When kids have to act like parents, it affects them for life

 Some people who have to be responsible for their siblings or parents as children grow up to be compulsive caretakers.

Laura Kiesel was only 6 years old when she became a parent to her infant brother. At home, his crib was placed directly next to her bed, so that when he cried at night, she was the one to pick him up and sing him back to sleep. She says she was also in charge of changing his diapers and making sure he was fed every day. For the majority of her early childhood, she remembers, she tended to his needs while her own mother was in the depths of heroin addiction.

From as early as she can remember, Kiesel says she had to take care of herself—preparing her own meals, clothing herself, and keeping herself entertained. At school, she remembers becoming a morose and withdrawn child whose hair was often dirty and unkempt.

It was a dark time made even bleaker by her mother’s violent outbursts. “During dope sickness, she would unleash a lot of fury onto me,” Kiesel, a 38-year-old freelance writer, told me. “I became the buffer or scapegoat of her rage to divert it [from] my younger (much more defenseless) brother.” (Kiesel’s mother is no longer living.)

At one point, she said she learned to take her small brother and kitten into their bathroom and barricade the door to keep them safe. “I felt a lot of weight on my shoulders, like my brother could die without me there,” Kiesel remembered.

She started breaking out in severe hives for months at a time, which she believes were triggered by the “burden of loneliness and responsibilities at that age.” Becoming responsible for an infant at such a young age came with a toll, she explained. “I sometimes picked on my brother or was quick to shove or slap his arm because I was overwhelmed and didn’t know how to handle the shrieks of a 2-year-old when I was 8.”

“It’s been a challenge for me to separate out feeling like I’m a parent to them.”

Eventually, at age 9, Kiesel and her 3-year-old brother were taken in by their grandparents, but the trauma of their former living situation stayed with the children. By the time Kiesel was 14, she said she suffered from daily panic attacks, OCD, and depression. It wasn’t until she was older, she said, that she began to understand the connection between her childhood experiences and numerous chronic illnesses.

Kiesel’s story is one of what psychologists refer to as destructive parentification—a form of emotional abuse or neglect where a child becomes the caregiver to their parent or sibling. Researchers are increasingly finding that in addition to upending a child’s development, this role reversal can leave deep emotional scars well into adulthood. Many, like Kiesel, experience severe anxiety, depression, and psychological distress. Others report succumbing to eating disorders and substance abuse.

“The symptoms look similar to some extent, from cradle to grave,” Lisa M. Hooper, a professor at the University of Louisville and a prominent parentification researcher, told me. Some of these behaviors start out in childhood and become exacerbated in adulthood, she explained.

“Children’s distrust of their interpersonal world is one of the most destructive consequences of such a process,” writes Gregory Jurkovic in his book Lost Childhoods: The Plight of the Parentified Child.

While there is a large body of literature that focuses on the neglect children experience from their parents, there’s less examination of how this neglect puts kids in roles of parenting each other. And there is virtually no empirical research on how this affects relationship dynamics later in life—both with siblings and others. Scholars agree that there are gaps in sibling research—primarily an incomplete understanding of how these relationships and roles are affected by abusive family environments. Hooper noted that “the literature is very scarce in this area.”

In Kiesel’s case, looking after her brother as a kid has led to a tenuous and chaotic relationship with him over the years, fraught with bouts of estrangement and codependency. Though they remain close,  there were periods where she and her brother didn’t speak for months at a time. “My brother is constantly on the edge of some crisis (a health crisis from his drinking, homelessness, etc.) so it is a worry that never goes completely away,” she told me in an email.

“Chronic, unpredictable stress is toxic when there’s no reliable adult.”

Her brother, Matthew Martin, 32, acknowledges the role their upbringing has played in these dynamics. “She was the only protector that I had,” he recalls. “My mother was a hard-core addict from very early on.” Throughout his childhood and early teens, he says he relied on Kiesel for the emotional support his mother couldn’t provide.

“We’ve had our fair share of arguments about [my addictions] and it’s hard, because she wants me to have some longevity. She wants me to be around for her the way that she was for me.”

* * *

From the age of 8 until she left home at 15, Rene, who asked to be identified by only her first name because she was concerned about upsetting her family, says she would pick up her three younger siblings from day care, bring them home, feed and bathe them, read them stories, and put them to bed. “Basically, I played the role of mother,” says the 50-year-old Oregon resident. She remembers standing on a chair as a child and cooking dinner for her entire family. In spite of the enormous burden of responsibility, she recalls it as a role she cherished. “I have really fond memories, particularly of reading them stories in bed at night.”

But Rene’s home life was far from peaceful. She says her mother’s alcoholism prevented her from properly caring for her five children, placing the task of child-rearing on the shoulders of Rene and her older brother. (Rene’s mother is no longer living.) But just as Rene took care of her younger siblings, she and her older brother relied on each other for emotional support.

