This is a long post, but I do think it may be useful for some posters; if you think it may be relevant to you, do have a look.
With some regularity, there are posts on this board from stepparents (usually stepmums, but then the board is mainly used by women) who are concerned about what they feel might be an unhealthy relationship between their DSC (usually their stepdaughter) and the DSC’s father. These posts are invariably met with hostility from people who see it as an attack on the DSC. In at least some of these cases, it may be that the poster is observing one of the processess known as spousification or parentification. Having some admittedly non-professional experience with the situation, I am creating this thread to both present a corrective to some ignorance being bandied about on the board, and to offer some resources to posters who may find them relevant.
It appears that people are very uncomfortable with the therapeutic concepts of parentification, spousification, and parent-child boundary dissolution. I suppose they are tough ideas to grasp for some, and so they have decided that these concepts are the creation of bloggers, evil stepmothers, and quacks.
It is very unfortunate, since understanding the concepts, and making a careful judgement, assisted by a professional, about their application to a family’s situation, can make a world of difference for the child involved. It is also wrong to suggest that these concepts somehow “blame” the child; in fact, if nothing else, they surely present an alternative interpretation, based on the idea that the child is NOT to blame, but the family dynamic. This is a very positive idea, as with help and effort, that dynamic can be altered.
The terms used by professionals are parentification and spousification (I've never heard mini-wife except on here myself, and I don't think it is a useful term; there are also clearly a lot of fools confusing it with the actual therapeutic concepts). I am not a professional myself and do not claim to have a practioner's knowledge, but that of someone who has experienced it and read about it. When it was suggested to us that FST might be a good approach, and that DSD had been 'spousified', that was the first I really knew about it. I don’t claim to be an expert, and that is why I am mainly just going to provide resources so that people can do their own research, as I have done. I will add that my DH and I found support in dealing with the issue from Relate and also from a private counsellor, and that was very useful.
Parentification is a widely recognized therapeutic concept, describing a very real dynamic that affects bereaved or fractured families. Those who have identified it and built therapeutic models around it are not quacks or bloggers or people with a degree they bought off the internet. They are highly respected professionals
If I may be permitted to summarize the concept, and with apologies to the professionals - the main issue is that the healthy boundaries of parent/child are lost. The child is treated as a peer and partner, rather than as a child. This often means that the daughter (or son because that happens too) takes over the role of the mother in terms of companionship and decision-making. Many times she also takes over adult responsibilities, such as domestic duties and childcare. Obviously there are many teenage girls who do housework and look after siblings, but this is more than that. It is about the role within the larger family structure and the emotional demands upon the child. Sometimes this happens, for instance, when the mother dies and the daughter tries to fill the gap left behind, especially where the father is not able to adequately maintain boundaries or meet the kids' emotional needs himself because of his grief. It also can happen in divorce or even within intact families.
In other cases, the DSD does not take on the adult household responsibilities, but does take on the role of social partner, and is given inappropriate decision-making powers or included in age-inappropriate activities.
These children suffer from the dynamic, even though it is superficially very satisfying to them. They generally lack good peer relationships, and may suffer from excessive perfectionism; they often feel a great deal of stress and may blame themselves for things that are outside of their control. There may be a strong affect on their ability to have healthy adult relationships. It can be very damaging not just to the child, but to other children in the home, and of course to the adult relationships as well.