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Episode 58: Why You’re Not Parenting Your Parent
90 Plays24 days ago
In this episode, I challenge one of the most common phrases caregivers use: “I feel like I’m parenting my parent.” I explain why that mindset creates guilt, resentment, and emotional exhaustion, and what’s actually happening instead. You’ll learn how to shift from feeling responsible for everything to stepping into a more sustainable role as an advocate. This reframe will help you protect your relationship with your parent while also protecting yourself.
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Transcript
Introduction to Reframing the Caregiver Role
00:00:00
Speaker
If you've ever caught yourself saying, I feel like I'm parenting my parent, I want you to stop. Not in a guilt way, in a freedom way. Because that phrase, the one that comes out so easily when you're exhausted and overwhelmed and watching someone you love forget how to use a microwave, that phrase is doing something to you.
00:00:21
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It's quietly rearranging your relationship with your mother or your father. It's quietly telling your brain that the person who raised you is now your child. And here's what I know as a psychiatrist.
00:00:34
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That story is not just wrong. It's the reason you can't sleep. It's the reason you're so angry at your siblings. And it's the reason the guilt will not lift no matter how much you do.
00:00:50
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So today I'm going to tell you what is actually going on. And i'm going to give you the framework that ends the guilt for good.
00:01:02
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Welcome to the Aging Parent Playbook. I'm Dr. Barbara Sparacino. I'm a triple board certified psychiatrist in adult psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry, and addiction medicine.
00:01:17
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And I work with adult children who are trying to figure out how to help their aging parents without losing themselves in the process.
00:01:28
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Today, we are sitting in pillar two, which is family dynamics. This is the pillar I get more questions about than any other. Because when our parents start to need us, our entire family architecture starts to shift.
00:01:45
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The siblings you thought you knew, the role you thought you had, the relationship with your mother her father that felt settled and familiar, everything starts moving.
00:01:58
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And nobody tells you that.
Critique of 'Parenting a Parent' Concept
00:02:00
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So today i want to talk about a phrase. One of the most common phrases i hear in my clinical practice and my coaching work.
00:02:11
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The phrase is, I feel like I'm parenting my parent. sometimes I'm the parent now. Or she's the child and I am the adult.
00:02:24
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That phrase. And I want to tell you why it's wrong. and why it matters that it's wrong and what to put in its place. So let's get into it. So let's talk about the phrase that's costing you everything because here's what happened.
00:02:43
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You are the grocery store and your mom calls. She tells you she cannot figure out the new phone or she tells you the same story she told you yesterday.
00:02:55
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Or you find out she missed a doctor's appointment because she forgot.
00:03:02
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And something in you tightens. You sigh, you explain, you handled it. And later you tell your friend or your sister or your therapist, I feel like I'm parenting my parents.
00:03:16
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I hear from everyone. The high performing attorney whose father cannot manage his pills. The school counselor whose mother has stopped paying her bills.
00:03:29
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The eldest daughter who has been the responsible one her whole life and now feels like the only adult in the room. And here's what nobody is telling you.
00:03:41
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That phrase is not neutral. Language shapes the way we experience our lives. And when we tell ourselves, we are parenting our parent. We are doing three things.
00:03:54
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at once. And none of them are helpful.
00:04:02
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One, we are flattening 60 or 70 year relationship in one line, in a one line, right? As if the mother who raised you, the mother who was there at your wedding, the one who held you when you your first dog died has been replaced by an entirely new person.
Advocacy vs. Parenting in Caregiving
00:04:23
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she has not she is still your mother even if she has dementia even if she is bed bound even if she does not remember your name on a tuesday her relationship to you is fixed by history
00:04:41
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you did not become her parent you cannot become her parent that category does not exist two
00:04:53
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We are giving ourselves a job that none of us actually want and none of us can do. Because you know why? Parents have authority. Parents make decisions for their children because children cannot yet make them for themselves.
00:05:08
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But your mother is not a child. She is an adult with a long life and an opinion and a will of her own. When you try to parent her, you set yourself up for one of two outcomes.
00:05:23
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Either you take over and she resents you, or you back off and the situation gets worse. There's no middle ground here because the frame itself is wrong.
00:05:38
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Three, we are creating a guilt trap because here's the thing. If you really were parenting your parent, you would have to be perfect.
00:05:50
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Parents of small children have a duty of care that is essentially absolute. So when you cast yourself as a parent in this relationship, every imperfect moment, every time you snapped, every time you wished you could just go on vacation without checking your phone, every time you thought, I do not want to do this any anymore, becomes a moral failure.
00:06:21
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And of course you can't sustain that. Of course the guilt is unbearable. The role you have cast yourself in cannot be played by human beings.
00:06:34
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So that is the phrase that is what it is doing. Now let's talk about what is actually happening.