“I think that it’s important to recognize that a lot of parentification is codependent,” she says. “Perhaps one sibling is the one who does the dishes and cleans the house, and takes care of the mom who is sick or drunk.” She explains that the other sibling might be the one who provides more emotional support, either by listening to problems or comforting.

Just as Wendy assumed the role of “mother” for the Lost Boys in Peter Pan, parentified siblings often forge symbiotic relationships, where they meet each others’ needs for guardians in a lot of different ways.

“If you’re parentified and you leave your younger siblings, it’s like having a parent abandon them.”

“We know that siblings can buffer each other from the impacts of stressful relationships with parents,” Amy K. Nuttall, an assistant professor in human development and family studies at Michigan State University, told me. This may account for why some parentified siblings who come from abusive homes end up maintaining close, albeit complex, bonds into adulthood, with some “continuing to attempt to fill parental needs at the expense of their own.”

Still, Nuttall adds, others may distance themselves from their families altogether in order to escape the role.

Rene found herself homeless after she was kicked out of her mother’s house when she was 15 years old. She says her siblings still blame her for leaving them behind. “When you think about it, if you’re parentified and you leave your younger siblings, it’s like having a parent abandon them,” Rene says. For years after, she was plagued by feelings of guilt—a common experience among people who have been parentified.

Sibling relationships usually generate a lifelong bond, yet for Rene, freedom from caretaking responsibilities came at a cost: the loss of her family. “I don’t have a relationship with my siblings anymore,” she says.

* * *

Unpredictable childhood trauma has long-lasting effects on the brain. Studies have shown that people with adverse childhood experiences are more likely to suffer from mental- and physical-health disorders, leading people to experience a chronic state of high stress reactivity. One study found that children exposed to ongoing stress released a hormone that actually shrank the size of their hippocampus, an area of the brain that processes memory, emotion, and stress management. Individuals who have experienced emotional or physical neglect by a parent are also at a greater risk of suffering from chronic illness as adults.

“Chronic, unpredictable stress is toxic when there’s no reliable adult,” Donna Jackson Nakazawa, the author of Childhood Disrupted and a science journalist who focuses on the intersection of neuroscience and immunology, told me.

“I did a lot of that kind of parenting her, in a way, because what I was trying to do was get parented myself.”

Nakazawa has conducted extensive research on the body-brain connection, with a focus on studies initiated by the physicians Vincent Felitti and Robert Anda. Their work on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) has since grown into a burgeoning field with hundreds of peer-reviewed studies. The findings show that people who experienced four categories of childhood adversity—neglect and physical, sexual, and emotional abuse—were twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer and depression as adults.

More links have been found between childhood stressors and adult heart disease, diabetes, migraines, and irritable bowel syndrome.

Jordan Rosenfeld, a 43-year-old author from California, attributes her own digestive issues to her childhood. When her mother was in the throes of substance abuse, she says, there were times she didn’t have food to eat. By the time she left home at 18, she began suffering from chronic pain after eating.

In adulthood, Rosenfeld noticed it was hard to regulate her emotions around hunger. “If I’m out with friends and we can’t decide on a restaurant, and I’m hungry—I can actually go into a little bit of a meltdown,” she told me. “And I can trace that back to literally not having been fed as a child at various junctures.”

From an early age, Rosenfeld recalls having to remind her mother when they needed groceries and pulling her out of bed in the mornings to get to school on time. “I did a lot of that kind of parenting her, in a way, because what I was trying to do was get parented myself.” Because of this, she said she often distrusts that other people will take care of things. “That’s why I tend to step up and do it myself.”

Rosenfeld’s mother, Florence Shields, remembers it was a depressing time in both their lives. “I had welfare for a while and I think that my diet—because of drugs and alcohol—wasn’t very good, and she probably got the brunt of that.” As a recovering alcoholic, Shields, who is now retired and lives in Petaluma, California, says she lacked the tools for parenting due to her own upbringing and history of tragedy.

“I’ve always been somebody who thinks it’s my job to offer help and advice even when it’s not asked for.”

When she became a mother at age 24, Shields was still grieving the loss of her older brother who died unexpectedly when she was 18. Opioids and alcohol were a way of coping with this loss, she says.“It’s like that grief is in there with you because that person is with you for the rest of your life, so when sad things come up, there he is.”

While both Rosenfeld and her mother have since attended therapy sessions together as adults, the effects of parentification continue to this day. Shields recognizes that her earlier struggles with addiction have profoundly influenced her daughter’s behavior. “Jordan is very orderly and in control,” she said by phone. When Rosenfeld’s father later remarried and had more children, Rosenfeld learned to project her role of caretaker onto her siblings. “I spent a lot of time babysitting them as a teenager and I think it’s been a challenge for me to separate out feeling like I’m a parent to them.”

This has often caused rifts between the siblings into adulthood, Rosenfeld said. “I’ve always been somebody who thinks it’s my job to offer help, care, and advice even when it’s not asked for.”

