Parentified

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airamerica

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How does your larger than average family deal with the fine line between teaching your individual child responsibilities/ family bond and making sure you're not overburdened them with parental responsibility? How do you make sure you have a healthy balance between budgeting money for extracurricular activities and not leaving your child feeling like they never got anything their friends did because they had a big family? I often worry about parentification and because I was the de facto parent to my family growing up know that I might not always understand where the healthy line is. The second half however I got to admit I haven't put a lot of thought into until I read a comment from somebody on Reddit about how they never had money for sports teams and how torturous their life was because of a big family with lots of siblings. I try to do special things for my kids but I realize as the family grows and as they get older they won't be able to do a million things and I've always thought the mindset of I didn't get X Y or Z extra because I have a bunch of siblings was a bit ungrateful and teenage vision. However this person's comment made it seem like they were truly traumatized
 
@airamerica It’s good for kids to have responsibilities. It’s not good for kids to have responsibilities of being a parent. It’s fine to ask your teen to hold the baby while you cook supper (or help cook supper while you hold the baby) it’s not fine to ask your teen to watch the baby for 6 hours so you can go to the bar. It’s good for your tweens to carry down, wash, dry and fold some laundry, it would be bad if you expected them to do all the laundry for the entire household.

As for extracurriculars, we just have a ymca membership and do the programs at the y as extracurriculars. For every kid that’s upset they didn’t play hockey as a kid there are three more who are upset their parents pushed them too hard in sports when they didn’t want to do it and had to eat in the car every night rushing to and from 4 different after school programs with no downtime.

I don’t think you have to feel like a bad parent if you can’t afford horse riding lessons and hockey for all your kids. We do a lot of family activities but there are also lower cost ones like picnic, beach, swimming pool, family hikes, tobogganing, building snowmen, skating, camping, crafts, board games, house parties, movie nights, etc etc. tons of ways to build memories!
 
@airamerica I think the line is whether they have ultimate responsibility or are helping out. I expect my kids to grow into functional adult members of society, and that means can hold a baby, cook basic food, help another person with care tasks in a dignified way, and clean and do laundry. Do they do those things every day? No. Do they do them to the exclusion of recreational time or activities? No. But they have all learned age appropriate versions of these skills.
 
@airamerica I think you've got to look at the big picture of your kids' lives. Do they have time and space that is their own, both by themselves and with you? Do they get to do some things that they want to do reasonably often, like sports?

The question I keep coming back to is: how much TOTAL time do I think my kids should spend doing chores to help our family? And then I count sibling-related stuff that *I* expect them to do as opposed to *they* choose to do as part of that. For example, I sometimes ask my 5yo to occupy my 1yo. They get on, sometimes I just need her to stop screaming so I can cook dinner. But in my mind, that's a CHORE he's doing for me, taking away time that he could be doing something he wants to do. So I'll then not ask him to lay the table as well, in order to balance it out a bit.

Also, the buck stops with me. Kids out in the garden and the 1yo pulls up a prized plant? The big kids' job is to scream for me to come and help, not to fix it themselves. In relationships between my 5yo and 3yo, for example, who are more like peers, I do expect them to have a go at negotiating and actually talk to each other before they talk to me. But if one child is "watching" or "in charge of" the other? Their only job is to identify a problem and then summon me to fix it. I am still ultimately in charge of all of them.

I hope my examples help you tease out some of the differences between reasonable expectation and exploitation. I expect my kids to help keep our household running. I simply can't do it all myself. But "Hey, please would you empty the dishwasher" is not the same as, "Hey, get over here and clean this entire kitchen by yourself and then cook dinner and by the way you'll have to write the meal plan and go shopping too and oh by the way there's no money left for groceries so you'll have to earn some first." ...right? In a similar way, leaving a teenager in charge of their siblings alone for multiple days is a bit different from asking the 5yo to spend thirty seconds removing the 1yo's shoes as well as his own before releasing him to go and play trains for two hours.
 
@airamerica If I may chime in as an only child who would've loved to have had a sibling, and a woman who wanted to be a mom but didn't get the opportunity - be aware that society has become over the top materialistic anymore. Things that would've been considered luxuries when I was growing up are now considered the bare minimum. Unless you're independently wealthy, you're not going to be able to give them all that, and it's probably just as well. Don't let those sorts of opinions frighten or guilt trip you.
 
@airamerica We don’t ask the kids to do parent related things. No food prepping/cooking, no changing diapers, no bathing, not a part of bedtime routine unless they want (the bigger kids will snuggle up with toddler and listen to stories before bed pretty often).

