CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - For Everyone Who Had to Grow Up Too Fast

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Whitney explores parentification—what happens when children become caregivers, mediators, and "responsible ones" long before they're ready. Whitney shares research on how early caregiving shapes us, when it becomes harmful versus adaptive, and how to transform childhood survival skills into adult strengths without carrying the weight of obligation. She also breaks down the scene between Brittany and her estranged daughter on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles. Have a question for Whitney? Call in and leave a voicemail for the show at 866-225-5466 Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠ Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft ⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity Learn more about ad choices. Visit podcast.choices.com/adchoices This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. 00:16 Breaking down the estrangement scene on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City 13:27 What is parentification and why does it happen? 17:19 The adaptive strengths of parentification 22:11 The maladaptive consequences of early caregiving 25:48 Transforming survival skills into strengths you choose Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, welcome back to the Calling Home podcast. Today's episode is for everyone who had to grow up too fast. It's for the kids who became the caregivers, the mediators, and the responsible ones long before they ever had the chance to be children. Before we get to that, I have to talk about that scene between Brittany and her estranged adult daughter on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. I was watching the show while I was working out at like 7.30 in the morning and I was on the treadmill and this scene started happening and I was like, oh my gosh, I have to take notes. And I jumped off and sat down and was like furiously taking notes on this scene because it was so powerful. And if you listened to my recap and discussion of last week's episode of Real Housewives

with Salt Lake City and you can go back and listen to that one, I think it's titled like, the scene from Bravo that should be shown in graduate school, we talked about how this woman's friend had confronted her about this situation and expressed to her like, hey, you really need to prioritize your daughter. And then in this scene, we get to see her and her daughter come together. And Brittany ultimately expresses that it was like what a psychic said to her in the last episode where he was like, you need to prioritize this relationship with her and try that really changed her mind and like interesting but hey whatever gets you there girl i'm i'm happy that it had that impact and i want to say i think this mom did a good job i think she she really did do a good job

of listening validating trying to keep her emotions in check and trying to allow her daughter to have her experience and to talk about her experience so in this scene and this happens towards the last part of the episode. Okay. And it's the most recent episode of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Let me tell you exactly which episode is. It's season six, episode 10 out of gas. So they meet up at a coffee shop and it's very awkward when they hug and see each other. And I'm not sure who decided to have this on camera. I have some feelings about that. I don't know if it was the mom that really wanted to do this on camera or if they were really pressured by production to do that. I have mixed feelings about that, but I'm really grateful that they did

this on camera so that we can all see it and learn from it. And I appreciate them doing that. And I hope that it was legitimate and not like just for viewers or to be seen on camera and that they both felt like this was an honest interaction. So Brittany, the mother acknowledges that she needs to take a step back in her romantic relationships to focus on her daughter. And she mentions that seeing this psychic and talking to him gave her the courage to do that. And when they meet up, the mom kind of starts with this funny anecdote about her wanting coffee as a toddler. And I think she's really trying to just like make connection and have something that they can laugh about

and you can tell that there's some awkwardness between them and I kind of got the feeling of like the daughter just really wants to be able to share her piece and she doesn't want to do this whole small talk thing. And I have a strong feeling that we are not seeing all of this conversation because they are sitting in front of a window in this coffee shop and it's just getting like dramatically darker and darker, especially for the length of this conversation, the sun is going down quickly. So I imagine that there are parts of this that we did not see and things that were said,

but I'm hoping that we're really getting most of the important meet of this conversation. And Brittany, the mom, shares something really insightful that gave me a lot of insight into why she does what she does. And when we know the context, the behavior makes sense. It doesn't excuse it, but it makes it make sense. She talks about how after she got divorced from her children's father, from this daughter's father, that she desperately tried to create this perfect, happy family again. And I mentioned this in my last episode about the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City that I think

Mormon culture and the culture in Utah plays a huge role in this. women are definitely seen differently when they are not married. The family is looked at in a different light. And I think that sometimes when you're chasing perfection in that way, and that's how you see yourself is as being like someone who has a perfect family and who has built that, you try to get married again, to make that happen. And so she says that she got married again. And she was really caught between trying to be a perfect wife and a perfect mother. And I want to point out that this woman is trying to be a perfect wife to this man that married a woman with children. And this is like major red flag to me. Like I know that not everybody

wants to be a step-parent, wants to raise kids that are not, that they haven't been around since birth. But if you decide to do that, if you decide to marry a woman who has children, there is no world where she should feel like she's having to be pulled between her children and you, and like she's constantly losing. And so I immediately was like, what was he doing in all of this, you know, to contribute to that feeling? Because that sounds terrible. And she said something really interesting. She said, I can finally get to my kids when I'm this perfect wife. And so I imagine during this time, she's pointing out that she was probably a little bit neglectful or not as attentive as she used to be. She was spending most of her time trying to help her husband and do things for him and connect with him and be a really good wife, whatever that looked like in the context of their relationship.