* * *

How does someone learn that becoming self-reliant is safer than trusting others? Nakazawa believes that in destructive parentification, “you don’t have a reliable adult to turn to.” And if a child’s early experiences at home consisted of making sure everyone else’s needs were met, then the “child doesn’t feel seen.”

This sense of responsibility and compulsive caretaking can follow them into future relationships as well. “You tend to project it onto other people in your life,” Rosenfeld said. This isn’t surprising, says Jenny Macfie, an associate director of clinical training at the University of Tennessee and another prominent parentification researcher, as “adults who report role confusion in their childhoods may have difficulty with their identity development,” and this, in turn, can affect a person’s romantic relationships.

“It’s very easy for me to get into caretaking roles with people who basically exploit my nature.”

For the first half of her marriage, Rosenfeld found herself regularly putting her partner’s needs ahead of her own—essentially mirroring her childhood role.

Others echoed this experience; Kiesel said she struggles with learning how to establish firm boundaries with partners and believes this is directly tied to caring for her brother at a young age. Similarly, Rene says finding the right balance between expectation and autonomy has been a constant problem in her relationships. She’d like to find a partner but has doubts. “It’s very easy for me to get into caretaking roles with people who basically exploit my nature.”

But these effects often go beyond the individual—studies by Nuttall and others have found that destructive parentification in a family can carry over to other generations as well. “Mothers who were overburdened by taking care of their parents during childhood have a poorer understanding of their infant’s developmental needs and limitations,” Nuttall explained. This, consequently, “leads to a parenting style that lacks warmth and sensitivity.”

* * *

As of today, there is scarce research on treatment or prevention efforts. How can a parentified sibling heal? Nakazawa believes that recognizing how these psychological puzzle pieces all fit together can be a step in the right direction. 

“Physically and mentally, the architecture of the brain has changed, the immune system has changed, and without that validation, you can’t begin an appropriate healing journey.”

Some people have found community through Al-Anon, a support group for the loved ones of alcoholics. “The group has a really strong focus on explaining what codependency is and offering solutions for learning new behaviors,” Rosenfeld explained. She’s attended the meetings for more than a year now and said she’s noticed a tremendous change in her habits and awareness of how to set boundaries. “I’ve learned that I can’t just blame people in my life with substance-abuse issues for causing me suffering; I have a choice in taking care of myself,” she said.

Despite negative outcomes associated with parentification, researchers say that going through that experience also confers some advantages that can help people later in life. Hooper believes that people who have been parentified as children possess a greater capacity for resiliency and self-efficacy. Nakazawa echoes this. “Current [American] culture thinks of resiliency as gutting it out and getting through, and one foot in front of the other,” she said. “But resiliency is learning and making meaning from what happened.”

“People begin to see that their path to well-being must take into account the way trauma changed their story.”

A common thread found in people with these shared childhood experiences is a heightened sense of empathy and an ability to more closely connect to others. This is not to say that the negative impacts of their childhood are diminished, Nakazawa says, but that many are able to forge meaning out of their suffering. “People begin to see that their path to well-being must take into account the way in which trauma changed their story,” she explained, “and once they’re able to do that, they can also see how resiliency is also important in their story.”

For Kiesel, the freelance writer who cared for her brother from a young age, counseling and Al-Anon have helped her feel less personally responsible for her brother, though she laments the lack of support networks for siblings who have been parentified and have their own specific needs.

Though her relationship with her brother remains tenuous because of his addictions, she continues to look out for him by regularly calling and checking in on him every month.

Martin admits that to this day, she remains the voice of positivity and reason in his life. “I’m struggling with my own demons, but like my sister says, there is a future there for me.”

As Kiesel explained: “Our mother and grandmother died a few months apart, and our grandfather a little over a year later—so essentially, we’re all we have left.”

(Source: The Atlantic)

Beware parentification: The many dangers of leaning on your child for emotional support

Children are naturally empathetic, so it’s easy for parents to cross the line unintentionally into “parentification”: placing children in situations where they feel more like parents than children. This needs to be avoided at all costs.

When he was a child, Brent Sweitzer heard a lot about his parents’ troubled marriage. Much more than he cared to. And in retrospect, Sweitzer says having his mom lean on him for emotional support was quite damaging. The parent-child relationship blurred. 

“When my mother shared her emotional pain with me, I felt like I was falling down a hole,” says Sweitzer, now a father of two and a licensed therapist in Cumming, Georgia. “In adulthood, I found myself avoiding close relationships, especially romantic ones. I was afraid to share my real feelings and authentic self with others.”

It wasn’t until Sweitzer went to counseling that he realized he habitually put other people’s needs before his own. He also learned that children aren’t supposed to comfort adults about their adult problems and that kids’ brains aren’t developed enough to handle that level of responsibility. Later, he took some time out from contact with his mom so he could heal. Sweitzer’s mother, who he says didn’t realize she had caused him any harm, has since apologized.

Children are naturally empathetic, so it’s easy for parents to cross the line unintentionally into “parentification”: the act of placing children in situations where they feel more like parents than children. 

