Paintings depicting children who look like a bit awkward mini-adults rather than real-life kids were popular during various historical periods, but ‘had their peak’ in the Middle Ages. Even though we might have different preferences when it comes to art, one might as well agree that a person looking at a real child and seeing nothing but a physically smaller version of an adult, figuratively speaking, is twice as unsettling as such depictions in art – for the simple reason that understanding and treating a child like an adult might be damaging to him. No wonder this Redditor snapped when her late husband’s brother told her 10 Y.O. son to be “the man of the house”.

More info: Reddit

Woman snapped after her late husband’s brother told her 10 Y.O. son to be “the man of the house”

Image credits: wrigglytoes.com.au (not the actual photo)

Since this woman’s husband passed 3 months ago, she has been struggling trying to balance her grief and her responsibilities, including her 3 children

Image credits: Few-Rush-5955

Image credits: Boys in Bristol Photography (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Few-Rush-5955

Image credits: Marco Verch Professional Photographer (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Few-Rush-5955

Her BIL’s wife offered to help and was looking after one of the children, while the mother took another child to her activities

Image credits: Masha Raymers (not the actual photo)

The woman came back to her BIL telling her son it was his responsibility to make sure the household was in order

This story seems to depict a strong willed-woman and her troubles trying to protect her kids from the generations-deep problem of parentifying kids. As she explains, her late husband’s older brother was himself parentified after his father’s death during his childhood. However, it might have never reached this woman’s kids if not for the loss of her husband 3 month ago. 

This woman shares she has been struggling to balance her grief and taking care of her three children aged 12, 10 and 3 in addition to all her other responsibilities. However, she explains she has a great support system and has been able to make sure her children have their childhood.

However, anyone who has kids knows that from time to time, despite one’s best efforts, keeping it together becomes a bit challenging. When this woman got to such a point, her brother-in-law’s wife offered to help. And this is what led to a scene in the kitchen, as the kids’ mother came back home to her brother-in-law parentifying her 10-year-old son. The boy’s uncle was putting the responsibility for keeping the house in order on the kid’s shoulders and telling the boy to be “the man of the house”.

This naturally enraged the mother, as despite the man’s out-of-place accusations that she was being ungrateful and claiming he was “only trying to help”, the woman could see the damaging parentifying behavior for what it was. Even this man’s seemingly selfless and good intentions were compromised after he argued that he was only trying to protect his wife as it wasn’t her job to help the mother.

The man didn’t considering that his wife offered to help herself and it wasn’t even a common occurrence. Not to mention that this man’s efforts to “protect his wife” were taking the wrong measures anyway. Stressing the kid out with some generic claims about him taking over the father’s role could not be of help here and were definitely not this man’s responsibility.

Trying to protect her child, the woman interrupted the man’s rant and told her son to not listen to his uncle, as he is a little boy and “it is not his job to take over for his father. Rather, it’s his job to play, go to school and just be a kid.” Finally, the boy’s mother threatened to never let her brother-in-law see her kids if he tries parentifying them again.

After being strict to her brother-in-law, the woman eventually took heat from his family, who were claiming it is “all he knows” and she shouldn’t have threatened to cut him off, in addition to the extended family pushing some parenting advice on her and accusing her of alienating her brother-in-law’s family.

The woman told her son to not listen to his uncle as “he is just a little boy and it is not his job to take over for his father”

Image credits:  Ron Lach (not the actual photo)

The mother threatened not to let her BIL see her kids if he tries parentifying them again

Nivida Chandra, psychologist and researcher, notes that the term “parentification” was introduced in 1967 and was described as delegating parenting roles to children. One might say that parentification has to do with inappropriate and harmful role reversal between children and their parents.

The term was later expanded by Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, who emphasized that it is the imbalance of give-and-take between parents and children that is often the source of deep problems in parentified children. 

Chandra makes an important distinction between parentified children when the reason or excuse for their taking on responsibilities normally associated with parents is clear and when it is not. The former consists of parentified children in families that have suffered parental death, divorce, poverty, or war, and these children tend to have an available narrative at their disposal that can help them explain and understand or make sense of the source of their struggle.

In such situations, it is most of the time at least understandable to the children and to others why more is demanded from them than from other children. However, when there seems to be no obvious excuse for a child’s sense of burden, it becomes challenging in its own way to explain, understand and finally to regulate it.

In her study “Parentified children grow up: dual patterns of high and low functioning” Chase, Nancy D. notes that parentified children tend to take on many responsibilities long before they are ready psychologically or otherwise to handle them, and before they can protect themselves from such enmeshment. Such people who were parentified as children tend to construct a false understanding of the self which is based on the wishes, needs, and vulnerabilities of a parent.

John Byng-Hall suggests that family therapy can help to interrupt the cycle of passing the destructive parentification of children through generations and helping to deal with the current problems associated with treating children not according to their age.

The scholar explains that the goal of such therapy is to reduce the parent’s need to turn to a child for care. This often includes working on the adult relationships in such a way that they are able to provide sufficient mutual support to each other and thus are able to resist the urge to put such a burden on children.

Redditors backed the mother for keeping healthy boundaries for her kids:

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