It’s ok to ask one to grab a snack for the smaller ones if they are already doing it. Like an apple or some pretzels or a cheese stick. But I’m taking care of all meals and 98% of snacks lol.

It’s perfectly acceptable to ask older siblings to keep an eye on toddler while I take a shower. She’s old enough that she’ll just hang out with me playing if I’m cooking or cleaning.

If you are asking a child to do something so you don’t have to do it, I think that’s the line not to cross. Small tasks are part of being a functional family, and I don’t see that as parentification. I’d never ask a kid to miss out on their own fun to watch their siblings. But helping with chores is part of family life.

My oldest is out of the house so he never babysits. He never did before he moved either. It didn’t really occur to me to even ask him. They just came with me everywhere if their daddy wasn’t home. Just like he did when he was little lol.

When the others are old enough to stay home alone, or babysit the toddler, they will be asked and paid.

I honestly think being conscious about it, makes a huge difference. The people that I knew growing up who was treated like maids and nannies, well their parents didn’t give a fuck. My best friend from middle school is an immigrant. When we were in high school, they started leaving the country for weeks at a time. She was in charge of 4 younger siblings. When she got her drivers license at 15, they would leave for months at a time. She had a family friend who would help her go grocery shopping once a week. And she was responsible for absolutely everything. To no one’s surprise, she is child free.

Her parents had no idea they were doing anything wrong. That was how it was done. They loved their kids but they didn’t take care of them in the physical sense. They paid nannies until she was old enough to do it for them.

I know that was kinda an extreme anecdote but I’m sure you know of several stories like that one. Being aware is the biggest prevention, I think.
 
@peninnah My 11 and 13 year olds love to cook, and I’m expecting my three oldest (11, 13, 15) to cook a meal for our family every other week starting when I go back to work. I think cooking is an important life skill! I do agree that mine aren’t expected to change, feed or bathe the baby. They can read and play with her or sometimes watch her while I shower but her basic needs are for me and her dad.

I also pay my kids if I ask them to babysit. They all fight for the job! I don’t expect free babysitting from the big kids (outside of “watch baby for 5 while I rescue supper! Etc)

I think it’s ok for kids to pitch in, like after supper I usually cook so one kid clears the table, one helps with dishes, one sweeps, etc. we all work together as a family. This isn’t parentification it’s learning life skills and also learning that we share the work in the household. I don’t want them to think that one person in the family (mom) is responsible for everything, I think that sets a bad precedent.

Fwiw my kids aren’t bothered at all to help out, I ask and they help willingly. I think it’s silly to suggest kids only responsibility should be to tidy their own toys and not contribute to the household, that teaches selfishness. Obviously the older kids shouldn’t be cooking all the meals and doing all the household labour with no help, but it’s fine to ask everyone to pitch in as part of a team! And studies have shown it’s good for kids too!
 
@peninnah I think I'm okay on the extreme end I worry about the little things hopefully that's enough to keep it age appropriate. I cook almost every meal myself but I let the kids help with mixing and teach them recipes and things the oldest is really into cooking. She gets into a mood and decides to make breakfast but she never wants my help if it's something she can do herself.
 
@airamerica That’s totally fine! One of my middles decided go fix eggs for breakfast for everyone one day last week. She wanted to. I sat and read a book while she pretty much did it all. She was super excited about it.

But she wanted to. If she didn’t want to, I was fixing breakfast, you know? I didn’t ask her. There was no force.

Letting kids do age appropriate things is definitely how they learn. Parentification is when they start doing your job as a parent because you don’t want to or even because you cannot.

Letting a kid who wants to cook, learn and explore is pretty great, I think. I didn’t know how to cook when I started having kids and it really was a struggle lol. But that’s something you learn by doing so letting them help and learn how to read recipes, are good life skills.

I think you’ll be ok. Really. Being conscious makes a huge difference. To be honest, we are all winging it. And that’s ok too. Someone once told me that bad parents never stop to consider if they are bad, but good parents are always wondering. Caring if you are doing the right thing is a big part of the battle. It means you are listening and reading and open to learning new things. Sounds like you are doing just fine
 
@peninnah I appreciate that. my kids are so awesome that being the mother they deserve is definitely Out Of Reach, but I'm going to keep trying. When you grew up in a dysfunctional parenting family and you know they have good Hearts so they did the best they could it certainly makes you question balancing making it work and doing it well.
 
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