5 cases in which the child becomes a father or mother

In family therapy it is known with the parenting term when the son, usually the older brother, substitutes the father or mother for various reasons assuming this role, responsibility and function. It is one thing to ask for more collaboration at home and another, to deprive him of his needs and demands as a young man who is overcoming adolescence, to become the father or mother of his brothers, or confidant of a member of the couple.

Children should always be seen as children, not as equals, or as friends or colleagues. We parents have to instill a feeling of gratitude towards us, while we show them love, trust and support for their demands and needs. But sometimes we can turn him into a father or mother when this function does not correspond to him, with the risk of producing an imbalance in the integral development of his personality.

It is true that we are talking about young boys who are leaving adolescence. They have more maturity to assume greater responsibilities at home, but we must never forget that they are children.

1. Older parents, tired or overworked, who blame their eldest son as the father of the little ones.

2. Death of one of the spouses. If the father dies, the older man assumes this responsibility. If the mother dies, the eldest daughter acquires this role.

3. Parents with a bad relationship, separated or divorced. The child becomes the confidant of the other spouse in emotional support, and treats him as an equal rather than seeing him as a child.

4. Illness of one of the spouses. The oldest child assumes the tasks of care, protection, teaching, setting limits, etc. with the rest of the brothers because the other spouse is in the care of his partner.

5. Disabled child. The healthy son is given a responsibility as a father in the surveillance of his sick brother, beyond his abilities.

Older or overworked parents

Parents who have had a last child past 40 years or whose working days are very long, should not forget a premise: children always need to see parents as such. The older brother will always be his brother, he will not be seen as a father by the little one, even if he assumes this role. In addition, this mission of the major can cause conflicts between brothers and problematic relationships. One thing is to ask the eldest son for support to play with his younger siblings, help them in different tasks when the parents do not arrive, very positive collaboration for the maturity of the young and necessary in any family, and quite another is to grant that function as something systematic.

There are studies that show that when parents do not assume that leadership role with respect to their children, different psychopathologies may appear in them, specifically behavioral disorders and substance abuse.

Death of one of the spouses

Never say to our son / daughter after the death of the father or mother: "Now you are the father, now you are the mother". The son will always be a son, and the father will always be the father, even if he is not present on earth. To maintain the presence of the deceased spouse, it is convenient to remember how he would act in this or that situation.

What are the problems that may arise? As in the previous case, tense relationship between siblings, in addition to deep stress and anxiety in the older child: "I will do as a mother, I will be at the height of dad?", He will think. The eldest son can exercise an inadequate command over his younger siblings, adopting a despotic attitude, creating conflicts of fraternal relationship. In turn, the youngest children will express ambivalent feelings, on the one hand gratitude and loyalty because the older has assumed more responsibility but on the other, because his brother is no longer his equal, is no longer up to the same obligations and rights.

On the other hand, the older son can generate a state of anxiety when he sees his mother or father sad, despondent, wanting to take on more responsibilities than he deserves. Its mission in these cases is to collaborate and support as an eldest son, with its qualities and defects, and not with the virtues and defects that the deceased spouse had.

Parents with a bad relationship or separated

When the relationship between the couple is bad, conflictive or they are separated, both suffer a comprehensible affective emptiness. They have to fill that emotional gap, replace it. But the love between parents and children is different from the one a couple has to profess. The father is above. The love that a son receives from his parents is of leadership and authority, never of equal to equal.

For this reason, the affected spouse has to fill that emotional gap with another adult: a brother or sister, a friend, their parents if they live, etc., but never convert their children into their confidant, their equal.

On the other hand, the couple can never forget, for the sake of their children, that they always have to give them back the best possible image of the other parent figure, because a child needs to grow up with the awareness that he has a good father and a good mother. In addition, making criticism of the other spouse, will cause harm to the child that eventually will turn against the one who makes them. It is very negative for the integral development of the children to make a father and son coalition against the other spouse.

Another conflictive situation is that of peripheral father. It is a man who has little presence in the daily and affective life of the family. This fact pushes the mother to occupy all the spaces and arrives to look for "substitute parents", and one of them will be the oldest male child that substitutes the typical functions of the paternal role, such as those related to order and norms.

The sick couple

The disease has the possibility of affecting substantial aspects of the couple introducing important imbalances. In these situations, the older child can replace the parents due to the absence of these, since the healthy spouse is taking care of the sick person.

In these cases, open communication is essential. There is a certain tendency among couples where there is an important health problem, to maintain a superficial communication. However, it has been seen that those spouses who are more aware of the emotional state of their spouse are more satisfied with the relationship, probably because they facilitate the expression of feelings. With the older son you also have to maintain a copen communication. As in the previous cases, we will have to ask all the children for more collaboration at home, but not for one to replace the parents.

The illness you have to assume first as "our problem", a problem of couple, to later approach it to the children, without dimensioning the problem and without undervalued, according to the age of each one. In addition, both the healthy spouse and the sick person will be very good psychically not forgetting their paternal function, to forget about the disease.

Disabled child

It happens when the healthy child has to take on the tasks of caring for his sick brother and these tasks are excessive because they take time away from him to carry out activities of his age.

This burden can cause anxiety, stress, and even in the long run, rejection of his own brother for finding difficulties in sharing this responsibility.

Marta Santín
Advice: Juan de Haro, family therapist