00:06:51
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What is actually happening when your aging parent needs more from you, it's not a role reversal. It's a role expansion. You are not becoming his or her parent.
00:07:04
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You're becoming his or her advocate. An advocate is something different, right? An advocate is someone who stands beside another adult, someone who knows their wishes, someone who has been given permission to act on their behalf.
00:07:23
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Someone who steps in to help them get what they need. Advocates do not decide for someone. Advocates speak for someone who cannot speak for themselves.
00:07:37
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Advocates protect someone's voice when their voice is hard to hear.
00:07:43
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Think of any other context where adults advocate for adults. A lawyer is an advocate for a client. A union representative is an advocate for a worker.
00:07:56
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a spouse can be an advocate for their partner in a hospital. None of these people are parenting. They are advocating. They are having a role defined by the relationship, defined by the situation, defined by what their person actually needs.
00:08:16
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That is what you are. You are your mother's advocate. You are your father's advocate. You are the person who's going to stand beside them, learn what they want, get legal to our mission to act when they cannot speak and protect their dignity through whatever comes next.
00:08:39
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This is a different job. This job is doable because this job has limits. This job has a start and a finish. The parent, your parent job does not.
The 'Eldest Daughter Contract' and Its Burdens
00:08:51
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It is bottomless, it is shapeless, it is impossible. And is making you sick.
00:09:01
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I want to say something here that I think a lot of children need to hear.
00:09:09
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You did not sign up to be your mother's parent. Even if you are the only daughter, even if you are the only responsible one, Even if your siblings have vanished, even if it has always been you, you didn't sign up for that role.
00:09:27
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And you do not have to take it. You did, however, choose somewhere along the way to love this person, to honor the relationship, to show up.
00:09:39
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That is what an advocate does. That is enough. That is, in fact, the highest thing a daughter or son can do for an aging parent. not take over, to stand beside them.
00:09:53
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So when you catch yourself saying, I am parenting my parents, I want you to pause and I want you to try this instead. I am advocating for my parent.
00:10:05
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Notice what happens in your body. Notice how it feels different. Notice how it locates you back in the relationship you actually have instead of one that does not exist.
00:10:20
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But there's another piece to this because for a lot of you, especially if you are the oldest daughter, there is a quieter contract underneath, the I am parenting my parents story.
00:10:35
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And until we look at it, we can't fully end the guilt.
00:10:41
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Let me tell you what I mean.
00:10:47
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So
00:10:49
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In my practice and in my coaching, I have noticed something. There is this particular kind of adult child who shows up over and over.
00:11:03
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She's usually the eldest. She is usually a daughter. If she's not the eldest, she is the most capable. If she's an and only child, she has the same shape.
00:11:15
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She's high functioning. She's competent. She has a job and a family and a calendar that is already to full.
00:11:24
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And when her parents start seeing help, well, she's the one who steps in. She does not step in because someone asked her. She does not step in because there was a family meeting and a vote.
00:11:39
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She steps in because nobody else is going to. And because she has been doing this her whole life.
00:11:50
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She was a second mother to her siblings.
00:11:54
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She was the one her own mother leaned on when there was a crisis. She was a responsible one. The one with the head on her shoulders.
00:12:04
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The one who could be trusted. I call this the eldest daughter contract. Look, it's not a real contract. Nobody signs it. But it is operating every day.
00:12:16
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and millions of families. And here's what it says. You are the one who handled it. You do not get to be tired. You do not need get to need help.
00:12:29
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You do not get to be the one who falls apart. You hold it together for everyone else. In exchange, you get to feel like the good one, capable one, the one who is loved because she is needed.
00:12:49
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The problem with the eldest daughter contract is that it does not have a renewal clause. Nobody ever asked you if you wanted to keep being the one who handles it.
00:13:03
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They just assumed and you just kept signing. And now your parent is aging and the contract is being invoked in ways you never agreed to.
00:13:14
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And you are exhausted and you cannot ask for help because The whole point of you is that you do not need help. Here's what I want to say to that woman.
00:13:28
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And I'm saying it's a psychiatrist and I am saying it as a daughter and I am saying it as someone who has watched a thousand families do this.
00:13:42
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You can tear up the contract. You can decide today that the role you played at 12 When you helped raise your siblings is not the role you have to play at 45 when your mother needs care.
00:13:58
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You can decide that handling it does not mean handling it alone. You can decide that being the responsible one does not mean being the only one. You can decide that loving your parent does not require erasing yourself.
00:14:17
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You did not sign this contract as an adult. You inherited it a child. And as an adult, you get to renegotiate. You get to say, here is what I will do.
00:14:28
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Here is what I will not do. Here's what I need for my siblings. Here's what I need for my parent. Here is what the relationship is going to look like going forward.
