Promotion to Parent

Note: these aren't their parents.

Bailey: Who died and put you in charge of this family, anyway? Charlie: Mom and Dad. —Party of Five

A side effect of Parental Abandonment that occurs when the trope applies to siblings. The first born child in the family (who can be either a brother or a sister, as gender deals don't seem to count a lot in this particular scenario) takes over the role of parent - making the rules, setting curfews, delivering lectures, and bringing home the paycheck. They may be doing the parents' job, but they are still a brother or sister to everyone else, and will probably get into conflict with their siblings over how much power they should have and how much respect they deserve, depending on the ages of the younger ones, and the status of the original parents (i.e. missing/dead/villains...). The parents may have even specifically asked their eldest child to Take Care of the Kids.

On a positive note, the sibling-parent is usually within the Competence Zone, and will be understanding if you have to Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World. If they get Trapped in Another World themselves, they'll expect to be fully responsible for their charges' safety, even to the point of Heroic Sacrifice. Becoming a sibling-parent often makes a child Wise Beyond Their Years.

Truth in Television, although it's more common on the frontiers of civilization and when families were larger and more spread out in ages. (Westerns make use of this a lot.) Sometimes the oldest kid of a one-parent family tries to take some responsibility off the parent too, and at others an old enough second sibling attempts to help the eldest as well.

If this takes place on a society-wide level, it's a Teenage Wasteland: the strongest of the survivors, where "strongest" usually equals "oldest", end up taking the younger survivors under their wings, forming pseudo-familial units in which the older kids are the "parents" and the younger ones are "children". Smaller-scale versions include the plane crash that strands a family while killing or incapacitating the parents and the Neverland scenario, in which a bunch of kids have run away from home or are otherwise isolated.

In some rare instances, there are still adults around but children get drafted as a Parental Substitute because of some combination of importance, dangerousness and difficulty. This is generally because only those of "pure heart" or some such can do it, and adults are too corrupted--code for "sex makes you evil," by the way--and thus this variant is most likely to have the cut-off be puberty. It's kind of the opposite of the Puberty Superpower, with plenty of angst as the kids age towards the cut-off and/or their ability to perform their job wanes with increasing age.

This trope can also apply to adults. For instance, when someone childless (likely a man) finds out of the blue that he has a child he didn't know about. This usually can range from the traditional accidental conception ("I'm your daughter/son.") to the clone. Another way would be when a woman finds out she is pregnant and has to step up to being a parent whether or not she is ready for it yet. Still another, when a swinging bachelor / bachelorette uncle/aunt is unexpectedly saddled with guardianship of a nephew/niece.

This trope is almost always present in a Badass and Child Duo.

See Children Raise You for cases when a kid have to play parent to an "adult" (using the term loosely enough). Compare to Big Brother Instinct.

Examples of Promotion to Parent include:

Subpages

• Anime and Manga
• Film
• Literature
• Live-Action TV
• Video Games
• Real Life

Other Examples

Comic Books

• In Captain Atom #56, it is revealed that after his father left when he was five, and his mother became an almost totally nonfunctional alcoholic, Nathaniel's sister Peggy Ann took care of him and raised him, even though she was only a couple of years older than he.
• In Fantastic Four, Susan "Sue" Storm was this to her brother Johnny when they were growing up.
• In Impulse, Impulse's friend Carol is being raised by her adult brother after their parents died in an auto accident.
• Empress in Young Justice gets "promoted" to parent when her parents are turned into babies and she has to take care of them.
• Rory and Pandora Destine of ClanDestine were raised by their brother Walter and sister Florence (posing as their uncle and grandmother respectively). This seems to be standard procedure for the Destines; one of the grown-up siblings mentions that he was also raised by an older brother, and even when the family's Disappeared Dad returns, he doesn't take over as the kids' guardian.

Fan Fiction

• In the Dangerverse series, Hermione's parents are killed by Voldemort when she's still a baby, and she's raised by her big sister, Danger.
• This happens with Satsuki and Nui (mostly the former) in Cellar Secrets. In light of Rei's suicide, their mother being committed and living in the care of a mental hospital before later on dying of a terminal illness, and the fact that their father died years ago, the sisters have to play a caregiving/parental role to their Wild Child little sister Ryuuko. Unlike some examples, they do have some help in the form of Aikurou on the side.
• One More Time, One More Chance has Satsuki making an effort at this and goes about some parental motions, after getting custody of Ryuko.
• In The Outside, we have this happen three times to Ryuuko in light of her father's death and her mother's decade-long absence:
  • Earlier, we have Satsuki, who is Ryuuko's guardian, however, this is deconstructed as she's, agoraphobia and poor health aside, no more mature than Ryuuko is and isn't too capable a guardian, which gets Ryuuko removed from her care.
  • Later, Shiro starts to play this role and he really plays this to a hilt when he tends to give Ryuuko lectures in much the vein a father would.
  • Periodically, we have Nui playing something of this (despite being younger) because, due to being sheltered, Ryuuko is more naive than she is.
• In Kill la Kill AU, we have a preteen Satsuki, with her mother living at a special care facility and her father working constantly. She does note how difficult this can be, especially with the thought of her sisters being taken away from her. However, sadly, the stress of this is what turns her ill girl.

