Adult children: the secrets of dysfunctional families

The Do-er
The Do-er does a lot of things. The Do-er provides most or all of
the maintenance functions in the family. The Do-er makes sure the
kids are dressed and fed. The Do-er pays the bills, irons the shirts,
cooks dinner, takes the kids to baseball practice and violin lessons.
The Do-er does a lot. But because it is a dysfunctional family, that's
about all that the Do-er has the time or energy to do. So the Do-er
feels tired, lonely, taken advantage of, neglected and empty. But the

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Do-er gets a lot of satisfaction out of being so accomplished at his
or her tasks, and the family encourages the Do-er either directly or
indirectly. And the Do-er's own unhealthy guilt and overdeveloped
sense of responsibility keeps him or her going.
The Enabler/Helper/Lover
The Enabler provides all of the nurturance and sense of
belonginghess in the family. Sometimes this person is also the Do-
er, and sometimes not. For the Enabler/Helper/Lover, keeping
everyone together, preserving the family unit at any cost (including
physical violence or even death) and trying to smooth out ruffled
feathers and avoid conflict is the ultimate goal. Fear of
abandonment and fear that other family members cannot stand on
their own two feet are what often motivates this role.
The Lost Child/Loner
As identified by Wegscheider-Cruse, The Lost Child deals with the
family dysfunction by means of escape. But actually, in a sense,
this child (or parent) is taking care of the family's needs for
separateness and autonomy. This is the child who stays in her room
a lot. Or is the one who is out in the woods, playing by himself. He
or she is alone, but it is not a healthy aloneness. It is a deep
loneliness that pervades those who have this role.
The Hero
The Hero provides self-esteem for the family. He goes to law
school and becomes an internationally-known attorney, but secretly
feels awful because he has a sister in a mental hospital and a
brother who has died of alcoholism. But he carries the family

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banner for all the public to see. He makes the family proud; but at a
terrible price in terms of his own well-being.
The Mascot
Often one of the younger children, the Mascot provides the humor
and comic relief for the family. He or she gives the family a sense
of fun or playfulness, of silliness and a distorted type of "joy".

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The cost to the Mascot is that his or her true feelings of pain and
isolation never get expressed, and he remains an emotional cripple
until he gets into a recovery program of his own.
The Scapegoat
The Scapegoat gets to act out all of the family's dysfunction and
therefore takes the blame and "the heat" for the family. He gets
drug addicted or steals, is the "black sheep", gets in a lot of fights,
acts out sexually, etc. The family then gets to say, ''If little brother
weren't such a delinquent, we'd be a healthy family." The cost to
the Scapegoat is obvious.
Dad's Little Princess/Mom's Little Man
This role, as we will discuss later, is a severe form of emotional
abuse which many professionals call emotional or covert incest.
This role feels good to a child, who gets to be "a little spouse" to
one of the parents in the system. This child does not get to be a
child, though, and is actually seduced into the role by a parent who
is too afraid and too dysfunctional to get his needs met by another
adult. Those of us who were given this role usually wind up getting
physically or emotionally abused by others in our adult
relationships, because our boundaries were not respected when we
were little.