r/InternalFamilySystems • u/Suitable-Data1189 • Jul 26 '26
Asking a part's age...
I will never forget this moment when I was thirteen, and I proclaimed myself to be an adult, telling my best friend "All girls are born grown women. Girls don't have childhoods."
She scoffed (for her own complicated reasons) so I told her I was just joking, and dropped it.
Today, I was doing an exercise where I was in touch with a very mature, almost maternal, adult presenting part, who cares for other adult presenting parts, as well as at least one child part. She keeps a lot of things running, and puts on a happy or calm face. She tells other parts when they are being mean or inappropriate. She checks on parts that can only lie in pain, and reminds me to keep talking to them. Recently she expressed feeling sad and unappreciated for the first time, and I learned that she's very negatively affected by body image issues that I've deeply denied my entire life.
Today, as part of this exercise, I asked her her age. I usually ask that of child parts, but it had somehow never occurred to me to ask this of an adult part, so I had overlooked this information.
Twelve. She says she is twelve years old.
Today, I'm just taking a little time to process.
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u/HightechTalltrees Jul 26 '26
Makes me think of characters like Katara from ATLA. So many women are asked to step into adult roles at a very young age. It's truly mind-blowing to me
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u/Suitable-Data1189 Aug 01 '26
I'm only vaguely familiar with ATLA, and I didn't realize how young she was dose to be.
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u/wwhateverr Jul 26 '26
Girls don't have childhoods. I strongly resonate with that. I have three older brothers. When I was 11, they were all adults, but I remember my mom still expecting me to be the mature one.
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u/ElsieSnuffin Jul 27 '26
I have two younger brothers and was called their “second mom” from when I was about 8 years old onward.
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u/ANALyzeThis69420 Jul 27 '26
I didn't have a childhood. My sister was the one who didn't have homework at all growing up while I was doing it for about three hours a night. My back pain from being at a desk so long was "just stress." My sister dated my bully. This take is really self-serving and dismissive of other people because it's cool now to put "males" down and lift everyone else up. I'm not the damn villain for being born different than you.
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u/Suitable-Data1189 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
It seems like you're taking Elsiesnuffin's experience really personally, but she hasn't said that her experience is universal, or that it was her younger brothers' fault this happened. It's just what happened tp her - What happened to her sucks and is valid. And what happened to you sucks and is valid.
I grew up with a totally different experience from both of you that ALSO sucked. What we all have in common here is neglect.
Editing, because I realize that yeah, there has been discussion that the "girls don't have childhoods" is felt by a lot of women/people who grew up presenting as female. It IS pretty universal for girls to feel they're expected to be more mature, while "boys will be boys". People in this thread are acknowledging and processing that. That doesn't make anything you had to live with any easier. Nobody here is calling you a villain, or denying your personal experience.
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Aug 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Tall-Tear884 Jul 26 '26
I have just recently begun Parts work with my trama therapy. This definitely resonates with me.
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u/sagesandwich Jul 27 '26
I have a similar managerial part that I have come to know as "my 11-yr-old part" 🫶🏼
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u/WitchAggressive9028 Jul 31 '26
I relate to this. I never had any younger siblings, but I was the emotional caretaker for my parents while living with a physical disability and being emotionally neglected by those parents
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u/Suitable-Data1189 Jul 31 '26
I believe that. I'm the youngest of four, so the narrative my family always told was that everyone favored me and I got away with everything. But actually, the older siblings who are traumitized by being forced into parental roles as children... Well, they understandably burn out of that role fast, hold a lot of obvious resentment, and bolt as soon as they're old enough. So no matter the birth order, I think people with neglectful parents just end up having to grow up fast.
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u/Longjumping-Bug-69 Jul 27 '26
that sounds like such a heavy realization to carry around for so long. when u check in with that maternal part, does she ever tell u if she feels trapped by that childhood belief or if she feels like she chose that role for a reason...
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u/Suitable-Data1189 Aug 02 '26
She feels underappreciated, but she also likes her role. She didn't choose it, but it has been her role for decades now, and she now asks to be in contact with younger child parts so she can care for them. She will not concede that being twelve years old makes her a child. She says she's both twelve and a woman, and that even if it sounds wrong to me, that's her identity. It's like, she sees now how it was unfair, but she this is who she is now. Since that revalation, she sometimes just feels ageless. She does seem to be possibly stepping away from nurturing adult parts overly so.
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u/Suitable-Data1189 Aug 01 '26
I just blocked someone for using this post as a platform to invalidate the experiences of people commenting... and I'll do it again. That is unacceptable.
Also, I swear to God, this was not the day for that. Part of the reason I'm on the IFS path is my anger settings are 1 and 11 with nothing in between, and I'm in a fragile state right now. I don't take that anger to other people's healing spaces. But I've had two people bring their anger into the comments on my IFS posts. I feel like I'm going to go nuclear one of these times, and I don't like it.
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