“Kids are easy to exploit like that, unfortunately,” says Aaron Anderson, LMFT, director of The Marriage and Family Clinic in Denver. “If you teach children to be available whenever you’re having an emotional breakdown, they will be, whereas another adult wouldn’t.”

Parents don’t make a conscious effort to exploit their kids, Anderson says. But it’s common to think, It’s so much easier to talk to my child; they care for me and they give me a hug when I’m feeling down.

Reaching out to a child for love and support might not sound like it could damage their development, but when such behavior “parentifies” kids, it can. There are two types of parentification: “Instrumental parentification” refers to kids caring for younger siblings or taking on household tasks, and is generally less damaging to children. The more problematic type is “emotional parentification,” in which parents, through a range of behaviors, turn to children to fulfill their emotional needs. Kids who regularly experience the latter can take on an unhealthy role — an amalgamation of parent, therapist, and best friend — in the parent-child relationship. 

What Sweitzer experienced with his mom was emotional parentification, a form of dysfunction that’s harder to put a finger on than overt abuse. Like Sweitzer, a lot of men don’t recognize it when it happens. As adults, they might go to therapy for help with anxiety or depression, or to figure out why they keep getting divorced. Feeling like a parent inappropriately leaned on them for emotional support isn’t typically what brings guys into therapy. 

We hear a lot more about “toxic” mother-daughter relationships. Women, in general, tend to be more emotionally expressive than men, so it makes sense that they might turn to kids to fulfill their emotional needs more often than dads. Moms are primary caregivers more often than dads, and so bear more of the brunt of finger-wagging parenting criticism. 

“Men probably ‘parentify’ less often, because they’re taught, ‘Don’t lean on kids, don’t lean on your spouse, don’t lean on anybody,’ really,” Anderson says. “Throughout their lives, men are told not to feel and to stop being emotional.” 

Although parentification likely happens less often among fathers, it still happens, to boys as well as girls. And men who had these experiences growing up but don’t realize it are at risk for repeating the behavior with their own kids.

Anita Tung for Fatherly

Parentification: When Dads Are Guilty

Men tend to seek support from their children in different and, often, more subtle ways than women, says Carla Marie Manly, Ph.D, a clinical psychologist in Santa Rosa, California. 

“I’ve worked with fathers who have turned their full attention to their young children, often a young daughter, to avoid emotional intimacy with the mother,” says Manly. “The child then ‘replaces’ the mother, who often becomes angry and embittered, and becomes Daddy’s little princess.”  

Kids enjoy being doted on this way, but fathers who do this often don’t set firm and clear limits for children, so they’re robbed of seeing their parents as a healthy, united front. These kids often grow up to be entitled and seek out partners who will take care of them. This type of parentification reduces their ability to mature into strong, confident people, she says. 

Manly also has clients (women as well as men) who say their fathers are like little kids who avoid any part of life that isn’t fun. “When a father has this attitude, the child is naturally forced into the role of parent,” she says.

Manly adds that many men will say that their wives are their best friends, which is great, but sometimes she’s their only friend as well. When Dad isn’t getting along with Mom, he might confide in his teenage son or daughter about his relationship problems, which is never appropriate. Another common scenario Anderson sees in his practice is dads who, after they discover their son found his stash of porn mags, tells him, “Don’t tell your mother.”

“That’s a parentified relationship,” Anderson says. “He’s relying on his son to protect the secret, which puts the child in the position of protecting the parent, whether it’s to protect him from embarrassment or getting in trouble with his spouse.”

Although it might not strike a lot of parents as problematic behavior, it’s not okay to tell your kid, “I had a stressful day at work and need a hug,” Sweitzer says. 

“That’s more about your needs and not your child’s,” he says. “It interferes with children’s autonomy. They might think, ‘What will happen if I don’t hug? Will my parent stop loving me?’ It’s fine to ask your child to sit on your lap, for example, but it should always be a choice for the child.”

Typically, dads are more likely than moms to parentify through play, Anderson says. A man raised by a parentifying father might feel guilty not doing certain activities with his dad, rather than his wife, because he knows his father has few friends. Or a child might play catch with his father or go to a ballgame not because he wants to but because Dad is bored and wants his son to entertain him. 

Dads might wonder, “WTF is wrong with bringing my kid to a ballgame? I’m just spending time with them and doing something fun.” But it’s the emotional reliance aspect that’s key, Anderson says. Put another way, it’s the “why” that’s important: If your child feels obligated and put in a position of providing support for you (say, going to a baseball game with you even though he hates baseball), that’s inverting the parent-child relationship, which is a problem. 

“We don’t want to discourage men’s engagement with children, but they should ask themselves, ‘Is this fostering my child’s autonomy and is it primarily to meet my needs or the healthy developmental needs of my child?’” says Sweitzer. “It’s not wrong to want your needs met, too, but ask yourself if you’re going against the needs of your child.”

