The PARENTIFICATION of Penny Proud 🍼🍼🍼 

I cannot stand that from any family. There's nothing wrong with letting your older kids look after the younger kids every once in a while and it's quick. "hey I'm gonna cook dinner, change your little brother's diaper." and that's it but constantly asking your older kids to babysit because YOU wanna go out every chance you get. There are babysitters out there and I'm sure Trudy and Oscar can afford one.

You know, I just realized how even Dijonay doesn’t get the same level of expectations in helping out with her siblings as much as Penny, and she has a lot more siblings than her! It would be great to see Penny express her concerns with her parents.

With Trudy, I can understand. She works over time on a full time job, pays the bills, cooks, cleans, and maintains a household of 7 people and a dog. She's spread thin. There was an episode in the OG series where she hired a nanny to help take the load off. So I can understand how on the weekends she wants some peace and quiet or just a night out. Oscar however, doesn't have that excuse. Not to mention the hypocrisy of refusing to treat Penny like an adult, while forcing adult responsibilities onto her.

The interesting thing is I remember Trudy hired a baby sitter but then got upset at how perfect Renee was and how she felt she wasn’t needed by her family anymore

I was homeschooled and I’m the oldest. I was watching my siblings for as long as I can remember. Once I turned 13 and my parents could legally leave me with my siblings, they did. After my parents’ divorce, my mom went to college and got a job, so I was in charge of my siblings all day for most of the week. Between schoolwork, chores, watching them, and being a vent box for my mom, I hardly had free time. I didn’t have friends, I had no social life. Now I’m socially stunted, acting a lot closer to a teenager than a woman in her mid 20s. I’m indulging in all the childish things I wanted as a kid but never felt safe to ask (I got a Sonic birthday cake this year, for example). I’m not interested in dating, nor do I want to start a family. I just want to experience the freedom I would’ve had as a teen

Something that might be an interesting story for an episode is maybe the twins appear to bond more with Penny than their mother due to the parentification and Trudy gets jealous and tries to overcompensate, especially when Penny gives her a reality check about how often she’s watching her siblings.

Parentification not only makes kids resent their siblings, but it robs them of their childhood thats why you see so many young people who find joy in "childlike things" such as partying because they were never able to do it. Also, dont even get me started on how this causes many people to never want kids ever. Well in my family its seven of us I have 6 sisters, I am the 7th child the only dude and the youngest.Even being a young man thats ace I grew up having to babysit my nieces and nephews with my mon to the point where I do not like being around kids and do not ever want to have them because it was an exhausting experience.💯💯

I was pissed when BeBe and CeCe turned into teenagers and how they said they were in charge of her now, a complete role reversal. I mean, I looked after my younger sister a lot and I felt bitter towards her. But when I was nineteen and I started getting into trouble with my mom's late ex, my sister who was fifteen at the time was tasked to look after me.

The life of the oldest kid is never easy, and I should know

I’m the second to last child in my family, and I’ve raised so many peoples kids since I was a kid myself. After my younger sister was born, I was always asked to babysit her. I used to babysit my younger cousins all the time. I even babysitted the kids of neglectful, unrelated family friends. It really made me grow up to not only resent children to some degree (although I’m finally growing out of this since it’s not the kids’ faults and I’m finally old enough to realize that) but It also made me just not want kids at all and that hasn’t changed at all.

I had a friend who was parentified through her siblings. Her answer to every "Do you want to after school?" question was a sad and disappointed "I have to watch my brothers." I'm an only child, so I got parentified in a different way. I got to be my mother's confidant to clearly adult issues, she enmeshed with me, and treated me like a spouse/friend more than a kid.

As a younger sibling who was mothered by my big sister I can confirm that it really affected her (she loves me and I love and adore her) but she does resent me a lot because of what she lost because she had to take care of me and I felt like I owed her so I ruined my high school years to help her with my niece, I basically took care of my niece when she was a baby

I really hope that we get some episodes where Penny is talking to the psychologist whether it be about the kids or anything else. It feels like something that would be very beneficial for the people watching by normalizing talking to professionals in a non stigmatized way

I hope they address this issue. I think a good way to do it would be to have Trudy fantasize about Penny getting married, and having a family and Penny say something like I’ll never have kids. Then maybe have Trudy be all shocked and wondering why and Penny say something like I’ve basically already raise children I don’t want to do it again and then force Trudy and Oscar to examine their actions and come to the realization that they’re stealing part of her childhood. That way they can’t just dismiss it as oh you’re being ungrateful and it’s part of your duty like make them see she’s exhausted and it’s made her resent the idea of children. I’ve noticed in online discussions a lot of people who were parentified say that they don’t wanna have children because they basically already raise children.

My sister was put through that when me and my brother were little. Our age gap was about the same where she was much older than we were. So when I was a toddler, I saw her as another parent. Every family had a Mommy, a Daddy, and a Heather. Preschool was when I learned that was not how it worked. I've seen the long-term affects on her and how desperately she tries to prevent her eldest from feeling like she needs to parent her own younger siblings. No family should do that to their kids ever.

