When Daughters Become the Therapists: A Mother and Counsellor Reflects

In my counselling practice, I often meet women who confide their pain to me — stories of marital discord, loneliness, and emotional isolation. Again and again, I notice a familiar pattern: when the partner is absent, either emotionally or physically, the mother turns to her daughter. Slowly, the daughter becomes her confidant, her comforter, sometimes even her mediator.

I cannot deny that I have lived this truth in my own home. I am a mother of two daughters, and there were times when they quietly slipped into that role between me and my husband. Whenever there was tension, he would sometimes ask them to step in, to mediate. And while I tried to avoid placing that weight on their shoulders, I could not always protect them from it. As a mother, I saw their maturity and wisdom; as a counsellor, I saw the danger. They were never meant to be our therapists.

Psychologists have a name for this: parentification. It happens when children take on responsibilities that belong to adults. Sometimes it is practical — like caring for younger siblings or helping to manage the household. But the more harmful kind is emotional — when a child becomes the listener, the supporter, even the partner-figure to a parent (Mayseless et al., 2004).

Daughters are particularly vulnerable. They are often more empathetic, more tuned into emotions, and more willing to shoulder burdens. When they are drawn into adult conflicts, they begin to absorb negative emotions that were never theirs to carry. The mother finds relief, perhaps even a sense of closeness, but the daughter pays the hidden price.

That price shows up in ways we cannot always see. Such daughters grow up believing that they are a burden, that their very presence causes distress, or that their worth comes only from keeping others stable. Later, as adults, they may struggle to trust men, resist intimacy, or repeat the same cycles of resentment they witnessed at home (Hooper et al., 2008). Others go in the opposite direction, rebelling fiercely, rejecting whatever their mother says, and trying to reclaim the self they lost in childhood.

I want to pause here and speak directly to mothers. Your daughter is not your therapist. She is not your spouse. She is your child. She may listen with patience, she may offer comfort, but she does not deserve to be the carrier of your wounds. If you are hurting, seek an adult space for that hurt — with friends, family, or a counsellor. Allow your daughter the freedom to remain a daughter.

And to daughters: if you recognise yourself in these words, remember this — compassion is your strength, but boundaries are your right. You can love your mother deeply and still refuse to carry her pain as your own. Her wounds are her lessons. Yours is to live authentically, wholly, and freely.

When I look back as both counsellor and mother, I realise that the healthiest moments with my daughters were never when they acted as mediators, but when they were simply allowed to be who they are: laughing, free, and unburdened. That is the true gift a mother can give — to protect her daughter’s right to her own life. And that is the message I carry into my counselling room: the bond between mother and daughter is sacred, but only when it is free from the weight of unspoken responsibilities.

References

• Mayseless, O., Bartholomew, K., Henderson, A., & Trinke, S. (2004). “I was more her mom than she was mine”: Role reversal in a community sample. Family Relations, 53(1), 78–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2004.00011.x

• Hooper, L. M., Marotta, S. A., & Lanthier, R. P. (2008). Predictors of growth and distress following childhood parentification: A retrospective exploratory study. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 17(5), 693–705. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-007-9184-8

• Schier, K., Herke, M., Nickel, K., & others. (2014). Long-term sequelae of emotional parentification: A cross-validation study using new measures. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(5), 1307–1321. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-014-9938-z