The parent-child relationship shouldn’t be inverted even when children are young adults, says psychotherapist Susan Pease Gadoua, LCSW, co-author of The New “I Do.” One of Gadoua’s clients, for example, asked his young adult daughter to help him decorate his new apartment after his divorce from her mother, which inappropriately put her in an adult role. In addition, the daughter probably didn’t feel free to say no, because her dad needed her.

Parents who parentify can get defensive about it when it’s pointed out during therapy, Anderson says. Common protests include: “But my child is so smart and mature — they can handle it,” “You should’ve seen my parents; I’m way better about it than they were,” and “My kids love me and like helping me.”

More traditional parentifying parents might raise children with the philosophy that they’re the authority and can raise kids, and talk to their kids, however they want, Sweitzer says. He adds that they might say things like, “Blood is thicker than water,” “What happens in the family stays in the family,” or other philosophies that can be co-opted into excuses to parentify kids. 

The Problem with Parentification In the Parent-Child Relationship

“The parent-child relationship by definition is hierarchical,” says parenting expert Vanessa Lapointe, a registered psychologist in the Vancouver area and author of Discipline without Damage: How to Get Your Kids to Behave Without Messing Them Up. “Kids need to be able to lean in to the emotional rest that hierarchy provides for them. 

The child leans in by being braced by the strong backbone of the parent. If you’re besties with your littles, they’re leaning in and you’re leaning back into them, and the structure becomes wobbly.”

When kids can’t find that “emotional rest” with you, she continues, it interrupts growth and development, particularly emotional development. The end result is kids who are emotionally immature.

“That’s not to say there shouldn’t be closeness in a relationship; there should be, without a doubt. But the parent needs to be in the lead position,” Lapointe says. “Then you get to enjoy the happiness of your child, and your child is free to be happy and not captive to the needs of the parent.”

Many parents aren’t aware of the power differential in the parent-child relationship, Sweitzer adds. Moms and dads are physically bigger and have a fully developed brain, and kids are dependent on them for all things. “Parents can forget that, particularly if they’re in a crisis,” he says.

It’s an unfortunate paradox that parents’ well-meaning efforts to give their kids agency can, at times, lead to parentifying behavior. For example, Lapointe has clients who gave their 8-year-old a say in what school he wanted to attend. They wanted to consider his opinion, but Lapointe pointed out that that was parentifying: “Now it’s on the kid if that decision doesn’t work out, which is terrible!” she says.

“The number one most problematic thing happening today to kids and parents is what I call ‘Hulk children’: Kids are absolutely running the show, and parents are putting them in that place,” Lapointe continues. “Parents have emotionally and behaviorally abdicated their lead position. To a large extent, it helps explain the anxiety epidemic.”

The helicopter parent is a kind of symbol of parentification, Anderson agrees. 

“Here’s this parent putting themselves aside, to the point that they forget themselves,” he says. “They forget to go out with friends, as a couple. They’re focused solely on their child, and as a result their kid becomes an emotional support system for them, which a child shouldn’t be.”

Children who are emotionally parentified have real power in the family, which is where that entitlement effect stems from. But they also tend to be insecure, because on some level, children know they’re not capable of soothing adults. This makes kids feel anxious, Sweitzer says.

Studies have linked all kinds of negative effects with parentification, including depression, anxiety, and compulsive caregiving. But some research has found positive effects, as well, such as greater resilience in kids who are parentified. One study published in the mid-2000s found that parentified young kids of color caring for parents with HIV/AIDS showed some positive effects, including less substance abuse and better coping skills.

The effects of parentification are complex and need more study, the authors of the above-linked 2011 paper noted. They found that a temporary period of increased responsibility due to, say, a parental job loss, might be more tolerable for a child. Cultural factors also affect how a child might react to parentification. Significantly, the researchers also found that perception was a key factor in how parentified children react. If children feel their experience was inequitable or unfair and that there was little acknowledgement or appreciation on the part of the parents, they tended to have more mental health problems than kids who didn’t feel that way. 

In addition, children’s personalities are a big factor, as well, Gadoua says. Put simply, some kids handle the pressure better than others. But it might be safer not to make that bet.

Avoiding the Parentification Trap

“It’s hard asking parents to be psychologists, essentially,” Gadoua says. “Parenting is very challenging, and a lot of your learning is going to be in hindsight. Looking back you’re going to say, ‘Wow, I shouldn’t have done that.’”

All human beings have a fundamental need to feel seen and heard, and everyone, most psychologists will tell you, has some piece of baggage from their own upbringing that they bring into their relationships with their own kids. That sets us up a bit for failure on the parentification front.

“People often fantasize about what it’d be like to have a child,” Lapointe says. “We’ll finally get to be with someone who loves us the way we’ve never been loved before. So from the outset we’re a little set up to look to children to meet our needs. So we overshare or try in many other ways to fill a hole inside of us that shouldn’t be, or really, can’t be, fulfilled by children.”

The most important thing, she says, is for you to be the answer for your child, not to have all the answers. 