And during this time where she's trying to be the perfect wife, her kids move out and they move in with her father. And she says, I failed miserably. And I really appreciated that she said that. I think it's a very, very hard thing to say as a parent to say on national television, on cameras even harder. I hope that it's genuine. And I don't think that it's important for her to believe that she failed all around, but for her to look at this situation and say, things must have gotten pretty bad for my

kids if they felt like they didn't even want to be around me during that time. And they thought going and living with their dad full time was better. And I think that this daughter that she's meeting with was around 12 when she got remarried. So these are like during the teenage years. And her daughter mentions during this conversation that she's like, my mom used to be an amazing mom. I know that she can be a loving mother. I know that's in her. And that's why it hurts so bad when she stopped doing all these things just because she found a man, right? And she says it was like someone flipped a switch in her brain, right? And she talks about how, like, no daughter doesn't want their mother. And she says something like, why would it be like, oh, I don't want a relationship with

my mom, just going to move in with my dad and have him talk to me about periods. Like, we're talking about a 13-year-old girl that felt like it was better, you know, to not have any contact living with her mom at this time and that she would be better off with her dad. And I think that says something, not that she couldn't have had a great relationship with her dad as well, but she was really saying, I can't be around mom right now. Like, it's not working. And she mentions, you know, kind of like in a joking way. She's like, do you remember the last time we tried to do this, as in like the last time

they tried to have a conversation, the two of them about the estrangement and about what was going on in their relationship? And she said, I came over to your house talking to her mom, the boyfriend that she has now came over. And you guys just started making out in front of me. It was like I wasn't even there. You didn't even look at me. And her mom says, like, I don't even know why that happened. And she's like, you know, I have been in the habit of choosing men for so long. And I thought this was really great that she said this. This is a form of accountability and recognition of, like I was making choices, choices that I thought were right. I thought that I needed to be the best

wife before I was the best mother. Like, she's acknowledging her conditioning and her belief system in the ways that she was making choices that hurt her kids. And I really like that she did that. And her daughter says, again, it's important that you take accountability and realize that I wanted a mom. Like, I wanted to be close to you. And this is where Brittany, the mother, you know, gets emotional and she's expressing confusion over not knowing how to make it better. But her daughter is very right in this moment. And this is what I think all parents who are having difficulty with their children in

adulthood or even teenage years need to do is figure out why this keeps happening so that it doesn't happen again. So if you know that you've been in the habit of kids, you know, that you've been in the habit of choosing men for so long. You consistently choose men over your daughter and you're sort of doing that on autopilot. It just comes naturally to you and then you wake up one day and you're like, whoa, why was I doing that? That needs to be investigated because what this daughter is saying and that I hear from so many other estranged adults is like, I'm scared of getting hurt again. I don't want you to do this to me again. So if I'm going to open up the door, I need to know that you,

you are trying to do something about this, that you're learning about why this happens and you are making the repair, right? And I think that that's a message that all of us should listen to anybody who has had relationship struggles in any type of relationship. If you keep doing something to hurt someone, we need to understand why that's happening so that you can interrupt the cycle before it happens again. And her daughter says one more thing that I think we should all really take to heart. And that is, I felt like it was me, like I was the issue. And she's talking about how she felt, you know, at 13, 14 years old, thinking like, what am I doing wrong that made my mom act this way? And this is something that I hear so often. I mean,

it's like on a loop in our groups about estrangement and adults who are estranged from a parent is like, what can I do better? What can I do different? What have I not done? How am I being annoying or difficult or a problem? Like this script really gets baked in for the child to blame themselves, see themselves as the problem and always be the one that needs to do the fixing. And I love what this mother did here. And I hope that all of you can see this and do it yourselves or see what this looks like in action is that she says it wasn't you it was me and those words are so powerful i don't think that they fixed everything in this conversation it wasn't all resolved it was on camera so i think that makes it a little bit dicey in terms of like how they're

both walking away feeling after this is very vulnerable and exposing and i think uh the daughter has every right to feel kind of guarded about what that might mean and what the next steps are from here, but I thought that this was just such a good conversation and lends into how these things can look when an adult is really sharing with their parent. This is how I feel. And the parent is still having some feelings, talking it through, but she did not, she did not jump on her daughter. She did not say, I was doing my best. Why are you so upset about this? I deserve love to. Like, she, she listened for the most part. She did. she did take some accountability. And I hope that there's more to come from that. But I think this is a

good example of what these early stages conversations can look like when you are dealing with something like this. So definitely go back and watch season six, episode 10 of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. It's about at least halfway through the episode and you will see that scene of them in the coffee shop. You can watch it on Peacock or through your cable provider on Bravo. All right. Now let's get into that conversation about parenthification. We are going to be talking all about parentification in the month of November at Calling Home. That is our next topic. So today I want to dive into the strengths that come from the experiences that you have when you are being parentified. And I'm not doing this as a way to say it was good that this happened and like to