Tabletop Games

• In the Backstory of Warhammer 40000, after the Emperor's incarceration in the Golden Throne, his son Roboute Guilliman was essentially promoted to be the new Emperor until Guilliman himself was mortally wounded. Guilliman also assumed the role the Emperor had to the other Primarchs, attempting to tell them how to behave, how to lead their legions, and what to do in general, though he was arguably unsuccessful in this latter role.
  • Before that, favoured son Horus curried favour with the brothers the Emperor ignored, including Konrad Curze, Alpharius and Mortarion, who ended up supporting his rebellion.
• In Bliss Stage, the Authority Figure is literally the only person over 18 still conscious. Since they usually manage to stay awake through a combination of "drugs, stress, and mental illness," they're not the ideal parents.

Theatre

• In The Most Happy Fella, Marie has been mothering her older brother Tony since their real mother died.

Web Comics

• Snickers from Namir Deiter after Mrs. Namir runs away (although she wasn't exactly June Cleaver to begin with), especially after Twix comes along.
  • Also, after Blue runs away, she's found and raised by her half-sister Roxanne.
• Vandi, of What Birds Know, is forced to care for her twin baby brothers after their mother goes into a coma after a difficult childbirth. The story makes it very clear that this is what changed her from a carefree girl into the responsible, serious person she's become.
• When their parents died, Sara from Alone in A Crowd was forced to put her life on hold to look after her sister Faith.
• In Homestuck, Dave's Bro plays it straight while John's Dad is simply a Single Parent, with no insight into the rest of their respective families. Later, thanks a complicated series Ectobiology Shenanigans and Weird Timey-Wimey Ball Shit, we learn that Dave's Bro is his biological clone-father, John's Dad is his genetic half-brother and his grandmother is actually his biological clone-mother, and John is unwittingly responsible for cloning both the parents and the kids just before they all got launched throughout time and space to become those very people.
• Strays Meela's backstory --until her brother got killed.
• Wooden Rose' Lillian has been a second mother to Nessa.
• In Dubious Company, Gary is this to his "little" brother Marty, from what little is known about them. Nonspecific Evil Mage #157675 learned the hard way what kinds of powers Gary gained from the role.
• El Goonish Shive had Nioi briefly becoming a caretaker for her Dewitchery Diamond "clone" Kaoli - the latter presumably got a copy of her knowledge just like Ellen to Elliot, but there was also the whole "soul younger than body" matter to sort out.

Web Original

• In Thalias Musings, twins Apollo and Artemis became this to each other when Zeus took them from their mother. Artemis appointed herself Apollo's legal guardian.

Western Animation

• During the first season of Transformers Animated, Bulkhead and Bumblebee seemed to have a sibling relationship with Sari. After her father disappeared, they started moving into more of a parental role--or at least they tried.
• In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Katara took on this sort of role in looking after her family after her mother died. Her brother Sokka even highlights this at one point in Book 3, talking to Toph about how whenever he tries to picture his mother's face, Katara's is the face he sees.
  • A notable case, since Katara is actually the younger sibling, though Closer to Earth. Even when she and Sokka leave the South Pole, she becomes the Team Mom.
  • It was zigzagged around in the first few episodes, since Sokka was pretty adamant about the duty that Hakoda gave to him: taking care of his little sister.
• The Legend of Korra: Mako took care of his younger brother Bolin while the two of them were growing up on the streets, and is still fiercely protective of him.
• Their parents are alive and well in Danny Phantom, but Jazz relegated herself as the "parent" to Danny for a number of years. Fearing that her parents were too incompetent and obsessed with their ghost hunting that would in turn traumatize her naive, scared younger brother, Jazz served as a crutch and guidance to ensure his growth. In some ways it worked, but half the time he's irritated with her too-mature behavior. It works out in the end when Jazz realizes that she underestimated her parents' love and devotion to their children and that Danny's doing a fine job standing on his own two feet. With it, she, too, learns to let go and enjoy her given age.
• On Invader Zim, Dib sometimes seems to feel this way towards Gaz, since their father is always working and their mom may or may not have ever even existed. Fanon tends to exaggerate this a bit, however; for the most part, Gaz is self-sufficient, and Dib seems to know it.
• Lt. Green in the original Captain Scarlet, according to promotional material.
• When Goliath in Gargoyles (the "rookery father" of the Manhattan Clan) goes missing, his second-in-command, Brooklyn, is forced to take up Goliath's leadership responsibilities.
• Though it's never mentioned what happened to their parents, Sue Storm on Fantastic Four Worlds Greatest Heroes is definitely this to Johnny.
• Yakko in the Animaniacs movie Wakkos Wish.
• The Daria website describes Casa Lane as the house where siblings Jane and Trent "were raised. By each other." It's not entirely true, but their parents are usually off in some foreign country and their older siblings (all moved out by the time the show takes place) are all dysfunctional in some way, leaving Jane and Trent alone to try to stabilize each other. (Trent is older, but Jane is probably the more responsible of the two.)
• In ReBoot, Dot takes this role to Enzo. Naturally it ends after Enzo's Year Inside, Hour Outside Time Skip, rendering him physically older than Dot. Enzo's clone gets the original and Dot as surrogate parents, but later gets his real dad back (sort of).

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