“You’re not going to be perfect, but when you do make a mistake, you need to repair it,” Gadoua agrees. “Repairing something that isn’t right can help create resilience in children and teaches them that they need to repair their own wrongs, as well.”

Taking care to not parentify, which helps kids become confident and secure adults, shouldn’t be confused with coddling. It’s not shielding kids from the pain of the world. Parents who avoid this are just not overburdening them in ways that aren’t appropriate.

For example, It’s okay for kids to see parents cry and, in fact, it’s important that parents don’t tell their children they’re fine if they are crying. That teaches them not to trust their perceptions, as they can see from a parent’s energy that Dad is sad, Gadoua says. It’s better to say something like, “I need to cry right now, but it’s not your job to take care of me — it’s my job.” Parents need to let children know they already have the support they need. Ideally, parents actually do have that support.

“Parents should make sure they have an adult support group to lean on and that they’re doing adult things with adults,” Anderson says. “That way, you don’t turn toward kids to fulfill those needs. When you have good adult relationships, no child can compete with that.”

Expressing emotion, in other words, is okay as long as parents are not leaning on their kids when dealing with adult problems. In the parenting workshops he leads, Sweitzer suggests that parents pay attention to the language they use when expressing anger or frustration with kids.

“If kids are being disrespectful, it’s appropriate to say, ‘I’m frustrated that you’re not listening to me,’” he says. “Because you’re owning up to your feelings and bringing up something in the moment and something your child can control.” 

The beauty with kids, however, is that parents don’t have to try to get love and support from them — they’re naturally dependent on them and love them. 

“As a family, there’s a need to feel united and safe and cared for,” Anderson says. “Those are all appropriate needs and should go back and forth. But there are age-appropriate ways to do it.”

Sweitzer says he’s mindful to get his emotional needs met through adult friendships and in his own therapy. 

“I’ve also worked hard to listen for what my children have heard or perceive about our financial situation, so that I clarify with them what they are responsible for as members of our family — helping with chores, playing, going to school — and what they’re not responsible for: taking care of the grown-ups,” he says.

(Source: Fatherly)

Daughters to inherit fathers’ self acquired, inherited properties, to get preference over others: SC

 In a significant verdict, the Supreme Court on Thursday said the daughters of a male Hindu, dying intestate, would be entitled to inherit the self-acquired and other properties obtained in the partition by the father and get preference over other collateral members of the family.

In a significant verdict, the Supreme Court on Thursday said the daughters of a male Hindu, dying intestate, would be entitled to inherit the self-acquired and other properties obtained in the partition by the father and get preference over other collateral members of the family.

The judgement, which came on an appeal against the Madras High Court verdict, dealt with the property rights of Hindu women and widows under the Hindu Succession Act.

“If a property of a male Hindu dying intestate (without a will) is a self-acquired property or obtained in the partition of a coparcenary or a family property, the same would devolve by inheritance and not by survivorship, and a daughter of such a male Hindu would be entitled to inherit such property in preference to other collaterals (such as sons/daughters of brothers of deceased father),” a bench of justices S Abdul Nazeer and Krishna Murari said.

The bench was dealing with the legal issue concerning the right of the daughter to inherit the self-acquired property of her father, in the absence of any other legal heir.

Justice Murari, writing the 51-page judgment for the bench, also dealt with the question of whether such property will devolve on to the daughter upon the death of her father, who died without a will, by inheritance or shall devolve on to “father’s brother’s son by survivorship”.

“Right of a widow or daughter to inherit the self-acquired property or share received in the partition of a coparcenary property of a Hindu male dying intestate is well recognized not only under the old customary Hindu Law but also by various judicial pronouncements...,” the verdict said.

Referring to the legal provision, it said the legislative intent was to remedy the limitation of a Hindu woman who could not claim an absolute interest in the properties inherited by her but only had a life interest in the estate so inherited.

“Section 14 (I) converted all limited estates owned by women into absolute estates and the succession of these properties in the absence of a will or testament would take place in consonance with Section 15 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956...,” it said.

If a female Hindu dies intestate without leaving any issue, then the property inherited by her from her father or mother would go to the heirs of her father whereas the property inherited from her husband or father-in-law would go to the heirs of the husband, it said.

“The basic aim of the legislature in enacting Section 15(2) (of the Hindu Succession Act) is to ensure that inherited property of a female Hindu dying issueless and intestate, goes back to the source,” it said.

Dealing with the facts of the case, the bench set aside the trial court and the high court’s findings dismissing the partition suit of the daughters.

The apex court said, “...since the property in question was admittedly the self-acquired property of a father despite the family being in a state of jointness upon his death intestate, his sole surviving daughter will inherit the same by inheritance and the property shall not devolve by survivorship.

“Thus, the impugned judgement and decree dated March 01, 1994, passed by the Trial Court and confirmed by the High Court vide judgment and order dated January 21, 2009, are not liable to be sustained and are hereby set aside,” it said. 

(Source: Republic World)

Christian women in Kerala still denied the right to inherit property, here’s why

Except among a few coastal communities in southern Kerala, families belonging to different Christian denominations deny women’s right to ancestral property.

