Chapter Fourteen: When Children Parent Themselves: Reversing the Roles of Responsibility
There's a kind of child whose eyes carry more weight than they should. A child who knows too much, too soon. Who does not cry easily because they've learned that no one comes. A child who wakes up not to be cared for, but to care. This is the child who parents themselves.
In many homes, sometimes by accident, sometimes through hardship, children are made to swap roles with the adults meant to raise them. They become caregivers, emotional regulators, peacekeepers, protectors, and providers. And while this may seem noble on the surface, underneath it lies a deep fracture in their emotional foundation.
This chapter speaks for them. For the child who tiptoed around their mother's sadness. For the boy who shielded his younger siblings from an angry father. For the girl who learned how to cook, clean, and soothe wounds before she knew how to spell her own name. It is a call to reverse the burden. To give children back their right to be young, soft, and seen.
What Is Parentification?
Psychologists call this phenomenon parentification: A term used to describe a role reversal in which the child is expected to act as a parent to their own parents or siblings.
There are two main types:
Instrumental Parentification: The child takes on physical responsibilities: cooking, cleaning, caring for siblings, earning money, or making adult decisions.
Emotional Parentification: The child provides emotional support to adults: comforting a parent, mediating family conflict, suppressing their own emotions, or becoming a "therapist" to a broken adult.
In African homes, this is often normalized or even praised:
"She's very mature for her age."
"He's the man of the house now."
"She takes care of her younger ones."
"He doesn't disturb anybody."
But beneath these compliments lies exhaustion. Invisible scars. A loss of innocence too early.
My Experience as a Teacher
I once taught a girl named Nnenna. She was only eight years old, yet she had the posture of a grown woman. Every morning, she arrived late, neatly dressed but always looking tired. One day, I asked her privately why she was always behind in her work.
She replied softly, "I have to prepare my younger brothers in the morning. Mummy goes to market early."
Further conversations revealed she also cooked their food, ensured they bathed, and got them to the bus stop. She wasn't lazy or careless. She was just... overwhelmed.
Nnenna's story is not rare. I have taught many children like her, children who are praised for being "responsible," but beneath that label are children deprived of their own childhoods.
They are the students who cannot focus. The ones who fall asleep in class. The ones who never cry, even when hurt. They have grown used to surviving instead of living.
The Silent Cost of Growing Up Too Soon
Children who are made to grow up too quickly may not complain. In fact, they often become outwardly successful, resilient, and dependable. But inside, the cost is steep:
1. Emotional Suppression: They learn that their feelings are secondary or irrelevant. As adults, they struggle to express vulnerability or even identify their own needs.
2. Chronic Anxiety and Perfectionism: Always on edge, these children fear failure, not just for themselves, but for the family. They become perfectionists, afraid to make mistakes, feeling responsible for everyone's well-being.
3. Imbalanced Relationships: They tend to attract emotionally dependent friends or partners, because they're used to being the giver. They struggle to set boundaries or receive love.
4. Burnout and Depression: What begins as childhood strength turns into adult exhaustion. They feel emotionally drained, often without understanding why.
5. Loss of Identity: Having spent years meeting others' needs, they often reach adulthood unsure of who they truly are.
This kind of child becomes an adult who says:
"I don't know how to rest."
"I feel guilty when I'm not helping."
"I don't know what I like, I just do what's needed."
How Parentification Begins
Most of the time, it isn't born from wickedness. Parentification often emerges from:
Single-parent homes where the adult is overwhelmed
Poverty, where children must contribute to survival
Emotional immaturity in the parent, seeking comfort from their child
Family trauma like divorce, death, addiction, or illness
In many Nigerian households, for example, firstborns are automatically assigned adult roles. While responsibility can be a good teacher, too much responsibility too early is not character-building, it's character-breaking.
We must begin to ask: At what cost do we expect our children to "man up" or "be strong"?
The Role of Culture
African culture is deeply communal. Children are often involved in family duties and expected to contribute early. That, in itself, is not harmful. In fact, when done with balance and love, it instills empathy, work ethic, and resilience.
But the line between helping the family and carrying the family is thin, and often crossed.
When a child's worth is tied only to what they do, not who they are, they stop being seen as children. They become tools of convenience, extensions of adult struggle.
