wants me to have some longevity. She wants me to be around for her the way that she was for me.”

* * *

From the age of 8 until she left home at 15, Rene, who asked to be identified by only her first name because she was concerned about upsetting her family, says she would pick up her three younger siblings from day care, bring them home, feed and bathe them, read them stories, and put them to bed. “Basically, I played the role of mother,” says the 50-year-old Oregon resident. She remembers standing on a chair as a 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 and cooking dinner for her entire family. In spite of the enormous burden of responsibility, she recalls it as a role she cherished. “I have really fond memories, particularly of reading them stories in bed at night.”

But Rene’s home life was far from peaceful. She says her mother’s alcoholism prevented her from properly caring for her five 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren, placing the task of 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥-rearing on the shoulders of Rene and her older brother. (Rene’s mother is no longer living.) But just as Rene took care of her younger siblings, she and her older brother relied on each other for emotional support.

“I think that it’s important to recognize that a lot of parentification is codependent,” she says. “Perhaps one sibling is the one who does the dishes and cleans the house, and takes care of the mom who is sick or drunk.” She explains that the other sibling might be the one who provides more emotional support, either by listening to problems or comforting.

Just as Wendy assumed the role of “mother” for the Lost Boys in Peter Pan, parentified siblings often forge symbiotic relationships, where they meet each others’ needs for guardians in a lot of different ways.

“If you’re parentified and you leave your younger siblings, it’s like having a parent abandon them.”

“We know that siblings can buffer each other from the impacts of stressful relationships with parents,” Amy K. Nuttall, an assistant professor in human development and family studies at Michigan State University, told me. This may account for why some parentified siblings who come from abusive homes end up maintaining close, albeit complex, bonds into adulthood, with some “continuing to attempt to fill parental needs at the expense of their own.”

Still, Nuttall adds, others may distance themselves from their families altogether in order to escape the role.

Rene found herself homeless after she was kicked out of her mother’s house when she was 15 years old. She says her siblings still blame her for leaving them behind. “When you think about it, if you’re parentified and you leave your younger siblings, it’s like having a parent abandon them,” Rene says. For years after, she was plagued by feelings of guilt—a common experience among people who have been parentified.

Sibling relationships usually generate a lifelong bond, yet for Rene, freedom from caretaking responsibilities came at a cost: the loss of her family. “I don’t have a relationship with my siblings anymore,” she says

Soucre: theatlantic.com