You get a call to tell you that the fence at home has collapsed. Then just days later, it’s another call, but this time to let you know that the urn and heater don’t switch on after the last bout of loadshedding.
But what are you to do with this information when you live in a different province?
Not even the thousands of kilometers between families and their eldest daughter will stop them from reporting every bit of inconvenience.
Drum speaks to experts about this phenomenon that leaves many first-born daughters feeling like the deputy parents in their families.
Mandisa Ndabula, a Rhodes University psychologist says there are advantages and disadvantages to the being the deputy parent.
“In most instances, it helps you mature or grow up faster than you counterparts. It can teach leadership and responsibility. It can also teach you to express yourself, even to those that are older than you.
“On the flip side, it can be linked to black tax, it can cause you to struggle when you have to follow someone else’s instructions. It can be too much responsibility, that isn’t even yours. People end up sacrificing their own happiness for others, which can cause resentment. Younger siblings make not learn to take responsibility because there is always someone there to pick up the slack.”
Mandisa describes this as “an over reliance of the deputy parent, which boarders on toxicity.”
“People tend to abdicate their own responsibility to make decisions for themselves. But as people we need to learn to communicate our demands and expectations. There needs to be a balance between taking responsibility or assisting the family and taking care of yourself.
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“There are some people who may enjoy this kind of behavior, and that may come from an insecure part of them that wants to be needed.”
Unisa’s Dr Joshua Ndlela, a student counsillor who is also in private practice says it is wrong and toxic for roles to reverse between parents and their children.
“Everyone has their role in the family. Parents must provide guidance and support. The parents should give, and the children should get.
“But we do see a toxic thing called parentification. It is actually a dysfunctional condition. It is when the traditional roles are reversed. It includes overt behaviours like shouting, belittling and also covert behaviours.”
He says this often happens when parents are no longer able to do things for themselves, and the expectation then falls on the oldest sibling to take the parental role.
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“It can create animosity between the siblings. If it were a functional relationship, all the siblings would step up in different areas once the parents become incapacitated. But once all that responsibility falls on one person while everyone’s lives continue, then it is a problem.
“There is a definitely a correlation between black tax and parentification. People then have pressure to do things sometimes they are not in a position to do. Then they, without the other family members, ask themselves questions like ‘if I don’t do it, then who will’. They are raised or groomed to think that way.
“Some parents are aware of what they are doing, and others are not. This can result in people being bullies, being what society calls control freaks and them always wanting to have the last word. It can trickle over to romantic relationships or even professionally, because someone thinks that because they are in charge at home, then they are in charge everywhere else too."