Shifting from Parenting to Advocating in Caregiving
00:14:42
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And that's not selfish. That is not abandonment. That is what a healthy advocate does. They define the role. They protect the relationship.
00:14:55
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They make it sustainable. They make sure they are still standing in five years because the job is not going to end anytime soon. So if you have been operating under the eldest daughter contract today is the day you get to put it down.
00:15:16
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And in the next part, I want to tell you exactly how.
00:15:26
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So how do we step out of the contract? right Here's what I want you to do in the next 24 hours. Step one, catch the phrase.
00:15:39
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Every time you hear yourself say or think I'm parenting my parent, I want you to stop stop and substitute, I'm advocating for my parent. Out loud if you can, in your head if you have to, just notice how often you say it.
00:15:57
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You may be surprised.
00:16:00
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Probably 10 times a day, maybe more.
00:16:06
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Step two. Write down the role you have been playing on one sheet of paper. Write down the role you have been playing in your family.
00:16:19
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Not the role you wish you played, the role you actually have. Who handles the medical appointments? Who calls the lawyer? Who picks up the prescriptions?
00:16:31
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Who manages the bills? Who deals with the emotional fallout when something goes wrong? Write it all down.
00:16:42
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And most of those things have your name on them. You are operating under a contract. Now you can see it.
00:16:54
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Step three, decide what stays and what goes. Decide which parts of the contract you want to keep and which parts you are done with.
00:17:07
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Some of you are going to keep almost everything because the rule suits you and you have the bandwidth. Most of you are going to find at least one thing on the list that does not have to be yours.
00:17:24
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Look, maybe it's the weekly call with the assisted living facility. Maybe it is being the one who tells your sister what is happening every week. Maybe it's being the only one who shows up to doctor's appointments.
00:17:41
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You get to choose. And the things you do not keep, you have to be willing to either ask for help with or let go of completely.
00:17:57
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And step four, have one conversation, not a family meeting, one conversation with one person it can be your sibling it can be your spouse it can be with your parents themselves tell them what you have decided use the word advocate do not use the word parent notice how it lands that's it four steps 24 hours
Key Reminders for Caregivers
00:18:28
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you do not have to fix the whole family system this week You just have to start the work of stepping out of a story that is slowly killing you. Because here's the truth.
00:18:39
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You can love your mother fiercely. You can show up for your father completely. You can be the most devoted, most capable, most reliable adult child in the world.
00:18:53
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And you can do all of that without parenting her, without parenting him. without erasing yourself, without playing a role that no human being can play.
00:19:06
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You are an advocate. You are a daughter, you are a son, you are an adult standing beside another adult in the hardest stretch of their life.
00:19:18
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That is enough.
00:19:21
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That has always been enough.
00:19:28
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So let's bring it home. Three things to remember. One, you are not parenting your parent. You cannot, okay? The category does not exist.
00:19:39
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What you are doing is advocating. You are standing beside another adult in a hard stretch.
00:19:50
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Two, if you are operating under the eldest daughter contract, the role you signed up for as a child You go ahead and tear it up.
00:20:02
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You do not consent as an adult. You get to renegotiate.
00:20:10
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And three,
00:20:13
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loving your parent does not require erasing yourself. The most sustainable, most generous version of this work is one where you are still standing at the end of it.
00:20:26
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That is the framework. That is the reframe. That is what ends the guilt. Not because the situation is easier, but because the role you have been playing was making it harder than it needed to be. this episode hit home, I have something for you.
00:20:54
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It's called the hard of conversation scripts. It's a free PDF I put together for adult children who know they have to have hard conversations with their parent or with their siblings, but do not know how to start.
00:21:15
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And it's the actual language, word for word for the conversations. Most families never have. until it's too late or in the middle of chaos, right? The conversation about power attorney, the conversation about what your parent actually wants, the conversation with your sister a brother about why you cannot do this alone anymore, the conversation with yourself about what you are willing to keep doing and what you are not.
00:21:52
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To get it, comment the word script on this episode on Instagram and we'll send it over to you instantly or check the show notes and the link is right there.
00:22:11
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These are the words I wish every adult child had before they tried to have these conversations. And now you can have them.
00:22:26
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Next week, I'm going to take this framework one layer deeper. I'm going to tell you about the five roles that show up in every caregiving family.
00:22:38
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The responsible one, the disappearing one, the critic, the peacekeeper, the dependent child.
Preview of Next Episode on Caregiving Roles
00:22:50
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You're going recognize every single person in your family by the end of that episode.
00:22:56
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And you're going to understand exactly why everyone is behaving the way they are.
00:23:04
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It's going to be one of the most clarifying conversations we've had on the show. Don't miss it.
00:23:12
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Until then, take care yourself and go advocate for your parent.