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Help and advice for carers
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Tool 41 · Develop yourself
What happens when the child becomes the carer?
A guided 18 to 22 minutes conversation, here in TAIU. This exercise does not assume the change is a loss. It does not decide what anybody else in your family should do.
Do you miss the doing, or being the one who does it?
Both are honest answers. They are not the same problem. They do not have the same solution.
Most of what feels like ending is actually reshaping. Give it a season before you decide.
What you'll look at
- 01The role as it was
- 02What has changed
- 03What others have said
- 04What you still do
A note from Mark
Roles in a family are mostly invisible until they move. People describe themselves as the provider or the peacemaker without ever listing what that actually meant week to week. The list is where the interesting material is.
The question I keep coming back to is whether somebody misses the work or misses the standing. Both are legitimate. They lead to entirely different conversations. Only one of them can be solved by finding something else to do.
The other thing worth saying is that these changes are usually the intended outcome. Children becoming independent is the whole point. That does not make it painless. Being pleased and sad at the same time is a normal way to feel about your own success.
Read my full view ↓
I would also be careful about acting quickly. A role in transition looks like a role that has ended for about a year, and then it settles into something different that nobody could have predicted from the middle of it.
What you'll get
This will not sort you into a personality type.It will give you answers about your own life that you can test.
01
Role against identity
02
Changed against unchanged
03
What others want
04
One honest step
+
Your TAIU handover: a summary of what the conversation found, written so you can take it with you.
See everything included ↓
- 01What you came here with
- 02The role as it was
- 03What has actually changed
- 04What has not changed
- 05Role, identity and habit
- 06What the other people appear to want
- 07The rival reading
- 08What deserves protecting
- 09The credible alternative
- 10What this exercise cannot decide
- 11What remains unresolved
- 12Where this goes next
When you finish
Bring it back to your tree.
Your tree is where TAIU keeps a picture of your whole life, in parts like work, money and health.
At the end, the conversation asks how Family and belonging feels for you right now, in your own words. It also asks what, if anything, would feel different. Nothing changes on your tree unless you say it changes.
The conversation writes this summary for you. Keep the sheet, print it or paste it into My Tree. Nothing from the conversation is stored by TAIU.
- Session
- Date
- The part of life this belongs to
- How you described it
- What would feel different
- What we found
- The alternative we tested
- What deserves protecting
- What should change, if anything
- Next actions
- What to notice or find out
- What remains unresolved
What now?
01 · Save it
The role described in behaviour rather than in status.
02 · Test it
Ask one person directly what they want from you now.
See more ↓
What I would do
- 01
Describe the role in tasks before you describe it in words like provider or carer.
- 02
Write down what has not changed. It is usually longer than the other list.
- 03
Ask somebody what they actually want from you now rather than deciding.
- 04
Notice whether you miss the doing or the standing.
- 05
Give it a season before you conclude anything permanent.
Test it
- 01
What did the role actually consist of, in tasks?
- 02
What has stayed exactly the same?
- 03
Do you miss doing it, or being the person who does it?
The alternative
The expected conclusion is that something has been taken away. Two alternatives are often stronger. You may be grieving the standing rather than the relationship, which is uncomfortable to say and much easier to work with once it is said. Or the role may not have ended at all, only changed shape, and you are still performing the old version of it because the habit has outlasted the need. Occasionally the finding is straightforward relief that the user has not felt able to admit to.
Think about this
- What the role actually consisted of, week to week.
- When you last did the thing that defined it.
- What has changed, and what has stayed exactly the same.
- What you still do that nobody has asked for.
- Who else has picked something up.
Take this to Ask Mark
You have done the exercise. Now look again at what it found.
This looks at what you found and helps you understand it. It is not another exercise to repeat.
Take this to Ask Mark →Go a little further
READ · BOOK
Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes
William Bridges
Read this if something has already ended and you are embarrassed that you still have no idea what comes next.
Read more ↗
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READ · BOOK
Fault Lines
Karl Pillemer
Pillemer's research on family estrangement and repair, based on interviews with hundreds of families rather than on theory.
Read more ↗
Was this useful?
Recommended by the TAIU community
What helped you?
If you've read, watched, listened to or tried something that helped you think about this differently, we'd like to hear about it.
We review recommendations before sharing them with the community.
Finished the exercise?
What did this uncover?
Tell us whether it helped and what you discovered. It takes less than a minute.
Next tool
What does my family need from me
If you are not sure what anybody actually wants now
Before you start
Reading, if you would rather understand the question first.
Further thinking
Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes
William Bridges
The Generative Society
Dan McAdams and Ed de St Aubin
Intergenerational Solidarity and the Structure of Adult Child–Parent Relationships
Merril Silverstein and Vern Bengtson
See the thinking ↓
Book
Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes
William Bridges
Bridges separates change, which is the external event, from transition, which is the slower internal business of letting go of who you were while it happens. His most useful claim is that the empty middle stretch is not a failure to move on. It is the part of the process where the next thing actually gets worked out, and rushing it usually produces a decision you reverse later.
Book
The Generative Society
Dan McAdams and Ed de St Aubin
McAdams has spent a career on generativity, the concern for establishing and guiding the next generation. His work shows it is not confined to parents and not confined to later life, and that people who have it tend to tell a particular kind of story about themselves. Useful for locating contribution you already make and have never counted.
Article
Intergenerational Solidarity and the Structure of Adult Child–Parent Relationships
Merril Silverstein and Vern Bengtson
The study that separates affection, contact, obligation and practical help instead of treating family closeness as one thing. Useful when a role changes but the relationship does not.
Book
Fault Lines
Karl Pillemer
Pillemer's research on family estrangement and repair, based on interviews with hundreds of families rather than on theory.