Also, as an autistic person my BIGGEST pet peeve is when typically neurotypical siblings are left to look after their autistic siblings. Autistic people have needs that cannot be adequately met by another child. A kid isn’t going to understand the condition or how to care for people on the spectrum. It’s hard for them and it leads to autistic people being abused whether it’s directly from the sibling lashing out or indirectly through the sibling developing an ableist mentality because of the resentment of having to parent a special needs child when they were clearly unequipped. It’s my biggest pet peeve because it of the genuine harm it causes to autistic people and the community that advocates for them. Please do not parentify children especially if you have autistic children, it’s not fair for both your autistic child and the child you expect to take care of them.

So I've always been wondering for IRL, what would the psychological state be for somebody who was both parentified and infantilized? Should have remembered to think of Penny Proud,

“We don’t ask you to do much around here” yeah right 😒

I think parentification can really ruin a childhood when it gets to a certain level. I wasn't parentified in the way Penny was bc I wasn't told to babysit my brother, but I was held responsible for the house's cleanliness and all of the adults's moods. It didn't matter that I wasn't taught properly and that the tasks were simply too huge for a single person. For me it was very difficult and now when I think of my childhood I remember always being scared because I wasn't cleaning enough, I wasn't polite enough, I didn't read people's minds enough. I think people who go through that might reject cleanliness / politeness ect if they aren't allowed to work on their issues. Thankfully I was able to do it and I'm able to feel good about cleaning now, but it took a while. In my experience it takes a lot of reclaiming so that you can choose to do the tasks instead of being forced to.

Truth be told, because of my too much experience with constantly babysitting(siblings, cousin's kids) pretty much made my decision to be child free,

If Penny were to tell her parents how she feels, she won't be taken seriously or considering how her parents are will try to guilt her or in a way blame her for not talking to them about it. They will find reasons not to hire a babysitter or if they do, they'll make Penny feel bad.

so I'm the oldest in my family, and as such have had many bouts of watching my siblings. But here's the thing; often my parents let me know IN ADVANCE that that may be what the plans were, if they wanted to go out. They didn't decide to spontaneously leave me in charge unless there was an actual emergency, and even then I wouldn't be alone in charge for too long. So IMO, there isn't anything wrong with Penny watching her siblings ONCE IN A WHILE. The fact they are continuously dumped on her to the detriment of her social life? I don't like that.

As an older sibling I felt for Penny whenever she was annoyed to be forced to be the babysitter, it really sucks when you can’t be a kid. Also hi Kiwi we love you!!! Kiwi is a very sophisticated television viewer 🥸

I low-key think Oscar would be foisting the twins on Penny as some demented way of making her want to avoid dating altogether.

Oh my lord thats why she stays with her friends-they are the only kids who will hang out with her (most of the time) even though she is a single mom of twins...

Finally! Someone who calls out Penny's "babysitting " as parentification. Lord alone knows how many videos and comments from reviewers talking about episodes where Penny was forced to watch the twins, and them and the commenters (who are usually all white) always call her a brat and say she's ungrateful and spoiled because she wants to hang out with her friends and NOT have two rambunctious infants, one of whom is autistic, on to her daily. Its ridiculous

Love these videos on the Proud Family and the point you make about the parentifcation of Penny, especially the gendered nature behind it. I think it's especially insidious in the context of the Bebe episode since it also centers around autism. I myself am Black and autistic and hated the entire episode. The framing behind Bebe in the autism episode spends about half its runtime on the parentification of Penny in the same episode Bebe is diagnosed with autism. The problem is that the choice to make the autistic character an infant also means that they have little to no way to communicate with the audience and give their perspective on being enrolled in school, how others treat them, and so on. The episode as a result focuses more on Penny being relieved of a "burden," on Oscar and Trudy's feelings of schooling, and Dr. Lord is the one who gets to craft and control Bebe’s narrative with no way for him to really challenge it. That's especially relevant given that the voice actor for Dr. Lord is Holly Robinson Peete, who is a former board member for autism speaks. That really changes the entire context on the choice to enroll Bebe in school because autistic people have numerous reports of really harmful outcomes on a lot of the formal educational resources established by neurotypical people. Such a person should absolutely not be voicing or consulting an episode about autism. I've been working on a video about this and found this channel feeling around how others are talking about this episode, but I feel the aspect of disability and how the show uses Penny's parentification to frame Bebe's autism diagnosis is important. Even in the video you're discussing notice how the framing came back to Penny and the focus is on how burdensome everyone is? Also, to correct you on one thing, Autism is a disability. It's okay to say that without dancing around saying it doesn't make you less than. Disability isn't a dirty word. Penny's parentification needs to be burned to the ground, but I hate the context of how they "address" Penny's parentification in the Autism episode specifically because it's projecting a lot of the writer's perceptions that autistic and in turn disabled people are just burdens to their family, to the point where they focus the entire episode on everyone but the actual autistic person.

I'm the oldest of 4 and we grew up poor. My mom and my siblings dad worked a lot and I had to watch them all the time. I had no social life and every father figure in my life would guilt me if I tried to have a social life outside of being with my siblings. I helped raise them and now as an adult I have decided not to have kids. I already raised 3 of them, and now I'm done. And now my relationship with my siblings is so weird. I feel so distant from them and wish it wasn't like that. We have a strange dynamic between us and only one of my siblings realize that I was a parent to them. It really messed me up.

It’s quite sad honestly. It’s important to have freedom and teach responsibility thats age appropriate. In this case, Penny shouldn’t have to care for her younger siblings 24/7. Penny might have given up asking to not care for them or have a break.

