So many people reading my post about Fanny Price having rickets and i love to see people talking about the idea. One of the people who reposted it (@gcballet) got to talking in the tags about disability which is obviously a major theme in Mansfield Park (which makes sense given the number of chronically ill relatives Jane Austen herself had) but also mentioned Fanny's parentification in that book.
Which then got me thinking about parentification more broadly in Austen's works. And to be clear, I know some people think "Parentification" is a buzzword for "children being expected to help out" or "children being expected to be mature" or anything like that. It most certainly isn't, especially when used in a professional context, and it's not what I mean. Parentification is extremely unhealthy to a young person, and it can really screw with their sense of self, among other aspects of mental health it can do a number on.
Children forced to take care of their sick or mentally ill parents. Very young children being forced to take care of younger siblings before they have the knowledge and skills to do so. That is parentification and it shows up a LOT in Austen if you go looking. It was definitely a phenomena Austen was aware of and paints negatively, and whether she condemned it or not, I think she found it wrong just based on how she paints it.
Starting with Mansfield Park. Before moving to Mansfield, Fanny was helping her mother with the care of the house and all her siblings, despite being a small child herself (I've even seen speculation that part of the reason Mrs Norris might have suggested that they take in Fanny instead of any of the others is because it would be depriving Mrs Norris's hated sister of her most helpful/able child and and forcing her to take on all that extra responsibility herself). Then, when she gets to Mansfield, the physical labor may be less, but she's still a full-time babysitter to Lady Bertram: fetching and carrying and running errands and messages; arranging her sewing work so it will be easier to do; and just generally keeping her entertained, happy, and calm.
The way others see her is so strongly tied up in those duties that even her favorite (and most loving) brother William is convinced that her return to Portsmouth will magically make life in the Price household quieter and more orderly and comfortable than it has been since her departure a decade ago. Lady Bertram's desire to have Fanny back after Tommy's injury isn't about Fanny or Tom, but about her ladyship's personal comfort and peace of mind.
Fanny's not the only character to get that treatment to a greater or lesser degree, either. Susan Price becomes Fanny 2.0 both at Portsmouth and then later at Mansfield. She probably considers Mansfield a lucky escape, but she's still a child babysitting a grown woman (I am deliberately not getting into whether Lady Bertram was in any way disabled because an adult who needs a caregiver needs an ADULT one).
In Mansfield, it's not just the girls being parentified, either. I'm going to leave aside William Price being sent at 12 to undertake the life of a sailor (a very dangerous and uncomfortable life that left his father disabled and bitter). Children in hard, dangerous jobs is a different discussion to parentification. At that time, I doubt anyone saw that as anything other than an apprenticeship he was lucky to have landed, and there was no taking care of adults involved for him. If anything, he was (HOPEFULLY!) being taken care of and educated by the other adults on ship. At the very least, he doesn't seem to have been required to support his parents and siblings to any great degree (he probably does give some money to his parents, but he feels no guilty about using some of his money to buy Fanny what was probably a rather expensive amber cross.
But Edmund, despite living a much safer, easier life than Willian, does seem to have been stuck with more of a paternal role. When Sir Thomas leaves for Antigua, not only is it Edmund who is relied on to keep his siblings in check (including his elder brother who by the standards of the time should have been the de facto head of house and who got zero pushback for being an irresponsible wastrel instead), but he is the one his mother relies on to, among other things, deal with the servants (which may even mean he's directing his fathers stewards and by extension all the incoming and outgoing cash and possibly even some of his father's tenants as well). As silly as it seems for him to try to stop the others from having their play, he is the one who was left in charge. And, with everything else he would have had on his plate, he probably wished his aunt or mother would have put their foot down and saved him the hassle.
All this is part of the reason I've always said that one of the major themes of Mansfield Park is neglect. The younger generation are either left to run wild or forced to be the adults in the room. There is no in-between.
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But parentification shows up in other Austen books, too. Although i won't go on about them in quite as much length, I do just want to point out some obviously examples of it that occur to me off the top of my head. And I also want to point out that none of these make the parents in question bad people. I quite like some of the parents mentioned.
Sense and Sensibility: No hate for Mrs Dashwood because child parentification is not always the result of evil or neglectful children, but because Mrs Dashwood seems to think she lives in a romantic novel, 19 Elinor does most of the intellectual heavy lifting for the family, including reminding her mother that they live on a budget now, and trying to keep Marianne from setting her life on fire. When Marianne and Willoughby are making spectacles of themselves in front of the whole neighborhood and Mrs Dashwood finds it very sweet and harmless, it's Elinor who needs to remind her the risk to Marianne's reputation, trying to protect her sister in a way their mother should be. When Marianne wants to chase Willoughby to London, Elinor warns her mother against it. Her mother ignores her and things go to shit almost immediately. And it's Elinor there in London to pick up the pieces for her sister.