kind of put this toxic positivity spin on it, but to recognize the remarkable adaptability that comes out of surviving something like this and also celebrate some of the good traits that you develop that I don't think you want to get rid of. And not everyone who is parentified gets impacted in this way where they develop a lot of strengths because as you'll see, there are a lot of factors here, including your temperament, your personality, what's happening at the time, the external support that you have. But for some of you, you did develop some traits that you enjoy and that you want to keep about it as part of yourself while also working on this parenthification. So you don't have to be grateful that you were parentified. You can hold these two

truths, okay? It was unfair and it shaped you into someone capable, insightful, and strong. let's talk about how parentified adults can use those same strengths now to create lives that are built on choice, not survival. This is how you survived during those moments where you were being parentified. Parentification, again, happens when a child is forced to take on adult roles. So emotionally, physically, or both that aren't appropriate for their age. That is the key. That is the key. e-phrasing here. You might have been the peacemaker, the confidant, the caretaker, the problem solver, or you might have learned early that your needs had to wait or they were not met at all. And you adopted these strategies because they helped you that. They helped you survive,

cope, get along, et cetera. You stayed quiet to keep the peace. You grew up fast because you had to. you became a good listener because someone in your family needed to be heard. And while none of this should have happened, these patterns show extraordinary adaptability. And many adults who were parentified report lasting traits in adulthood like maturity, practical competence, self-reliance, empathy, and resilience. And again, this doesn't mean that those were the only ways that you could have developed those traits or that they were the best ways. But these aren't random outcomes. They're usually a result of what we call adaptive consequences that develop when caregiving roles are taken on with some level of meaning, support, or acknowledgement. Let's talk about

those adaptive consequences. So parenthification can have both destructive and adaptive outcomes. On one side, we might see things like exhaustion, anxiety, perfectionism, or guilt. But on the other, we also see durable strengths like the ones I just talked about. There's research that shows that under certain conditions, like when the tasks are age appropriate, time limited, and validated, that taking on some of these types of tasks can foster maturity, responsibility, and emotional competence. So let's talk about some of these strengths. When we look at maturity and responsibility, these are typically people who are reliable decision makers, their good long-term planners, and they showed a lot of wisdom at a young age. And adults who assumed adult roles

early often describe maturity and responsibility as some of their lasting and biggest strengths. We also see these adults often have practical caregiving competence, and so they have confidence managing tasks, caring for others, and solving problems. These are skills that can be really good in a lot of different careers, right? And we see that some analyses of young carers link early caregiving to real-world task mastery, excuse me, and self-efficacy. You also might develop self-reliance and independence. This is where you feel capable and resourceful. And of course, this is one of those that can really go to the extreme. But there is a higher percentage of perceived independence among formerly preemptified adults. And we see that in retrospective samples.

There's also a lot of resilience and positive coping. So you have very adaptive stress management, good at problem solving, fewer risky behaviors. There's been some systematic reviews in the research that shows some parentified youth display strong coping when they are supported in adulthood. You also likely have great interpersonal competence and cognitive empathy, which means you're good at reading others, mediating, and perspective taking. Also great qualities for many careers and situations in life. and emotional parentification in the research predicted higher cognitive empathy in several studies.

And then the last strength that we often see is leadership and role adaptability. So these people take comfort leading, organizing, or taking initiative. And there's quantitative studies that tie family role taking to flexible role adaptation in adulthood. So even though parentification is something that is rooted in dysfunction, it can often leave behind this cluster of competence of emotional intelligence, caregiving skills, and maturity. And these are really powerful assets in your adult life when they are no longer driven by fear.

And they are things that you can tap into as skills out of choice. Okay. When kids take on adult responsibilities, they gain skills through repetition. Okay, so you might be doing things like cooking, scheduling, caring for siblings, managing crises, and over time, this creates mastery and confidence with those tasks. You also develop self-efficacy. So this is the deep internal belief that I can handle hard things. And I bet a lot of you that have been parentified as children have that belief, right?