I would LOVE to see a friend or neighbor see how Penny is treated and rip Trudy and Oscar a new one. The problem with people like Trudy and Oscar is that even if their kids voices their feelings, because that’s their child and “parents know bets”/“I did this too and I turned out fine,” they aren’t going to actually listen. They’ll make excuses, guilt trip, pull the “because I said so” bs, anything BUT listen and compromise, especially Oscar. If it wasn’t wasn’t about BeeBee and CeeCee, Trudy MIGHT be willing to actually talk, but she seems to always put them above Penny (more than one should for such young children) so in this case, she’s likely to not listen to Penny. But what these kinds of people HATE more than their child telling them “no,” is people outside their circle seeing their true colors. Imagine an episode where Trudy and Oscar are trying to make Penny watch the twins and Penny is saying “no, I haven’t had a weekend to my self in a long time and you promised me that is I watched the twins last weekend, I could go do XYZ with my friends today.” They don’t listen and a friend or neighbor comes over and tells them off for being bad parents. “I did know you hate Penny so much. You don’t? Oh, then I didn’t know Penny shot the twins out of her own body and they call her mama. She didn’t? Then why are you stealing her childhood from her? Of you can’t afford a babysitter, then ask Sugar Mama to watch them. Or better yet, Oscar can get off his fat, lazy duff and be an actual father to them for once in his life. Or you can keep going how you are and Penny will never speak to you again the moment she’s able to leave your awful house on her own. You’re choice.” In the episode where Trudy locked Penny out of the house for… being a typical teen, I would have LOVED to see Penny go over to LaCieniga’s house and ask Sunset what she should do. Being a police officer, Sunset had DEFINITELY seen how badly children being out late can end. And being a mom herself, she would have been FURIOUS that her best friend would do something so cruel and stupid. I could see her keeping it together long enough to get Penny inside, warm, and settled, then going over to the Proud Family house, ripping the door of its hinges, and letting loose on Trudy. If this wasn’t a kids show, she could have gone into GREAT DETAIL about cases she worked where kids were out on the streets late at night because their parents locked them out and bad the things that happened to them. Then finishing with “until you’re ready to admit you did wrong, apologize, AND do better, Penny is staying with ME because I don’t trust you to not hurt her again. You’re a mother, stop acting like a child throwing a tantrum. Your toddler twins behave better than you!” Then rounding on Oscar for being his usual, spineless self and leaving.

Oscar and Trudy could always ask Bobby who is unemployed.

One thing: saying that we have autism and not that we are autistic implies that autism is an illness or something that can be treated (eg: having depression, having adhd, etc). But my autism is part of what makes me who I am, it’s not something we have, it’s part of who we are.

I hate the 'its the least you can do' line. Least they can do for what? Being born? Being fed and clothed? The truth is, as a parent you owe your child not the other way around. Im so glad i had sane parents who cared about fairness and my happiness before anything else.

As the younger sibling to a fairly parentified older sibling and man the resentment that shit breeds on both sides is horrible. It took us YEARS to get to even a civil relationship and not without a lot of hardship and really hurt feelings. They resented me for all the same kind of shit Penny goes through and I resented them because I hated having them get on my ass for every little mistake and feeling like the failure child that could do no right. It's awful and I really wish the reboot didn't continue the trend of everyone abusing Penny in some form or another.

As a firstborn, all of us need to get together and write a book about this stuff. I love my younger siblings, they're the most important people in the world to me. That being said, i do feel like parents/family forget the oldest child is still exactly that: a child. But its like the moment another kid is born, regardless of how old you are, you're suddenly not a kid anymore, you're the back up adult. And it can cause resentment on both ends. Exactly what you said, we're supposed to be their big brother/sister, not their parent. And when you speak on that, you get called a bad kid, a brat or a bad sibling. And the part that is most upsetting and hypocritical about it is that grown adults know how hard it is looking after kids. So why would you pass that struggle onto someone who 1. Did not make the child/children 2.May be too young to be taking on that responsibility to begin with? I started babysitting my siblings when i was 8. And (not all) most of us end up not wanting kids later in life bc we had to spend the years we were supposed to be having fun looking after children.

Having to be basically a teen mother minus a husband or someone responsible/adults taking responsibility for the children, she’s basically lost her childhood- I can tell you when you’re forced to always care for others (or you’re always alone/neglected, too self reliant) it can be nearly impossible to learn and be able to successfully focus on yourself and try to even know who you are, really. That sh/ts srs- :-L I know she’s fictional, but Id love to send her lots of hugs!

Telling your child, ‘this is what you should do’ or ‘this is the least you can do’ is downright emotional manipulation. Children do not OWE you everything just cos you’re their mum or dad. Asking them to babysit ahead of time so that it’s planned or if it’s an emergency is one thing but treating elder kids like their life revolves around what YOU need them to do is just selfish & lazy parenting.

