Families function as systems: when something is not flowing — tension, absence, illness, addiction, unspoken grief — children take on, without choosing it, roles that keep the system in balance (Minuchin, 1974; Boszormenyi-Nagy & Spark, 1973; Wegscheider-Cruse, 1981). The role was a solution: it was the way to stay connected and safe. But when a role becomes an identity, it keeps being played where it is no longer needed — at work, in friendship, in a relationship, in parenting. “Parentification” is the most studied form: the child who emotionally or practically took care of an adult, and as an adult finds it hard to ask, to rest, or simply to be present without providing something. The roles are not mutually exclusive: most of us carry two or three, at different intensities. And no role is “bad” — each has a strength worth keeping and a cost worth seeing. Instruction: “Answer thinking of your childhood and adolescence, within the family you grew up in.” This is a self-awareness tool, not a clinical diagnosis.