Too Young to Be Responsible: When Children Raise Children in Uzbekistan
“The household chores are now on my shoulders.” The words come from a girl quoted in a UNICEF study of children affected by labor migration in Uzbekistan. Her grandmother died when she was in seventh grade. By the time she spoke to UNICEF, her grandfather had also died the previous year. She described cleaning, cooking, washing clothes, and looking after her brother, a household’s work done by one child. Her account raises a question that is rarely asked when an older sibling is praised for being helpful: who is looking after the child who is doing the looking after? In Uzbekistan, caring for younger brothers and sisters is often understood as oilaga yordam, helping the family. An older sister watches a baby while her mother cooks. A brother takes a little sibling outside. These arrangements can express affection and solidarity, and build independence, patience, and practical skills. But there is a difference between helping and becoming indispensable. What happens when caring for a younger sibling is no longer an occasional contribution, but the thing that decides how an older child spends their afternoons and how much freedom they have? Different Families, Different Boundaries In MEN AYOLMAN, a private Facebook community for Uzbek women, mothers were asked whether they let their children play outside without an adult, and whether they knew families where young children looked after even younger ones. The replies showed sharply different ideas of independence, safety and responsibility. One mother let her 12-year-old and 2-year-old go outside together. The older child looks after the younger, but with precautions: the courtyard is enclosed, there are security cameras and a guard, and she watches from the window. She reminds the older child not to lose sight of the little one. In her view, children can play together if they are independent enough and the place is safe. Another mother tried letting her six-year-old daughter go out with her four-year-old brother near their home. It did not work. The boy kept making demands, upsetting his sister and calling for his mother, who watched anxiously from the window and finally went outside herself. For her, it showed how hard it is to expect a young child to manage another child. A different mother said that some families in her neighborhood send small children outside with older siblings, but objected because the older ones are children themselves. “You can’t entrust a child to another child.” These comments concern outdoor supervision and are not a representative survey of sibling care in Uzbekistan. They show conflicting expectations: children should grow independent and responsible while being protected from burdens they may not be ready for. These accounts focus largely on the younger child’s safety. The older child’s well-being receives less attention. When Children Become Unusually Serious Mutabar Ruzikulova, a kindergarten teacher in Uzbekistan, has watched how responsibility for younger siblings can shape children’s behavior. In an interview for this article, she described children who seemed to become unusually serious or independent after taking charge of someone...