As a kid it always annoyed me how they would last minute ask her to babysit like can y’all schedule this so she’s not blindsided

As someone who was the third parent to my little brother, I feel so bad for Penny. From a young age I was taught to take responsibility for my brother. For example when my brother was about 2 and I was about 7 my mom, brother and myself were at home. My mom and I were playing on the X-Box and my brother was watching us. Suddenly, it got quiet in the room and my mom noticed my brother wasn't in the room anymore. She searched the entire house for him and once she got to the kitchen she decided to look out the window for him and show small baby footprints in the snow. She ran out there and tried to follow the prints, but they led to a dead end. Eventually, a neighbor kid knocked on our door, little brother in hand, and asked if he belonged to us. To this day though, whenever my mom brings up this story she brings up how she put my in charge of watching him despite me being 7 at the time and her being right there. For any parent out there reading this, your kids aren't free babysitters! Let your kids be kids and take responsibility for your kids when you fuck up!

Why don't they ask Suga Mama to watch the kids?

And the fact that they only wanted to be bothered with Bebe and Cece once they were old enough to take care of themselves 😃

This is the main reason why I'm struggling with my mental health the lack of social life with acting as a parent because I’m the oldest my younger sister was always spoiled

That show irritates me whenever I try to watch it because everyone just uses Penny as a doormat.

The sad part is that no one in that family will listen to her or acknowledge that she is being Parentified. This isn't an occasional "Hey can you watch the twins?" Like I know part of this has to do with the logistics of a TV show and a cartoon and stuff needs to happen but it's way too much. To an uncomfortable degree. How did her family get even WORSE

I'm not even black and that was a basically my childhood, as the middle child it was always pushed on me just cause, not even my older brother helped and I ended up being left with the kids all the time and it's something I can relate too

This is relatable because I am the oldest and I have to babysit my siblings most of the time or at least help. Mainly because my mother had to go through that so then I had to go through that. So it's kind of annoying.

Bruh! Parentification is too much! My former mother in law did this to my fiance and I. We always had to babysit his younger brothers. We always had to sacrifice our free time. She will try to get my mother involved. It caused him to have resentment towards me, his mother, and his younger brothers. I can feel Penny's pain because she has to sacrifice her free time, and it causes a lot of unnecessary stress and psychological problems within the older siblings. Also, I think she doesn't want to tell her parents because they will think she's being selfish.

I’m the oldest and I used to babysit on the weekend we got to order pizza or watch my brother when we go to the mall but the proud family penny always had to babysit at the last minute they could just get sugar mama to watch them

Her parents can be really awful dumping Bebe & Cece on ALL the time.

I am so glad I and my brother are so close in ages. So he rarely had to actually watch me. We grew up so close everyone thought we were twins.

I used to take care of my little brothers all the time and on top of that I was my mother's caretaker at the same time. she got sick with diabetes, kidney disease, heart failure, lung disease, was also morbidly obese, etc it all fall on me to make sure she got to her doctor's appointments, made sure her medication was refilled & up to date, & keep the house clean but also keep my brothers in line and out of trouble which was not easy at all especially since I was just a 17 years old boy at the time I also try to finish school was close to graduating but so much drama in my life at that time it was hard for me to even focused on my studies & my mother was in and out of the hospital all the time, to the point where we even put her in a temporary nursing home, needless to say, my brothers are always getting into trouble heck one of them has bipolar schizophrenic & takes medication for it. The point is I was taking care of my mom and brothers from the time I was 17 years old to the time of my mom's death in 2015 I'm about to be 38 years old in less than a week. Watching this episode brought up so many memories of all the shit I had to put up with simply because I was the older sibling & ends up becoming more like a parent than a normal teenager, I always feel that we as Black people put too much pressure on the youth to pick up the slack when the so-called adults in the community don't seem to see the hypocrisy of telling children to stay in a child's place then turn around & tell them to handle adult situations like taking care of the younger children when it the parent's job, look I get it sometimes the parents need help and All that jazz but there is a limit and I have seen way too many parents and other authority figures push too much responsibility on their children and then get upset when their children rebel against them or burn out before they get a certain age, watching this episode just felt too real for me because I had to grow up faster than other children my age and it hurts, plus when I. Was a kid hell even now as an adult I struggle with a short attention span and show some signs of being on the spectrum myself and currently trying to find out and because of that I sometimes feel like something is wrong with me or feel like a failure sometimes but I realized some people are just different and work at their own pace. Fin

When shes old enough penny needs to move far away and never come back

I was parentified as a child. As an adult, I've realized I'm probably autistic: my son was formally diagnosed and many of the behaviors they said were signs of autism, I thought was normal behavior because *I* was that way as a child (and still have some of those behaviors as an adult). It was hell. I was easily overwhelmed and overstimulated by my younger sister's behavior and when I would tell my mom that my sister was too much for me, she'd berate me and tell me to suck it up and that I was a bad sister. I would sometimes hit my sister out of frustration, as kids do, and my sister being the manipulative demon spawn she was, would fake cry and my mom would beat the shit out of me. And yes, it *was* fake crying because the sadistic little monster would stop crying and laugh and sneer at me as soon as our mom's attention was on something else after she beat me. Being parentified also has made me a toy collector. My mom took a lot of my toys and gave them to my sister "because you're too old for that now". I have a lot of dolls in boxes on a shelf and a bin full of loose dolls too. I play with them with my son and sometimes just dress them up and pose them to put on display and change out what dolls are on display because it makes me happy and lets me be a little kid again.