Every time you solved a problem that especially the adults around, you couldn't even solve, you were building a sense of competence that can serve you now. Now, on the emotional side, acting as a listener or a mediator can strengthen emotional regulation and cognitive empathy. And one of the most important pathways is meaning making. So when children understood their caregiving as purposeful or appreciated, when they were told you're helping so much, thank you, those words became protective against any of those maladaptive consequences. Validation and acknowledgement help transform burden into pride. And so one example that comes up for me is there are a lot of you that maybe were very

instrumental in raising your younger siblings. Your parents were either working too much, they had issues that made them unable to be competent parents, and you were the one that was doing that. You may not have been getting that recognition from your parents, but maybe you were getting it from a sibling or from someone else in the family that really was recognizing, hey, you're doing a lot. You're really helpful. I love you. Thank you for coming to this. And that can help having that type of reinforcement and support that what you're doing matters in those moments. But researchers have also found that individual traits matter in this. So not everybody is going to be impacted by parentification the same. And some

people are not going to see the development of a lot of adaptive consequences. Some people will be overrun by this and only develop more of those maladaptive consequences. We know that people with proactive or resilient temperaments are more likely to turn those experiences into strength and well-being later on. So if you've ever wondered why some parentified kids will grow into like caretakers, therapists, helpers, teachers, leaders, this is why. And the same instincts that once protected your family, you are able to use in other ways. Now, I want to go deeper into whether parentification becomes adaptive or harmful.

And this depends on the context. there are several factors that make a huge difference. The first one I mentioned was validation or recognition. So when someone noticed your effort or said thank you, very protective. Having another supportive adult in your life. So a teacher, grandparent, coach, someone outside of your home who saw your needs, very protective. Obviously, the more age appropriate, the roles, the more the help matched your capacity, the better. When you have, have a five-year-old that is, you know, having to make their own meals every day and they don't know when the lights are going to be turned back on and their parent is completely unreliable

and not picking them up from school on time, that is a huge gap in terms of age appropriateness versus when we have maybe a 12-year-old that is getting themselves up for school and making their own breakfast. That's something that would be a little bit more manageable for them. Cultural framing is also important. In some cultures, children are very involved in caretaking, in work, in doing things for the community, and all of the children are involved. And this is something that is talked about, it's planned for, and it's integrated into the community. And that really helps versus your child being the only one that is expected to take on all of these tasks while also doing all of these other things. And there is no thoughtfulness behind that and no

integration. It's really just like thrown on them. That's different. Having external supports is also very important. So school, peers, therapy, community. And then the ability to make meaning and understand what's happening is huge. So again, a 12 year old is going to have much more of that skill set than a five-year-old or a three-year-old who absolutely cannot make sense of what is happening to them and what they are having to manage at such a young age. So these are some of the buffers that can kind of sway things one way or the other and help determine whether these caregiving patterns or these types of parentification become more of a force for negative.

like you're experiencing trauma, you have PTSD, all these maladaptive consequences, or your way over here and saying, I developed some really great traits and I feel like I was there for my family and I was able to be helpful and I take pride in that. The more of these protective factors that you have, the more likely you are to kind of be on that adaptive consequence end of the spectrum. So if you're listening to this and you've been told your whole life, like you're so strong, you're so dependable, you're so mature, I think that those words can feel good, but now they can become something that weighs you down. And we have to transform this into strengths that you use and not roles you have to play. And that's a big thing that we are going to be working on in November,

in the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home, if you would like to take this a step further. We're especially going to be doing a lot of that work in groups with me. As you heal and work on this, you get to choose what you take with you and what you leave behind. And this is the core of healing from parentification and moving forward in adulthood, that I want you to feel like you get to keep those strengths and release the obligation. You can keep your empathy without becoming the family. therapist. You can keep your sense of responsibility without taking on everyone's problems. And you can use your independence and your self-sufficiency without isolating yourself. You don't need to erase

who you became in order to heal. You just need to update the meaning and the drivers behind this behavior. You need to know that these are your strengths, but they're not the only meaningful, good, or important thing about you. And I think that's something that's so many parentified adults really need to hear, that this is not all of who you are. It's not all about what you do for other people. Parenthified adults often carry around this version of themselves that is like the adapted self. This is the part of you that's good at getting things done. You're responsible. You're resourceful. And I think that part deserves appreciation and not shame. You don't have to be upset at that part of you. And sometimes it's

helpful to say to yourself, like, you did a good job keeping me safe. You don't have to do it all anymore. Like, I've got this now. I am more than what I can do for others. I can build the life I want to have. I learned from my past and I get to choose what I do today. I hope in hearing all of this, you know that you don't need to be grateful that you were parentified, but you can be proud of the wisdom you gained from it, of the adult that you've become, and of the ways that you are helpful and resourceful and responsible today as an adult. Because those are your skills. Those are things that you did and you built and they have served you well and they can continue to serve you well, especially if you get to be in the

driver's seat of those skills and you are choosing them out of desire and competency rather than survival and fear and obligation. If this episode resonated with you, I would love to see you inside the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home in November. We're talking all about parentification, resilience, and how to care for the part of you that had to care for everyone else. You will get new content every Monday and you can join me for groups on Wednesdays. Thank you so much for listening. Please don't forget to subscribe, leave a comment, rate, review, all the above. And I will see you on Thursday for another episode of the Calling Home podcast. Thank you. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services,

mental health advice or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Colin Holm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Collingholm's terms of service linked in the show notes below.