I’m 10 years old sitting alone at my desk. I finished my language arts homework, now wrinkled from excessive erasing and wet from my tears. I’m terrified I completed the assignment incorrectly and that the teacher won’t accept it in its current state. What would have taken another child 20 minutes took me hours to complete because my parents couldn’t help me. My only source of support is the old, monstrous dictionary I used to look up every word.
But there’s no time to ruminate. I wipe my tears and get ready to join Mami on an errand run. In the car, my mom vents about personal matters, an all-too-common occurrence. Tonight it’s her marital issues and financial struggles. My mind starts racing with possible solutions to her troubles: “I can sell my toys to make money,” “If we lose the house, we can stay with Abuelita,” “If they get a divorce, I’ll flip a coin on who I stay with so I don’t hurt anyone's feelings.” This spiraling is the norm for me, but something is different this time. With every stoplight, the panic in my chest grows heavier and heavier. I want to crawl out of my skin. Instead, I scream aloud, “Don’t share that stuff with me anymore!”
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"Parentification is 'the experience of a child being given responsibilities that are beyond their developmental level.'"
Dr Lisette Sanchez
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Surprisingly, my mom doesn’t immediately stop the car to reprimand me for my outburst. This was completely out of line with my “niña juiciosa” character, which probably led to my mother’s uncomfortable silence. When she finally speaks, she expresses her disappointment in me, confused as to why I couldn’t be a friend she could vent to and confide in.
This experience, along with countless others that followed, greatly shaped who I am today (both positively and negatively) and ultimately brought me on a lifelong journey of making peace with being parentified as a child.
Dr Lisette Sanchez, a Southern California-based licensed psychologist who works primarily with first-generation immigrants, tells Refinery29 Somos that parentification is “the experience of a child being given responsibilities that are beyond their developmental level.”
Being a child of immigrant parents feels like being part of a club I never signed up for. I feel an unspoken kinship to other children of immigrants due to our shared experiences of aiding our parents as they navigate the culture and customs of a new country. Dr Sanchez calls this “adaptive parentification,” and it’s the most common type of parentification first-gen individuals experience. “It’s a result of our parents adapting to their immediate environment,” she says.
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"Being a child of immigrant parents feels like being part of a club I never signed up for. I feel an unspoken kinship to other children of immigrants due to our shared experiences of aiding our parents as they navigate the culture and customs of a new country."
kat lazo
”
Even though I was just a child and they were adults, I understood at a young age that my English proficiency and understanding of the cultural customs in the U.S. were advantages they didn’t have. I mostly provided task-oriented support for my parents.
When mail came through the door, it was my duty to translate it to my father. During medical appointments when the doctor was speaking too fast or using vocabulary my parents couldn’t comprehend, I would jump to translate. Even though my mom couldn’t help me with my homework due to a language barrier, I helped her study for her citizenship test. All of these are examples of instrumental parentification or, as Dr Sanchez explains, “I am responsible for something rooted in skill development.”
When mail came through the door, it was my duty to translate it to my father. During medical appointments when the doctor was speaking too fast or using vocabulary my parents couldn’t comprehend, I would jump to translate. Even though my mom couldn’t help me with my homework due to a language barrier, I helped her study for her citizenship test. All of these are examples of instrumental parentification or, as Dr Sanchez explains, “I am responsible for something rooted in skill development.”
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But there’s another form of backing we provide for our parents that's often intertwined with instrumental parentification: emotional support. “Emotional parentification is when we feel a strong sense of responsibility to care for the emotions of the people around us,” Dr Sanchez adds. “And so we adjust our behavior accordingly. And instrumental and emotional can sometimes come together.”
Think of a child conveying their parent’s terminal illness diagnosis to them or translating the news that their landlord is evicting their family. Although tasks like translating documents and conversations can seem mundane or frivolous, they can carry an emotional weight, especially if a child feels they are to blame for the outcomes.
I felt a lot was riding on my completing certain tasks successfully. If I misinterpreted reading a bill, it could result in my parents paying a financial penalty we couldn’t afford. Not properly preparing my mom for her citizenship test could result in her not staying in the country. The stakes felt high.
And then there are the more blatant examples of emotional parentification: a child serving as a mediator for parents during arguments, a parent turning to a child for solutions concerning adult matters, or a parent relying on a child for emotional support. All situations I know intimately.
And then there are the more blatant examples of emotional parentification: a child serving as a mediator for parents during arguments, a parent turning to a child for solutions concerning adult matters, or a parent relying on a child for emotional support. All situations I know intimately.
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"I felt a lot was riding on my completing certain tasks successfully. If I misinterpreted reading a bill, it could result in my parents paying a financial penalty we couldn’t afford. Not properly preparing my mom for her citizenship test could result in her not staying in the country. The stakes felt high."
kat lazo
”
My mom was not only adapting to a new country, its customs, and a new language, but she was also adapting to motherhood. She turned to me — a child — as her support system, or as she called it, “su mejor amiga.” She shared with me her daily anxieties, the frustrations she had with my father and her in-laws, her financial worries — all normal things you vent to your homegirl about.
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Since this was my norm, I didn’t fully understand the depths of my family's dysfunction and the harm it caused me until I moved out and saw my first therapist. At that point, I was 23 and experiencing chronic patterns of shortness of breath, difficulty sleeping, nausea, and spiraling negative thoughts. “It sounds like you’re holding a lot of resentment toward your parents,” my then-therapist said.
Her remark offended me. Resentment? I love my parents. Why would I resent them? “Do you feel robbed of a childhood experience,” she asked. I didn’t respond. “It sounds like you were parentified as a child.”