Another bad thing is that they do not even pay her or reward her in anyway. It is either drop everything in the drop of a hat or we get angry at you. It is also sad because Oscar could watch the kids. The Proud Snacks joke is overdone. I wish they could work on character development with him (even more so since the show is streaming everyone will watch episodes in order so no worries about character development confusing viewers who miss an episode). Think if they did a thing were he tries to open a daycare because he realizes he makes Penny watch the kids too much. He is the one who doesn't want her to grow up too fast, but he makes her watch the kids the most. Trudy could easily get a babysitter, but doesn't even think about it. I was lucky all of us kids in my family were too close in age to be able to us any of us to watch another kid. They could easily be ruining Penny's childhood (she misses a lot of things or has to bring her siblings along stopping her from fully enjoying the events). I also know a lot of people where when they were forced to watch older siblings made them hate the idea of having kids of their own (since they felt like they already raised some and they hated it). I could imagine Trudy and Oscar being the parents who hates boys until Penny is in her 20s then it quickly turns into "Where are my grandkids".

I know how penny felt. I have four siblings, and the only oldest one. Ever since my second brother was born I pretty much I watched him. And my youngest sister too. Even though my mom could’ve asked my other sister and brother to watch the two. Even though I have free times does not mean one of them could’ve asked them to watch the younger ones.

I hate it whenever parents force their oldest to watch the other kids. There's an age gap between me and my other 3 siblings. 15 years. I WAS a teenager that was basically forced to care for my siblings at the drop of a hat. People used to think I was a teen mom when I had all three of them with me. No, my siblings aren't triplets. It was one of my sisters then twins. As soon as I could leave for college (around 19) I did. I had started to hate my parents, my siblings, even just being in the neighborhood. I never really had free time and when I suddenly did, I had no idea what to do with it. I didn't really have friends left. I had like a dozen "friends" in high school that I could only really hang out IN CLASS. By the time I left that house I had two, maybe three. I was pretty badly stunted with like social growth and stuff like that. I had to relearn how to make friends and communicate to anyone. I have a whole heap of mental problems that I went to therapy for just to have the tools to understand what was going on. So in short, Parentification is the WORST you could probably do to your kid that isn't flat out abuse but people do say that parentification IS abuse. It harms the kid you're turning into a parent in ways you probably didn't think about and it could even harm the kids they're looking after. It took literal years for my siblings to realize I wasn't their mom. (I had taken care of them from newborn to kindergarten.) It's been YEARS since then and it's still affecting me now.

I sort of wonder with the age gap if the twins were "surprises" for Oscar and Trudy and they don't really want to deal with "baby issues" at their current age (whatever that is supposed to be). That's not an excuse for their behavior, but I doubt Oscar was willing to get a vasectomy or told Trudy he did and that ended up being false. It just seems like something along those lines occured, because why else would they have a teenager/adolescent, two babies and try to go out frequently.

as a kid i rly felt w Penny on this aspect of her life. i didnt rly have much of a social life growin up until high school(by then my younger siblings wer old enough to care for themselves in my moms eyes). i always got home straight away bc i had to do my homewor(which i still see no point in if u alr understand the subject) and help my siblings. i taught them how to read, i waled them to school and sometimes home when my schedule aligned w theirs, hell i even was the one to go to the open houses n shit and talk to their teachers, only thing i didnt do was deliver punishments and go to the parent teacher confrences. only thing that got me outve constantly takin care of them was when i got a job when i turned 18. i had to mae sure they were fed, if they had nightmares theyd come to me 90% of the time, hell i kept them entertained while our mom did. . . wutever tf she did when we were growin up. as a kid it was hard, i was put in charge of all of them(my 3 youngest sibs as my full brother is only a year younger than me) and every bad thing they did was my fault even if i wasnt involved or there. for a long time my siblings didnt respect me as i wasnt the tru high athoraty figure rather a placement head, like a false king who only the face of the ingdom and doesnt actually rule. hell i still get put in chargge of them. i end up takin care of my lil sister bc shes ended up so dependent on me that she hardly coos for herself and constantly begs me to do stuff for her. im tryna slowly ween her off this dependance bc im goin to move out eventually, im alr 20. i want my own place w my own privacy where i dont have to worry bout my siblings stealin my shit or constantly buggin me. i was like 5 when my 2nd brother was born and by the time my 3rd brother was born i was to keep an eye on them(2nd brother and full brother, mom was carin for my baby brother as he was still an infant) all as the oldest. it sucked bc i couldnt do wut i wanted much. i had to watch their favorite shows, play their favorite games, eep them entertained to not bug my mom. my only solace was goin over to my gma susies(dads mom) house when it was my dads time to watch my full brother n i. there i got to color, play, watch as much cable tv as i wanted. still had to get up early and go the the Witness Hall(shes a Jehovahs Witness). tho i did get into quite alotve trouble w her for forgettin stuff(which honestly mightve been an early sign of ADHD aside from all the energy i had lol), i still had more fun there than at my moms tho

At age 14, my mom was taking care of her baby sister. Her older sister was away at college, her older brother couldn’t be bothered, and the only other sibling was 12. Her brother would drive her to Walmart to buy formula for the baby.

I really hope in the third season they tackle EVERYTHING, namely all the shit Penny has to deal with. I.E: Oscar and Trudy’s shitty parenting AND Penny’s crappy excuse for friends.