Pride and Prejudice: I won't be going in detail into my opinion on Mr Bennet (it is not high), but the one thing we can all agree, I hope, is that he didn't do much to take care of his kids. When his wife didn't bother to educate the kids, he didn't try to force her, and he didn't hire a governess or tutor. He actively encouraged his kids (and everyone else) not to respect his wife, and the result is that none of the kids listened to a thing Mrs Bennet said unless it was something they wanted to hear. This left the only two children he actually likes (Jane and Lizzie) to try to keep their younger sisters in check (Jane by example and advise, Lizzie by cajoling, and by trying to make her sisters and parents see reason). They do their best, bless them, but it is seldom enough. When Lydia wants to go to Brighton, Lizzie begs her father not to allow it. She knows Lydia will make a fool out of herself AT BEST and tells her father so. And Mr Bennet, contender for Father of the Year, flat out responds with "look, she's going to make an ass of herself at SOME point, at least this way she's doing it on someone else's dime where I don't have to watch" ... Cue Lydia running away with a serial seducer who fully intends to leave her ruined and alone and facing a life of prostitution. And when Lizzie tries to comfort her father over it later, his response was "yeah, you were right. i should have restrained her. but don't worry, i'll get over it" 🤦 Whatever you think about Mr and Mrs Bennet, Lizzie and Jane were the parents in that family.
Emma: So, in Emma's case, it's not a sibling she's taking care of, it's her own father. He's a sweet, loving old man without a mean or pushy bone in his body. And he is needy like a fretful toddler. I won't even get into whether there's actually anything wrong with his health or not because that's not really the point. The point is that for much of Emma's life, she's lived with a father who needs constant reassuring and cheering up, and the fact that she doesn't MIND consciously doesn't change the fact that that responsibility of hers has gotten so far into her head that she can never imagine leaving him, not even to marry. Her own sister thinks she'll never marry while their father is alive. By the end of the story, there's a compromise. Emma is allowed to get married, but the condition is that she stays at home and continues to be her father's fulltime caregiver while her husband moves in with them.
Persuasion: Much more subtle than the others (especially given her older age), and I know some people will argue that Anne Elliot isn't parentified. To that, I can only point out that after her mother dies, she spends literal years trying to remind her father to behave well and not overspend, all while trying to cope with her own heartbreak and the complicated business of growing up into her own person. When the family gets too far in debt, she once again leads the efforts to economize, even if she's ignored at every turn. When her adult sister, with a husband and servants gets sick, it's Anne who is expected to drop everything and look after her. She is always forced to be the voice of reason (a voice which is seldom heeded) and is always expected to look after everyone else, even an injured child whose parents are Right There. She has all the responsibilities of motherhood and none of the respect, (to borrow and heavily modify a line from another of Austen's novels).
Northanger Abbey & Lady Susan: None. Wait! None at all? In the two books featuring overtly evil parents? omfg 🤯
it's so much easier to not exist. to rot away. to waste your potential. because you can always say "well, it's not failure if I didn't try, right?" and in a way you don't have to face that you are failing, falling behind, because its not like you have anything real to compare it to. you don't have to face the anxiety of trying your best and failing anyway, of not being good enough. so you don't try in the first place. and that doesn't get rid of the bitter aftertaste in your mouth when you think of your future or who you could be, but it's still easier to not exist than to exist and having to face yourself with all your flaws
I did an NLP session with a friend about my mom’s death. She acknowledged that how I feel was very complex, that there were many moving parts and not one answer. She said let’s work on one part and see how I feel and how it changes. I told her I couldn’t feel my mom’s love, that I was so used to her expecting me to be perfect and help her, and that sometimes I was very afraid that I wouldn’t be…
happy mother’s day to myself and anyone else who raised themselves or their siblings. the things you sacrificed and the childhood you lost may or may not be recognized or validated by your family of origin, but i see you!!
it doesn’t have to feel like a celebration, it’s ok if it feels like grief today instead. but i see you and i love you and i am making you a cake and bringing you flowers for everything you’ve survived. we aren’t alone!
i cant believe my sister is getting her masters degree in clinical social work a week from today. T_T i remember when she was just a toddler who could only say the last two letters of my name. Now she's 23 and sass master supreme. What am I going to do, I feel like crying (not in a bad way). She's all grown up and I'm so proud of her. I would literally die for her, she is my everything.
"omg you're 28 say goodbye to your youth!!" i've spent my childhood listening to my mom rant about the side chick my dad was fucking like i was gonna call her and tell her to stop it or something. i spent my teenage years with my bones mysteriously aching and my skin burning randomly and every time i had a period i felt like my soul was leaving my body. what is this Youth you talk about
