this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
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If it's healthy for you does it need a label?
The story sounds healthy enough. I'm mostly critical of the role of the actual parents. I may be over reaching here, but it sounds like the writer ended up taking up a responsibility that should have been taken by the parents in the first place. However, the situation sounds healthy enough and parentification has positive sides too!
A sibling is a lot easier to approach in a lot of subjects than a parent, I think. Sometimes this is what a person needs, and if their sibling is willing and able to meet them on that this is just a good personal family dynamic.
I have (too many) siblings both older and younger and, at least in my family's experience, sometimes parents need to see this in action before realizing their behavior/parenting isn't right.
Take my family as an example, I've been years when i was a teenager complaining about how they treated me and my nearest sisters, which failed miserably as they didn't change and we ended up pretty fucked up mentally and one of them migrated and doesn't want to come back even to the same country. Some years later, I tried basically parenting my 2 youngest brothers, but respecting certain topics where my (religious) parents are a bit too sensitive. The first one has been the most peaceful teenage man in our family by far, and my parents noticed how i was approaching him (something similar to OP, but pre-shut in? Basically tried giving him an ally when possible). They changed their ways only after seeing their previous failures and a more healthy result.
... Tho it's worth nothing they have 1 child left to raise and most people doesn't have enough kids to have a full damn hero's journey about parenting lol
If OP was complaining I would be sympathetic.
As written, the story is just positive.
The big point of parentification is that it is forced on the child by their parents. The role of sub-parent to siblings is assigned via negative means. This is often in punishment for not performing that role. This can manifest as verbal and mental abuse, such as guilt tripping, neglect where the parent doesn't do what is needed until the parentifide child does it out of necessity, and can go as far as full blown violence.
This reads more like the OP saw that their sister was in desperate need of help, and decided to take it upon themselves to do whatever they can to help her.