When Soniya Thomas, who belongs to a Syrian Christian family in Kerala’s Kannur district, got married in 2010, her father spent around Rs 13 lakh, which included 30 sovereigns of gold and Rs 5 lakh in cash. This was deemed to be her full and final inheritance from her father’s property as per a tradition common to Christian communities across denominations in Kerala. When her father passed away without leaving behind a will, his property became intestate and, as per custom, the Rs 1 crore estate was shared between Soniya’s two brothers.

Ancestral property provides security to many women who want to leave a marriage or choose a life without depending on someone else. Soniya, who wants to leave an abusive relationship, feels insecure to go back to her house as she has no rights there. “I’m not able to stay with my husband now, I’m being mentally tortured by his family. I’m not allowed to go to work, I’m forbidden to go out to meet friends or family. When my father died, I was not allowed to stay at my house even for a day. I’m treated like a slave. But I have no place to go. My two brothers share the ancestral property, they will not give me any. Where will I go with my 3 children?” Soniya breaks down, adding that she has no rights over the home she was born and brought up in.

The tradition of male heirs distributing intestate properties among themselves has persisted despite being outlawed more than three decades ago. Soniya hasn’t heard about the landmark 1986 Supreme Court judgement in the Mary Roy v. State Of Kerala case. Through this judgement, the apex court repealed the Travancore Christian Succession Act, 1916 and brought all Christians under the Indian Succession Act of 1925.

The Indian Succession Act says that intestate properties, that is properties where the owner fails to leave behind a written will, shall be distributed equally among all the children after deducting the one-third share of the widow. But if the father wrote a will to give his property only to his sons, it cannot be contested in court.

Except for a few coastal communities in southern Kerala such as the Latin Catholics that are matriarchal, families belonging to different Christian denominations deny womens’ right to ancestral property. While in recent times there are families that divide property equally, they are an exception.

Sheena, another woman from a Syrian Catholic family, explains how she has been labelled a “troublemaker” by her brothers as well as her parents for asking for a share in the ancestral property.

“I’m the only one among my seven siblings who doesn’t have a house or a decent income. Everyone else got land from our ancestral property. The gold given to me was just one-tenth of what everyone else got. My sister-in-law is not at all happy with me visiting my parents. My family says I was sent off with my share when they married me off. I used to ask my father what makes me different from his other children, the gender?” she asks.

For many families, dowry is just an excuse to deny women their rightful share of the family property.

Mary, a 70-year-old unmarried woman from Kannur’s Thaliparamba, died last year at an old age home. A nun who took care of her says, “She had three brothers. They each own four acres of land, transferred to them by their father. She had a sister who became a nun; she was not left a single penny from her parents. Mary stayed with one of her brothers with a lot of difficulties, and one day he kicked her out. So dowry is just an excuse to not give property to women, because nothing is given even if she is unmarried.”

Seeing nothing wrong with the brazenly patriarchal custom, Kurien Thomas, an 80-year-old Syrian Catholic from Kozhikode who is a farmer by profession, says, “Basically we do not want our property to get into the hands of other families. After women are married off, they become a part of another family, they take a different family name. We also give dowry so that she will be taken care of. Also her husband will possess property from his ancestors.”

Women and property rights under law

Property inheritance for women has always been a fraught issue in the subcontinent irrespective of religion. In 1948 a committee headed by Dr BR Ambedkar, the country’s first Law Minister, drafted a revised form of the Hindu Code Bill. One of the main features of the Bill was that daughters were to be given a share of the inheritance along with sons after the demise of parents, and widows shall have complete rights over the husband’s property. But there was huge opposition to the Bill.

Even Congress leaders who were identified as liberal, such as Rajendra Prasad and Govind Ballabh Pant, ardently opposed the Bill. Sarojini Naidu threatened to go on an indefinite hunger strike if it was not dropped. Many other Congress leaders put pressure on Jawaharlal Nehru to defer it.

Syama Prasad Mukherjee, then Minister for Industry and Supply in Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet, did not object to it when he was in the cabinet, but opposed it heavily in 1951 saying it would tamper with Hindu tradition. Ambedkar resigned from his post in September 1951 in protest over Parliament stalling the draft Bill. But the Bill was resubmitted in 1952 in different forms, where Nehru split them into four parts; subsequently the Hindu Marriage Act, Hindu Succession Act, Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, and Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act were passed during his tenure between 1956 and 1957.

While this was the case for Hindu women, Christian inheritance practices have links to canon law. The Book of Genesis in the Bible says, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

A senior priest from Kottayam who sought anonymity explains, “In fact, this verse from the Bible gives superiority to the woman. But the meaning has been inverted to support patriarchy, suggesting that she fully leaves behind all her property and her home and merges with her husband, and that she cannot have anything of her own. That the man remains in his house with his parents whereas the woman leaves hers to serve the husband’s family. What an irony!”

