Lola* quietly slips into the house after a long day at school, careful not to disturb her mom, who is resting upstairs. As she walks toward her room, she notices a dim light seeping out from under her mom’s door. Peering inside, she sees her mom standing over a scatter of dark hair clippings, adjusting a hat over her newly shaved head. Lola meets her eye and for a moment, no one utters a word until her mom smiles casually at her, as if nothing had changed. Lola said she had to suppress the initial shock of seeing her mom without hair to be supportive.
“I had accepted the fact that losing your hair during chemotherapy was inevitable,” Lola said. “But, it was so abrupt to see my mom without hair because of how much she’s always cared about it throughout her entire life. I could tell that losing her hair made her really sad, but she was trying to stay optimistic and present herself as strong for me. In that moment, there was this [mutual] feeling of sadness on the inside, but no one said anything because we wanted to be strong on the outside for each other.”
In the United States, 3.4% of children under the age of 18 have a parent with a history of cancer, according to an American Cancer Society Press Release. In 2020 alone, an estimated 56,300 children lost a parent to cancer, according to a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Kyle Henderson ’27 lost his dad to metastatic spinal cancer when he was in 8th grade. Henderson said watching his father’s rapid deterioration and attending early morning appointments was particularly challenging for him.
“How quickly it all escalated was the hardest part,” Henderson said. “It went from a few memory slips to forgetting my name, then forgetting what he’s done in his whole entire life. There were days where I’d come home and my mom would tell me he had a seizure and we would go to the hospital. Those days were incredibly hard for me because I would wake up at 3 a.m. to drop him off at chemotherapy before coming to school and putting on a brave face.”
Carrie Kohler is a chaplain at Cedars-Sinai Hospital who specializes in providing spiritual care for patients and family members processing cancer diagnoses. Kohler said the disconnect between a student’s home and school life can be difficult to navigate.
“At school or with friends, life is moving forward as if nothing has changed,” Kohler said. “At home, everything has changed and that dissonance can feel isolating. Some students also take on new caregiving responsibilities, whether practical ones like driving siblings or emotional ones like becoming the person who keeps everyone’s spirits up. Adolescence and young adulthood are already seasons of enormous transition and a cancer diagnosis on top of all that reshapes the emotional landscape for them overnight.”
When a parent is diagnosed with cancer, children often assume greater familial responsibilities, which can lead to withdrawal from social and extracurricular activities, according to the NIH. Lola said her family has taken on additional responsibilities to accommodate her mom’s diagnosis.
“For me, I’m more eager to get my driver’s license so I can get to extracurriculars or competitions more easily without burdening someone,” Lola said. “My dad has a lot of school related events for my younger brother that my mom used to attend. It’s been hard to adjust for everyone, but we try to make the little things work so my mom doesn’t have to go through as much anxiety and emotional stress.”
Director of HW Media and Interdisciplinary Studies and Independent Research Teacher Jen Bladen lost her father to pancreatic cancer in 2005. Bladen said an earlier experience with stepping up and taking on responsibility prepared her for when her dad was initially diagnosed with cancer.
“When I was younger, my dad had randomly passed out and had to be hospitalized,” Bladen said. “I was the person who wound up calling an ambulance, calming my mom down and holding my dad’s hand as he faded in and out of consciousness. That sense of having to rise to the occasion and be the parent for a little while was a switch that had activated at that moment. Then, years later, it switched on again when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.”
The average cost of cancer treatment in the United States can range from $50,000 to $150,000, often imposing a large financial burden on families, according to the American Cancer Society. Henderson said the financial strain of the diagnosis changed his family dynamic, as relatives moved in to help support the family.
“When my dad was first diagnosed, my mom had to work to support us and pay for all of the hospital bills,” Henderson said. “She had a lot of family that ended up coming to stay and take care of my father. In that respect, it brought us closer together and upon his passing, it left a hole in a lot of our hearts.”
Carly Nahin, a licensed clinical social worker at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), said grief accompanies a cancer diagnosis can take on many different forms.
“Although people think grief is solely related to when someone dies, it can be related to a change in identity too,” Nahin said. “There can be a shift in perspective of things that might not feel as important as it did before, as well as changes in needs and boundaries in relationships that are impacted by a loved one’s cancer diagnosis.”
This can include experiencing anticipatory grief, which refers to feelings of loss, anxiety and sadness that may occur before the actual death of a loved one, according to a children’s study conducted by Stanford University. Bladen said she experienced this type of grief throughout her father’s experience with cancer.
“Anticipatory grief makes you feel so guilty,” Bladen said. “There’s this sense that I should be hopeful and that this is going to get better. But what’s happening instead is I’m grieving the death of my father before it has happened. That makes me feel guilty that I’m not just all hope and sunshine and flowers.”
Kohler said young adults have different coping strategies for responding to a parental cancer diagnosis.
“Some people compartmentalize, others withdraw or struggle with concentration, sleep or motivation,” Kohler said. “Experiencing anticipatory grief is also possible, which can show up as anxiety, irritability or a persistent low-grade sadness that doesn’t have a clear name. The additional stressors of school, college applications, social pressure and financial strain can feel cumulative.”
Friendships can serve as a crucial buffer against trauma and reduce mental health challenges for young people during times of stress, according to a study about the mitigating effects of friendship on mental health symptoms cited in the Journal of development and psychopathology. Lola said her mom’s cancer diagnosis has allowed her to build stronger friendships with people she can trust.
“I feel like because of the experience, I found friends that are truly there for me,” Lola said. “It’s helped me develop closer friends that I know I will be able to rely on and trust. Because the stress from my mom’s diagnosis compounds what I already feel from school, I deal with it as a whole by talking to my friends and trusted adults, which has helped me process it a lot.”
Henderson said his friends played an important role in supporting his mental health following his dad’s death.
“My friends were definitely my biggest outlet,” Henderson said. “I remember going to school one day and my locker was decorated with stuffed animals and candy. The day my dad passed, a few of my friends drove down to my house and just stayed with me, which was honestly so necessary because I feel like being there alone with my thoughts would have been super dangerous. His death attacked my mental health in a way that I wasn’t ready for at such a young age, but having them all there with me made me realize that it will event end up being okay after all.”
*Names have been changed.