I always wondered why the age gap between penny and her siblings was so large. Dijonay has siblings that are much younger than her, but there are other siblings in between them and it is implied that dijonay's family is a blended family. There are no other siblings between penny and the twins, so either trudy and Oscar had the twins really late or had penny really young. [And you better hope it is the first option because it would make the show much darker if it was the second option and it makes more sense, considering that penny is a millenial while trudy and Oscar are boomers with professions that would make them very busy.] The episode where bebe and cece are teens made no sense because it would make more sense for the twins to side with penny when everyone else antagonizes her than to join in on the penny torture. I also wonder why TV shows keep having the married female doctors take their husbands' last names when in real life, most either keep their maiden names or hyphenate. The only person that actually told penny that she needs to stand up to her parents is maya - and she only said it briefly - and penny just brushed it off because maya has only one black parent (and whose parents don't confined to cis heteronormative patriarchal values) while she has two black parents (that conform to cis heteronormative patriarchal values). We need more episodes with bebe, cece, and penny's relatives. We need more episodes addressing penny's parentification and adultification because it is definitely affecting why penny keeps staying with her toxic friends. The psychologist definitely needs to come back, but i hope she comes a positive force like dr. Pain instead of accidentally give off some harmful misinformation. Seriously, the creators and executive producers need to stop with the penny torture already. It was not cool back then and it is still not cool now.

I wished they asked Penny within advance to see if she can babysit the twins (or at least pay her). Penny is a teenager yet she always has to babysit two toddlers (one we later finds out has autism) at the drop of hat, while her parents do god knows what. They also really have no reason to say she doesn’t have to do very much, when she in addition to babysitting all the time also has to worry about school and homework and chores, oh and whatever they make her do things she has no interest in like carry the basketball team, a spelling bee, being a debutante, also she’s the one who has to take care of Sugar Mama. They definitely guilt Penny with many things. Her parents also have other options for babysitters Sugar Mama, Bobby an actual babysitter. I haven’t seen the episode but I hope it gets a part two where Penny can tell her parents how she feels, hopefully with them taking her feelings into account.

When I first saw these episodes as a kid and even now, I kinda connected with the twins in a way. I’m a younger sibling with an older brother that has a large age gap between us (12.5 years). Even though we were both practically raised as only children, I found my relationship with my brother often strained with how he was trying not to be that second parent. He would be tasked to watch me while he was in high school sometimes - and when I was in Middle and High school, our parents always made me stay with him and his wife (at the time) while they went somewhere for long periods of time. Sometimes he would avoid me when he felt pushed into that parental mode when he was younger. In a way I also felt I owed him for always having to be responsible for me when our parents weren’t around. But we’re doing our best to repair our relationship as siblings without making him feel like he’s the second parent to me again or like he’s avoiding me. But idk. I just thought I’d put my “younger sibling” perceptive into the whole “older sibling becomes parent” narrative.

It’s really a case by case basis. As for Penny, she’s really more of a built in baby-sitter. But, in speaking up for the parents sometimes they also need a break even if it’s just for a few hours. Another interesting related subject is that when Penny graduates high-school she’s not going to be home half as much, so what will Trudy and Oscar do then.

Also tragically if I had to guess, at the no win situation created, when it comes to parentified childhoods, at "best" parents only want them to mature faster, as if that'll help protect them from being taking advantage of, like that's how you're supposed to prepare them(like if a 4 to 9 year old doesn't understand the value of the dollar, that they basically wanna do what they think is fun for them with money, it's the perfect indication that they're gonna grow-up lazy I.E. jobless)

I work in family services, and parentification is a form of neglect. I hope season 3 addresses how problematic this is-along with the toxicity of Penny’s friends. Like Penny finally snaps and chews out her parents for dumping last minute babysitting jobs on her (especially without any compensation).

Even as the younger sibling I always saw this as wrong they r not her kids. I have 3 older siblings & my sister watched me the most but it was out of her own will. Even on the occasions she did have to bring me along with her friends or cancel I’d always apologize for the situation & try to entertain her & do whatever she wanted so she wouldn’t be upset. I hung mostly in the background when we’d hang out with her friends just so she’d still have fun even when she was including me. But with Penny these r babies & this is totally the parents responsibility to watch over their kids. If they can’t then they shouldn’t have had more kids if they didn’t have time for them. They don’t even care about Penny’s plans & act like it’s not a big deal when it is. They don’t even ask her they just demand her to do it & guilt & gaslight her into thinking that she’s being selfish when Oscar & Trudy r being selfish.

It's like almost every episode they always leave the twins with her That almost had me thinking like she gave birth to them knowing that she didn't

Your analysis videos on the Proud Family are honestly the best I’ve watched. You really go into great detail and depth of the character and topic you are explaining about them. Keep it up! 👍

I’m the second oldest out of seven so I’ve done a lot of babysitting since I was 16 and nannying since I was 18 with my other sister who’s two years younger than me but we stopped cause we got real jobs last year. I could write an essay on how hard it is and the impact it’s had on my life. Something I want to say to my mom that I can’t cause she’d cry is, what did you think was going to happen when you decided to have so many children and four pets? Your kids have behavior problems, they’re struggling in school, and can’t read, and you’re having a hard time helping them with all of this because dad works you work and there’s four of them, you knew this when you adopted them! I love my siblings I’m happy to spend time with them but dealing with this every day is a lot. I’m sick of living in the loud house with people who question my every decision because I’m autistic but at the same time I can’t live without it because I’m disabled and too much quiet is weird. My sister however likes absolute silence and never wants children, but she was like that before our siblings came along now she just has even more reason.

