Burdened Children: Theory, Research, and Treatment of Parentification PDF
Preview Burdened Children: Theory, Research, and Treatment of Parentification
BURDENED CHILDREN BURDENED CHILDREN Theory, Research, and Treatment of Parentification Editor NANCY D. CHASE <f> SAGE Publications International Educational and Professional Publisher Thousand Oaks London New Delhi Copyright © 1999 by Sage Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information: SAGE Publications, Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 E-mail: [email protected] SAGE Publications Ltd. 6 Bonhill Street London EC2A 4PU United Kingdom SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd. M-32 Market Greater Kailash I New Delhi 110 048 India Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Main entry under title: Burdened children: Theory, research and treatment of parentification / edited by Nancy D. Chase. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7619-0763-7 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 0-7619-0764-5 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Parental influences. 2. Stress in children. 3. Problem families. 4. Helping behavior in children. 5. Role playing in children. I. Title. RJ507 .P35 C47 1999 155.4—dc21 99-6009 This book is printed on acid-free paper. 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Acquisition Editor: Jim Nageotte Editorial Assistant: Heidi Van Middlesworth Production Editor: Denise Santoyo Editorial Assistant: Patricia Zeman Typesetter: Lynn Miyata Cover Designer: Ravi Balasuriya Indexer: Teri Greenberg For Dixie This book is dedicated to the intricate, constant, and profoundly healing nature of friendship. Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii Part I: Theory and Research Perspectives 1 1. Parentification: An Overview of Theory, Research, and Societal Issues 3 Nancy D. Chase 2. Cross-Sex and Same-Sex Family Alliances: Immediate and Long-Term Effects on Sons and Daughters 34 Deborah Jacobvitz, Shelley Riggs, and Elizabeth Johnson 3. Workaholic Children: One Method of Fulfilling the Parentification Role 56 Bryan E. Robinson 4. Parentification of Siblings of Children With Disability or Chronic Disease 75 Suzanne Lamorey 5. Assessing Childhood Parentification: Guidelines for Researchers and Clinicians 92 Gregory J. Jurkovic, Richard Morrell, and Alison Thirkield Part II: Clinical and Contextual Perspectives 115 6. Object Relations Therapy for Individuals With Narcissistic and Masochistic Parentification Styles 117 Marolyn Wells and Rebecca Jones 1. Therapeutic Rituals and Rites of Passage: Helping Parentified Children and Their Families 132 Helen W. Coale 8. Trauma, Invisibility, and Loss: Multiple Metaphors of Parentification 141 Bruce Lackie 9. Parentification in the Context of the African American Family 154 Louis P. Anderson 10. The Archetype of the Parentified Child: A Psychosomatic Presence 171 Paula M. Reeves Index 185 About the Authors 197 Preface On the cover of an issue of Time magazine (April, 1996) is the picture of a seven-year-old girl, Jessica, who died in the crash of her small plane while attempting to set a record as the youngest pilot to fly across the United States. The caption below the young girl's photograph raises questions about who should claim responsibility for her death and for the expectations under which she lived. Implicated in the feature article are her parents, but not because they neglected or abused Jessica in any traditional sense. On the contrary, these parents encouraged Jessica to pursue her dreams and fear nothing. Yet, ques- tions remain about whose dream it really was to fly cross-country. Was this a seven-year-old's dream? Or projections of parental ambition run wild? Is it true, as Jessica's mother claims, that children are fearless unless taught to be afraid? Or is it possible that children silence their fears and push on bravely when no adult is near to comfort them in their childhood anxiety and doubt? The story of Jessica and her parents drew national attention, however superficially and briefly, to fundamental questions about the lengths to which parents will go to promote their kids and the extent to which children comply in meeting needs and wishes of their parents. Jessica's story, no doubt, is extreme. It illustrates, however, a phenomenon that often remains invisible unless manifested in dire and tragic consequences: a parent's needs and narcissism overriding a child's well-being. As a society, we are shocked and disdainful of the gross and overt expressions of parental narcissism and abuse of power. Meanwhile, subtler aspects of such phenomena as they occur in day-to-day interactions and in assumptions transmitted across generations are less understood, even though terms such as parental child, parentification, hero-child, overachiever, under- achiever, hurried child, and the more popularly used phrase adult-child have appeared in academic, professional scholarship and lay literature for many years. IX
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