Hierarchy
Hierarchy is one of the parameters of the family system designed to establish order, determine belonging, authority, power in the family, and the degree of influence of one family member over others. One of the principles of hierarchy is that parents are responsible for their children and hold all authority within the nuclear family. In this article, I want to explore some deviations from this norm and their consequences.
Triangulation
Triangulation is an emotional process between two people that tends to involve a third party. In a dysfunctional family with blurred internal boundaries, parents may sometimes make their children emotional partners. This inverted hierarchy places the child on equal footing with the parent. An example is the “daughter-friend” dynamic, where the mother interacts with her daughter as equals, like partners or friends, which leads to psychological discomfort for the child and role confusion, weakening the child’s emotional strength. Normally, a child’s energy should be directed outward, toward social interactions with peers, friends, and siblings.
For instance, if a mother shares details about her troubled relationship with the father, it can cause inner turmoil in the child. When a mother becomes her daughter’s “friend,” it diminishes her authority in the daughter’s eyes, causing the daughter to involuntarily align emotionally with the father. Hearing negative things about one parent is distressing for the child, often leading her to distance herself from the mother. The same happens when one parent forms overly friendly, peer-like relationships with a son.
What Children Should Not Know About You
When discussing excessive openness with children, it’s important to outline what children should not know. They should not be aware of intimate details or secrets of their parents, especially regarding sexual relationships. Metaphorically speaking, “the door to the marital bedroom should remain firmly shut for children.” Yes, children know that this door exists, and that’s enough. Children should also not know about their parents’ premarital romances or relationships. Sharing such details undermines the father’s authority and turns the children against the parent who overshares. The same applies to fathers—children should not know about their father’s premarital relationships. If a previous marriage occurred, it’s appropriate to simply acknowledge its existence without going into details to avoid causing anxiety in children or making them question the stability of their parents’ relationship.
Now, let’s return to hierarchical violations in the family system.
Parentification
The term “parentification” comes from the English word “parents.” It literally means that children functionally become parents to their own parents. This form of inverted hierarchy often occurs in cases of alcoholism or drug addiction in one or both parents. For example, if the father is chemically dependent and there is a son in the family, the son often replaces the father for the co-dependent mother. In such a family, both parents are often infantilized, forcing the child to become the only adult, responsible for the family’s well-being and balance. The child makes decisions and sets rigid boundaries, such as keeping the father’s addiction a secret by forbidding visitors and not sharing family problems with anyone. Such a child typically has no friends and leads a closed, “adult” life. This is an inverted hierarchy where the child holds a higher status than the parents.
Another example of parentification occurs when a mother dies early, and a daughter functionally replaces her, ceasing to be a daughter. She takes on many household tasks from a young age, caring for her father and supporting him. Having never fully embraced the role of a daughter, she often becomes a “functional mother” to her husband when she grows up.
Hierarchical Violations in the Sibling Subsystem
Hierarchical violations in the sibling (children’s) subsystem occur as a result of parentification. When the eldest child takes on responsibility for the parental subsystem, they also take responsibility for the children’s subsystem (younger siblings). Another scenario arises when there is no hierarchy within the children’s subsystem—no leader and no follower, with older and younger children treated equally. This can happen when one parent exerts authoritarian control over the children, forming an alliance with the children’s subsystem, thereby weakening the other parent.
An example: a father spends a lot of time with his sons of different ages (playing sports, chess, fishing) without distinguishing between the older and younger, while the mother is left out of their activities. The mother, feeling weakened, resents the father-son coalition and seeks to form her own alliance, possibly with her parents or a therapist.
It’s worth noting that, along with dysfunctional parent-child alliances, there are also healthy “horizontal” coalitions—those within the family between spouses and between siblings.
A Message to Parents
Dear parents, when you “befriend” your children, complain to them about your adult problems, or show your inability to cope with your own losses and failures, when you patch the holes in your loneliness with your child’s emotional support, or expect them to cover for your painful habits—when, driven by selfishness, you blame your child for being ungrateful or demand attention or sympathy in return for “sleepless nights”—know that by doing so, you deprive your child of not only a parent, but also their life. While your child is tending to your adult needs, they are not living their own childhood (or adult) life. Be aware of this. Take care of yourselves and your loved ones!