Eh, I think it's a mixed bag, esp as sometimes it's hard to trust babysitters and much easier to trust your own child. I think it really depends on individual scenarios, like if a family is well off, get a babysitter, you can even ask the oldest child to babysit the babysitter until you find a babysitter you can trust. Scenarios like 20 kids in counting, also wrong, they're actively deciding to have a bajillion kids and then push them off onto the oldest kids. However, in cases like my family, where my family didn't nec choose to have my siblings (mother had a lot of issues with birth control and was personally against abortion) and where we really weren't well off financially, I think some understanding that the older sibling sometimes HAS to step up to support the family. If the primary caretaker gets ill, also might require an older siblings to step up, as while there is another parent, someone has to be making money. Again, my mother had a period of time after having kids where she got very sickly. So, as I was homeschooled anyway for unrelated reasons, it was best for me to help care for my siblings during that time. Of course, I've always been a bit of a hermit, so I wasn't really sacrificing anything. Honestly, when I would ask my parents when they would be back sometimes, they would joke "Why, you got a date?" and sometimes even follow up with "In all seriousness, if you have a date we'd totally reschedule". Now of course, it's just a matter of course you, as a child, would run your plans by your parents ahead of time anyway, so generally there weren't a lot of scheduling issues in my house lol. Anytime I actually made plans to socialize, my parents went out of their way to make sure I could go. I think there should be some understanding that, as a part of the family, you have SOME family responsibilities. Chores, and occasionally babysitting are not unreasonable. In some families who are in a more difficult situation, you may have to burden more responsibilities, and while it may suck, it's no different than some poor families where a teen has to get a part time job to help with family expenses. But just like in that example, there are times where it goes too far and you're taking unfair advantage of your child. Esp if you have some wiggle room to call on extended family or afford a babysitter.

I'm the eldest in my family and I've been changing diapers, making formula, doing all that stuff since I was 8 years old. I wasn't allowed to go outside already because my parents were abusive, so I was on call for the babies anytime I wasn't at school or sleeping. I never resented my younger siblings, but I do resent and hate my parents every day. I was basically trapped in the situation because they couldn't stop having kids that they couldn't take care of and I was too young to get out of there or stand up for myself.

I honestly relate to this a lot! Like i had to help look after my younger cousins as early as elementary . Then I fast forward I had to help look after my sister - still do to some extent to the point she’ll turn to me for help rather than our parents. (11 year age gap) I’m pretty much her third parent . Then I had to look after her and our other cousins. Pretty much giving up most of not majority of my weekends while in highschool. Even prom (but at least I was compensated for that) My little cousins and sister see me more as a parental figure rather than a cousin. One of my cousins called me and told me she was pregnant asking what I should do.. asking me- not her mom who she hasn’t told at the time. I personally don’t want to have kids at least not anytime soon given I had to help raise and or look after 6 kids that aren’t mine just cause I am the eldest cousin /sibling

Trudy never has to deal with babysitting because she was raised by nannies and neither does Oscar because he's the youngest of 2.

As the little sibling who is now older, I feel bad for my oldest brother and I appreciate him very much for helping me out at his own expense.

Every issue, I handle it, putting my emotions aside and essentially being the levelheaded adult in the house since I was twelve...I think. I can't even remember my young age since I constantly felt like an adult in my head. (Which isn't always great. I had a breakdown, my first in years, in front of my best friends because my parents had a fight, causing my siblings to constantly ask when I was coming home when I was supposed to be away for a week, the first time I had ever (or should've been ever) away from my family. I was only gone for two days, and I couldn't even have fun because I was getting messages and calls and constantly worrying about home.) Imagine my mom's (and family friends') shock when I told her I didn't want my own family, not even a man from my own culture.

I remember being ten and needing to babysit my little sister plenty of times. It was only one kid, but I didn't know what to do back then, and I ended up crying when I couldn't calm her down. Parents should NEVER be parentifying their eldest kids, it's not fun.

Youngest of four kids in a house hold where dad worked nights and mom worked days. There's an age gap between 13, 11, and 9 years between me and my siblings and yeah my parents pushing me off on my siblings honestly ruined my relationship with my older sister who got shafted with me the most. As a kid I didn't get why my sister seemed to out of no where hate/resent me so much one day, the next go back to being on plesant speaking terms/friendly, and the day after that back to being annoyed when I didn't do anything other then being alive in the same house as her. It got worse after she had kids and tried pawning them off on me unseccessfully when I was 13+. I've never been comfortable around babies; but she just expeceted me to drop everything and take care of her kid/s so she could go to the store, see her friends, go run errands because we were family and this is what we do.

Things like this make me glad I’m an only child.

Something I find interesting that maybe someone else has already pointed out: Penny's parentification is acknowledged and discussed in the reboot, but Dijonay is also arguably parentified by her constantly needing to find ways to keep her 9-10 siblings fed as the eldest. Yet, Penny's is treated seriously and Dijonay's is treated as a running joke within the show.

The joys of being an only child.

