Surviving and Thriving on the Single-Parent Journey by Seney-Williams Kathlene;

Author:Seney-Williams, Kathlene;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lion Hudson
Published: 2019-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

18Parsons, R., The Sixty Minute Family (Oxford: Lion Hudson plc, 2010), p. 33.

Chapter 7

ROLE REVERSAL

I have spoken to many mums and dads who tell me that one of the benefits of being a single parent is that they and their children have an especially close relationship. This is natural, because so much of our time is spent solely with them. And children in single-parent families can also have extra-close relationships with extended family members or family friends who are often helping to raise them.

But a danger to be aware of when parenting alone is that because we often lack adult company and friends to confide in (we simply don’t have time to enjoy and nurture friendships), our relationship with our children can move from that of “parent and child” to “friends”. Throughout their lives, however, our kids will have many good friends, but they will only ever have one mother and father. We should not deprive them of that relationship. Being #BFF with our kids may seem a lovely idea – and we can certainly have a close, warm, and friendly relationship with them – but, above all, we need to be their parent. We need to be someone who also gives them security, safe boundaries, discipline, and nurture. It means that at times we’ll have to accept that we won’t be the most popular person in their world. We’ll have to say no when they don’t want to hear it, and we’ll have to follow through on consequences when a boundary has been crossed.

A second danger we face as single parents is to rely too much on our children for our own emotional and practical support – even to the extent that the roles of parent and child are reversed. This is known as “parentification” and can lead to the child’s need for care, guidance, and attention either becoming secondary to the needs of the parent or even neglected altogether. Often the child will take on responsibilities they are not emotionally mature enough to deal with. Please don’t get me wrong: I am not saying that it’s wrong for a child to do chores or give a parent their emotional support occasionally. What I am talking about is when a parent adopts a dependent position in the relationship and the responsibilities placed on the child become too burdensome – their childhoods are stolen as they have to grow up far too soon.

Growing up, something really bad happened to one of my siblings and my mother couldn’t cope. The family started to fall apart and she turned to me for emotional support. It got to the point where I felt solely responsible for keeping the family afloat.

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