The first laws on intestate succession in Christian communities were the Travancore Christian Succession Act, 1916 (Regulation II of 1092) in the erstwhile Travancore state and the Cochin Christian Succession Act, 1921 and the Indian Succession Act, 1865, which was later amended to the Indian Succession Act, 1925. In fact, these three laws were followed in three regions of Kerala: Travancore (South), Cochin State (Central) and Malabar (North). Even after Kerala state was formed, these laws continued to guide succession of ancestral properties.

According to the Travancore Christian Succession Act, passed by the princely state of Travancore, the intestate’s property passes on to son or sons equally; there is no mention of daughters. It also says that a daughter’s dowry should be one-fourth a son’s share or Rs 5,000, whichever is lesser. However, the Cochin Christian Succession Act, passed by the erstwhile state of Cochin, directed that a woman can inherit property if she is not given dowry.

As per Indian secular law or the Succession Act of 1865, there was no separate mention about sons and daughters if the father died intestate. It says the property will be inherited by children of the deceased, which means both sons and daughters are entitled to get the property. Mainly Hindus in the Malabar region followed this. There were hardly any Christians in the region and consequently no special law of inheritance was designed for the community.

Christianity in Kerala began with the visit of St Thomas, a disciple of Jesus Christ, in AD 52. St Thomas primarily travelled in central and southern Kerala, and established seven churches. That is how Christians are mainly located in these regions.

A majority of Christians in the north or Malabar follow the Syro-Malabar Church and are relatively recent migrants to the region. Mostly agriculturists, they started migrating from Travancore and Cochin to Kozhikode, Kannur, Wayanad and Calicut, as fertile land was abundant and cheaply available. Naturally, they brought with them the customs followed in Travancore and Cochin, down to property inheritance practices.

It was in 1986 that the Supreme Court in Mary Roy v. State of Kerala repealed the Travancore and Cochin Christian Succession Regulations. Since then, Christians are bound to follow the inheritance under the Indian Succession Act, 1925. As per the law a Christian daughter has no pre-existing right to the family property, but she has rights when her parents die intestate. So if the father’s will gives the family property only to his sons, it cannot be questioned in court.

“After the Mary Roy case, families started preparing wills in advance so that the property goes just to sons,” says Kerala Women’s Commission Chairperson P Sathidevi.

The 1925 act also says that a daughter-in-law has no right of succession to the estate of her intestate father-in-law. So practically women have no rights over any ancestral property.

Patriarchal system

Though the laws have been repealed, the patriarchal system followed by the community still gives no place for women in most homes.

In Christian communities, aged parents are ashamed to live with their daughters as their tradition is to live with the youngest son. “Whatever happens they won’t stay with their daughter’s family. It’s considered an insult. Even if they are not comfortable staying with the son and his family, they stick to the tradition,” says a young priest from Ernakulam.

In the case of nuns, they are not allowed to own property or have money. Even if they work and earn a salary, the money goes to the congregation. However, male priests in many congregations are allowed to handle money. They can even buy a vehicle or phone from their personal assets.

A senior nun, who is 70, recalls, “My father was not so rich, we were seven siblings and he had eight acres of land. He gave 1.5 acres of land each to my four brothers and the youngest got the ancestral home. Since my two sisters were not married when the will was written, they were given 25 cents of land each, which is one-sixth of what my brothers got. I was left with nothing as I became a nun. Without any personal money to my name, I had to take the help of relatives to buy even small things, like a watch or a phone.”

Even after the primitive laws were repealed, a majority of Christian families are not ready to change.

“How can an ordinary woman like me go to court and fight a long battle all alone? I have three children to look after. 

To get my rightful share, I will have to fight my brothers. No one will support me, as it’s a tradition that Christian women are not supposed to get any share,” Soniya says.

Sr Jesme, a former nun, activist and writer who has spoken against the ill-practices in Christianity, says that even well-educated, progressive Christians follow the tradition of not giving the women in their families a share of the ancestral property. Stressing on the role of awareness rather than laws to wipe out these evil practices, Sr Jesme adds, “Today we speak a lot about equality and gender rights in education. So why don’t we create awareness about these laws at a young age? Why can’t lessons about rights be included in the school syllabus? Let the change begin at home.”

However, Sathidevi feels that it is the law that has to be changed. “One can give their property to whomever they want. Since this is the age-old tradition, most families prefer to follow it. So there has to be a policy or a law that provides equality to women in property distribution. Dowry is banned and cannot be practised, so that cannot be an excuse. If there is a partition of the family property, then women should get an equal share,” she says. She adds that more discussion is needed around this issue.

In August 2020, a Supreme Court verdict upheld the equal rights of Hindu women over ancestral property. But legal experts then opined that the verdict has less impact in Kerala as equality is already being practised in Hindu communities in the state. But for Christian and Muslim women, the denial of right to property is an issue that needs immediate attention. There is hardly any outrage in the state over the unequal distribution of ancestral property, just because many of the affected women are underprivileged and do not have the resources to fight for their rights.

(Source: TNM)