The therapist went on to ask me a myriad of questions: “Did teachers call you mature for your age?” “Do younger siblings feel you act like a second mother?” “Were you celebrated for being independent?” “Do you feel guilty for leaving your parents?” “Do you feel responsible for your parents’ emotional wellbeing?” “Is it difficult for you to let go of control?” I answered “yes” to all of them. It suddenly became difficult for me to deny that she was right.
Acknowledgment was my first step to recovering from parentification. Part of accepting that I was, in fact, parentified was recognizing the negative and positive effects it had in my adulthood. Being hyper-independent has made it difficult for me to readily accept help. But hyper-independence has also translated into being self-motivated and achieving career goals. I over-empathize with people to the point that I neglect my own feelings. But my empathy has also allowed me to be an active listener, be fully present with people, and cultivate curiosity rather than judgment. For every negative, there has been a positive way parentification has manifested in my adulthood. Both can be true at the same time.
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"I over-empathize with people to the point that I neglect my own feelings. But my empathy has also allowed me to be an active listener, be fully present with people, and cultivate curiosity rather than judgment. For every negative, there has been a positive way parentification has manifested in my adulthood. Both can be true at the same time."
kat lazo
”
The second step was to begin prioritizing my feelings. With that first therapist, I admitted feeling angry. In my adolescence, I directed much of my anger toward kids who didn’t have the same experiences as me — carefree kids who didn’t carry the stress or anxieties of their parents. I quickly realized I was directing my anger at the wrong people. Because the truth was I was angry with my parents.
Even in privacy with my therapist, this felt unimaginable to utter aloud. As children of immigrants, we learn to never criticize our parents or speak ill of them in any shape or form. To practice prioritizing my feelings, I needed to be honest about them — regardless of what others thought. Because parentification is essentially a parent-child role reversal, I didn’t receive the instrumental emotional support I needed. So I allowed myself the space and time to feel rage for the unfairness of it all and sadness for all that I didn’t get to experience. Eventually, I reached a different stage of my relationship with anger; I wanted to let it go. It was occupying too much space within me, and that feeling no longer served me.
People who parentify their kids don't intentionally set out to hurt their children. “It’s a result of generational expectations of how they were raised,” Dr Sanchez says. “They're going to reenact a lot onto their children, especially if they haven't done any work on it themselves. They're just going to what they know.”
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To let go of that anger, I had to forgive my parents. And to forgive, I needed to dive deeply into my empathy for them as whole humans and not just as my parents. This led to a shift in perspective. Instead of being resentful of my parents for failing me, I became resentful of this country for failing my immigrant parents.
“Access to resources impacts how much someone parentifies their children or not,” Dr Sanchez says. “The more access to resources you have, the more likely you have resources to support your child versus having to lean on them for things.”
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"To let go of that anger, I had to forgive my parents. And to forgive, I needed to dive deeply into my empathy for them as whole humans and not just as my parents."
kat lazo
”
The white supremacy and colonial thinking of this country is what led me, as a child, to think I was making up for the deficits of my parents, when, in fact, I was making up for this country’s negligence and lack of care. Perhaps I wouldn’t have been my mother’s emotional support system if she had access to a therapist or postpartum care. The burden of translating medical documents or doctors wouldn’t have fallen on me if medical offices provided documents in multiple languages or multilingual staff were common. I wouldn’t have had to feel emotionally burdened by navigating a whole school system on my own if schools were properly funded to care for the needs of their students. This realization truly freed me.
My second therapist taught me about boundaries, another practice the Latine community tends to frown upon. To set these boundaries, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was holding on to the false belief that I could save and heal my parents.
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“How did your parents survive before you were born,” that therapist asked me. The question was rhetorical. She was right; both my parents maneuvered life just fine before I ever came into the picture. I had to work on letting go of the fear that my parents would face harm or another negative consequence if I set boundaries for my own mental and emotional health.
Boundaries for me looked like not dropping everything I was doing to pick up my parents’ phone calls; it’s saying “no” to my parents’ requests to complete a task ASAP. It’s also walking away when I feel triggered.
Boundaries for me looked like not dropping everything I was doing to pick up my parents’ phone calls; it’s saying “no” to my parents’ requests to complete a task ASAP. It’s also walking away when I feel triggered.
I’m 33 now. Although both my parents and I have grown tremendously, we can fall back into old habits. I recently visited home while experiencing heartbreak after a breakup with my partner. Before I could sit on the couch, my mother greeted me by emotionally dumping on me about all of the anxieties she was experiencing. I immediately felt like I was 10 years old in the car with her again. The difference is that, as an adult, I have the tools to uphold my boundaries. As upsetting as it was to her, I explained to my mom that I didn’t have the capacity at that moment to hold space for her, especially given the emotional turmoil I was living through. Seeing the disappointment in her eyes never gets easy, but if I truly love myself, I can no longer betray myself for the sake of others. It's part of having self-compassion for myself.
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"Seeing the disappointment in her eyes never gets easy, but if I truly love myself, I can no longer betray myself for the sake of others. It's part of having self-compassion for myself."
kat lazo
”
For me, practicing self-compassion looks like forgiving myself for not being the “best” daughter, giving myself permission to rest instead of tending to others, allowing myself to tap into my inner child through hobbies like water painting or drawing, accepting care from others, or pampering myself just because and not as a reward.
Whether it’s panicking over meeting a work deadline or being nervous about rejecting someone emotionally venting to me, I still struggle with the effects of parentification. Being parentified isn’t something you’re “cured” from. Whether I like it or not, it is a part of who I am —- for better and for worse. And making peace is a daily practice of pouring extra love into the parts of me that parentification has hindered and celebrating the ways it has shaped me, motivated me, and allowed me to thrive. It’s saying, “I’m sorry you had to do this by yourself” to my 10-year-old self crying over her homework. It’s comforting that little girl in the car and letting her know, “you didn’t deserve to be burdened with your mother’s anxieties.”