Penny didn’t have those kids penny shouldn’t have to watch them

My mom was straight up neglectful of us, and definitely parentified, and pitted us kids together, leading to my eldest half brother just straight up abusing us all manners since she always just left us with to do whatever. And well growing up in that situation i did what i could to make sure my little brother got to school and was clean and fed, i wasn't much older than him, tbh i don't really resent him, but i sure as hell resent my mom for her neglect

I found this channel very recently. LOVE IT And love Kiwi your cat haha

Im the oldest with two little siblings. Never had to look or take care of my siblings like a mom. Yes babysit but i never felt like a parent. My cuz. Who was 16. Had to feed my aunts baby. Maybe sure he eats. Make sure he doesn't get in trouble. When we would hang out at a family party, she would have to bring her little brother cause her mom is busy eating or partying.

I think that parents should pay their older children forntaking care of the younger ones. If you're using them as a babysitter, then at least Pay them for it so they have a reason to want to. Like, my brothers (9 and 10 years older than me) were basically second parents to me, and our parents used them as free sitters a lot. I think they both hated it, but they loved me, so they just went with it. They often had to cancel plans or work me into them, and as I got older and was turning into a very self-sufficient and independent child, they would essentially tell me, "we're going out for a few hours, we'll be back before mom and dad get home from work, don't do anything stupid, don't hurt yourself, and don't tell our parents we left." Meaning I was often home Alone starting around age 7 (we had moved and my new school system didn't have an after-school daycare program like the one before). If the boys had been getting Money for taking care of their baby sister, they may have been inclined to do a better job. But, we also come from 2 long lines of troublemakers, so I'm sure they would've done the same either way. But yeah, to any current or expecting parents out there: if you're gonna use the older ones as childcare, pay them for it. Preferrably at least minimum wage. They'll complain less about and look forward to having to do it, not have to ask you for spending money, and it teaches them the value of a dollar. Pay your kids for their labor.

Being the eldest sibling I do understand how Penny feels and the writers do address this.

I am the middle child of my very big family and I've this type of experience happened before. Even though i have the same dutys as the oldest kids maybe twice the work but i always manage to to get the dutys and work done so i can get some rest. And yes even though it's way too much labor and regardless of the past wrong doings and things do happen for a reason. And yes most parents don't have the money to afford babysitters or nannies so the have to relie on the oldest kids to watch they siblings even though the older kids have to put there whole entire life on hold for years and just for watch they siblings for days and some time's years.

As the oldest in my family I was treated like Penny. To the point where my little sister preferred me over my parents. Like when a kid is a mommy or daddy's girl or boy. Only my little sister stuck herself to me. She always had to sleep in my bed. Especially when she had night terrors or it was Christmas Eve. But she preferred every night. She always had to have me cook for her because apparently only I made it right. Etc.

Waitin for this one. 🎉

Perhaps season 3 of the new Proud Family can show an episode where Penny does after school activities or doing overtime at work in order to avoid having to be stuck with taking care of Bebe and Cece.

I would understand if Penny had to babysit every once in a while when a babysitter wasn't available or if it was for an hour or two, but her parents use her every single time they go out. They don't even try a babysitter, and when they do, it's the ignorant Suga Mama who's an overgrown child/teenager herself. I wouldn't be surprised if the twins saw Penny as their mother. And there's kind of no excuse. Trudy has a full time job, but has shown she can afford a nanny, but got rid of her out of jealousy. And Oscar isn't a successful businessman, still trying to get into that career, but he can do it from home and has shown he's capable of taking care of the twins. And when Penny tries to talk about the unfairness, they dismiss her as a brat, which will ruin her relationship with the twins and probably the possibility of wanting her own family. I hope there's an episode that changes this, but with the way it's going, it would be executed horribly like the "colorism" episode.

A mother may choose to have more than one child but your child does not get to choose the amount of siblings they get, nor is it their responsibility to care for additional children YOU chose to have. Helping looking after younger siblings can teach them responsibility but it should not be their sole role as the eldest child.

hey man, i really enjoy your content and topics that you bring up and analyse here even though i didn't grow up with this cartoon. it's great to see how much you've improved since the first video, and it's especially noticeable in the audio department (making show clips be as loud as your voice, for example). just makes me want to listen to you more

LETS GOOOOOOO (fr I'm glad more people are talking about this)

I really feel for penny here. I remember having the same age gap with my own siblings and constantly being forced into the role as "third parent". It resulted in me, willingly, getting surgically sterilized as an adult so that I never have to be forced to look after someone again.

Sometimes I feel like I am more mother to my youngest siblings then our real mother.

Had to parent my little sister and I was just year older than her. I still kinda resent her for everything but at the same time I'm glad only I had to be traumatized

It’s amazing to see these topics being brought up these days! The whole time I’m just thinking “At least she got to go out with her friends.” The one time I went out, the birth giver called the police🙄.

Like I also hate how they always pull it out at the last minute. There’s one specific episode where Penny camped out for 2 days for concert tickets (which the parents should know about) and Trudy tricks Oscar into going to a marriage retreat and forcing Penny to babysit and that she can’t go to her concert. There are other options, including your brother who doesn’t have a job, doesn’t have a girlfriend, and is still living with Sugar Mama. Speaking of which, I would love to see you cover a Bobby analysis