Our proverbs sometimes reinforce this:
"Nwata bulie nna ya elu, ya nọdụ elu" , "When a child lifts his father up, he is lifted also."
"Ihe oma nwata meere, bu ego nna ya" , "A good deed by a child is his father's pride."
These sayings can be motivational, but if not balanced with emotional nurture, they turn children into unpaid laborers of emotional and physical expectations.
Breaking the Cycle: What Can Parents and Adults Do?
Reversing this pattern takes intention. Whether you're a parent, caregiver, teacher, or elder sibling, here's how you can help children reclaim their right to be children:
1. Acknowledge the Harm: Be honest about the ways your child or student has been made to grow up too fast. Admit when you've leaned on them unfairly. Apology is healing.
2. Reassign Roles: Let children help, but don't let them carry adult burdens. Responsibilities like household chores should teach life skills, not rob joy.
3. Restore Emotional BalanceDon't use your child as a therapist or emotional crutch. Instead, find healthy adult support systems for yourself, friends, counselors, faith communities.
4. Encourage Play and CreativityCreate room for play, laughter, art, imagination. A child who never plays becomes an adult who struggles to feel joy.
5. Teach That Their Worth Is Not in Service: Let them know: You are loved even when you are doing nothing. You are enough. This breaks the reward-based approval cycle.
6. Create Safe Spaces for ExpressionLet them speak about their fears, their exhaustion, their emotions. If they say, "I'm tired," don't respond with, "You're just a child." Ask why. Explore the emotion with them.
When the Adult Was Once the Parentified Child
If you were a child who had to parent yourself or others, this chapter might be triggering. You may see your own story reflected in these pages. Perhaps you're now an adult who:
Can't say "no"
Feels selfish when resting
Struggles to receive
Is always "strong" even when breaking inside
You deserve healing too.
Your survival was not your fault. But your healing is your right.
To break the cycle, we must care for our inner child. The child who was never nurtured. Who was told to "understand" instead of being understood. Who had no room to cry, to dream, to fail.
You can learn to reparent yourself by:
Allowing rest without guilt
Saying "no" without apology
Seeking joy without earning it
Crying without shame
Receiving love without performance
You can learn to be soft again.
The Difference Between Maturity and Burden
Maturity in children is beautiful when it grows naturally. But when it's forced, it becomes a mask, a mask hiding fear, fatigue, and the longing to be cared for.
A mature child should not be a burdened child.
Let children grow at their pace. Let them feel safe, even as they learn responsibility. Let them learn kindness without self-abandonment.
Balance is key.
A Letter to the Child Who Had to Be Strong
Dear one,
You shouldn't have had to be the one to wipe tears when yours were never seen.
You shouldn't have had to wake early, feed others, hide your pain, or carry what your tiny arms could not bear.
You deserved softness, not strength.
You deserved to be held, not to hold.
But you survived. And that is not small.
Now, it's your turn to be nurtured.
Your turn to rest. To feel. To be.
Rebuilding the Bond
One of the themes of this book has been about rebuilding the parent-child bond. In the case of parentification, that bond has often been reversed. The child has held the adult together, instead of the other way around.
But it is never too late to restore balance.
If you're a parent reading this, and you recognize that your child has been filling a role you should hold, it's not too late to change. It begins with humility. Sitting down and saying, "I'm sorry. I see how much I placed on you. And I want to do better."
If you're a teacher or mentor, you can be the first adult to say:
"You don't have to carry this anymore. You are allowed to be a child with needs."
The End Goal: Raising Whole Children
Whole children are not perfect children. They are children who are allowed to be human. To stumble. To laugh. To cry. To be children, not mini adults.
Raising whole means:
Returning childhood to children who lost it
Creating homes where love doesn't depend on labor
Teaching children that being is more important than doing
As African families, we have a rich legacy of resilience. But let's not confuse resilience with repression. Let us build a new legacy: one where children grow with responsibility, but not with roles that rob them of their youth.
Conclusion: A Childhood Restored
Every time we allow a child to play, to cry, to ask questions, to need us, we restore what was lost in another. We say: "It's not your job to carry the world. Let us carry you."
To the child who parented themselves:
Your healing begins when someone finally parents you.
And to the adult reading this:
Let it start with you.