Published in The HuffPost 5/09/2017 at 7:21 p.m. E.T. Lacking a moral compass or the ability to act selflessly, narcissist parents create devastating havoc and damage in the lives of their kids. Unlike emotionally mature parents whose priority is to meet their children’s needs, support their healthy development, and respect and nurture their individual identities, narcissist parents put their own needs first and do not recognize their children as separate individuals.
In the narcissistic family, although spouses often suffer excruciatingly, children are most vulnerable to the narcissist’s abuse because they
- are relatively helpless;
- are reliant on the narcissist parent for caregiving;
- are especially susceptible to the narcissist parent’s opinions; and
- are easy and manipulable targets.
Parentifying: The Upside-Down Parent-Child Relationship
Consistent, appropriate caretaking and unconditional love are beyond the narcissist’s scope. Rather than seeing those things as his/her responsibilities (and privileges) as a parent, the narcissist expects such treatment from his/her kids, often turning the adult-child relationship upside down.
In the narcissistic family it is common for adults to parentify their children, expecting them to meet their emotional and even physical needs and fulfill roles beyond their maturity level or rightful responsibility. The parentified child may be placed in the role of therapist, confidante, or even surrogate spouse. That child also may be burdened with excessive chores, caretaking siblings, managing finances, or earning money for the household.
Parentified children may feel flattered to be given adult responsibilities and honored to play the role of “special helper.” It may feel as though they are getting attention from their narcissist parent that they can’t get any other way. But parentification is an extreme violation of boundaries. Such children are used at their own expense to meet the needs of the person whose job it is to meet theirs. As they mature, parentified children are likely to struggle with healthy boundaries, fall into caretaking roles, and believe they can only “earn” love and approval by “working” for it.
Idealizing and Devaluing
To rule the family, with the goal of managing their dysregulated self-esteem, narcissistic parents are always looking for ways to divide and conquer, breeding doubt and distrust and isolating family members from one another. Such parents often rank and compare their kids and set up inequitable conditions, creating competition, insecurity, and resentment among siblings. Often one child is favored, or idealized, and one or more others are devalued.
Common Idealizing Tactics
- flattery
- excessive attention
- exaggerated praise
- bragging to others
- seduction
- sexualization
- projection
Common Devaluing Tactics
- criticism
- terror
- blame
- shame
- projection
- lies
- gaslighting
Golden and Scapegoated Children
The narcissist parent assigns roles to his/her children to meet his/her emotional needs and pit family members against one another. Typically there is a golden child and one or more scapegoats. Golden children are idealized, while scapegoats are devalued and even discarded (neglected or disowned).
The golden child is the privileged, can-do-no-wrong favorite whose strengths and successes are celebrated and failings are overlooked or blamed on the scapegoat. Typically the golden child is a projection of things the narcissist parent wants to believe about him/herself—an idealized mirror image. The scapegoat, by contrast, can do little to nothing right. The scapegoat is blamed for the ills of the family, burdened with excessive responsibilities, and targeted with negative projection, criticism, rage, and sometimes physical abuse. No matter how hard the scapegoat tries or how capable s/he is, it is rarely good enough.
The narcissist parent assigns the roles of golden child and scapegoat to particular children for a range of reasons, both calculating and irrational. A golden child may be selected because s/he is more tractable, while a scapegoat may be targeted because s/he is more independent-minded and therefore threatening. Sometimes children are assigned roles based on gender or whether they remind the narcissistic parent of her-/himself in bad or good ways. Ultimately both roles in the narcissist family are damaging false identities that deny and negate the child’s authentic self and cause emotional and psychological trauma that can last a lifetime.
The Golden Child’s Hurt
Although the golden child is shielded from the narcissist’s worst offenses and elevated in the family hierarchy, that privileged status comes at a cost. The narcissistic parent charges a high price for her/his favoritism: isolation and compliance. If you are her/his golden child, s/he “owns” you and demands your loyalty, attention, and adulation. As a result, you may feel overresponsible for that parent and/or smothered, controlled, and alone. Other family members may resent you, and you may feel guilty about your unearned status or become perfectionist and overachieving to maintain it. You may become arrogant and superior, adopting the parent’s narcissism. If you attempt to break away from the narcissist’s control or form independent relationships, you will likely face reprisal, from guilt trips to judgment, rejection to ostracism.
Beyond the narcissist’s grasp, as the golden child your most difficult challenges are establishing a separate identity, healthy independence, and an appropriate sense of self-importance in the scheme of things. Life’s realities are likely to run interference with your confusing mix of overconfidence and instilled helplessness. As an adult, you may struggle with the cognitive dissonance of having felt that your privilege was undeserved or having others view you as ordinary when you have been told that you are extraordinary. You may also feel angry or resentful about the burdens placed on you by your selfish and demanding parent. Your ability to form healthy independent relationships requires a willingness to assert boundaries with your narcissistic parent and examine and move beyond your prescribed role in your family of origin.
The Scapegoat’s Hurt
As the family target, you as scapegoat have it hardest, at least on the surface. Your personality disordered narcissistic parent directs her/his wrath onto you, seeing in you what s/he hates about her-/himself. This may be because you are most like that parent, most aware of her/his shortcomings, or most questioning of or confrontational about the family’s unhealthy dynamics. Often the most sensitive and/or strongest child is scapegoated because that child is most apt to threaten, directly or indirectly, the narcissist’s architecture of lies about her-/himself and others. The narcissist will enlist her/his flying monkeys to help direct family propaganda against you and further isolate you from family support.
The scapegoated child triggers the parent’s narcissistic injury, activating her/his most violent defenses. Your mere act of “seeing” causes the narcissist parent to lash out with projecting rage: You are labeled difficult, unfair, angry, cruel, rebellious, disloyal. The narcissist’s abuses become your misdeeds. The narcissist’s disappointments become your fault. The narcissist’s responsibilities become your weights to carry. In short, the narcissistic parent uses you to deflect accountability and as a catchall for her/his rage at the world.
Like the golden child’s, your identity is distorted by the narcissistic parent’s false projections. Your challenge is to believe in your own perceptions and truths—no small matter for someone who has been systematically undermined in a devastating smear campaign. This means dissecting the narcissistic family system, recognizing its cruelties and lies, and nurturing the self within who was never properly loved. As an outlier, you are likely to have greater perspective and freedom to break away from the family dysfunction.
The scapegoat inevitably carries the emotional and physical fallout of abuse. You may respond by becoming a hyperresponsible overachiever or a highly empathetic caregiver and rescuer. You may display internalized fear and anger in the form of posttraumatic stress or self-destructive behaviors; struggle with healthy boundaries; experience self-doubt, anger, and trust issues; or fall into abusive relationships.
The Path to Healing
Whether you are the golden child or scapegoat, breaking the narcissistic family cycle is the path to healing. Replicating similar dynamics in your adult relationships is common and difficult to avoid. Often it takes repeating unhealthy patterns to begin to understand them and seek out truly nurturing friends and partners. As a parent, you have the opportunity to achieve profound healing through giving the kind of unconditional love and authentic caretaking you never received enough of yourself.
Julie L. Hall is the author of The Narcissist in Your Life: Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free from Hachette Books.
Need support? Julie provides specialized narcissistic abuse recovery coaching to clients around the world.
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Image courtesy of Bruce Turner, Creative Commons.
View Comments (13)
I was the scapegoat and my middle brother was the golden child, still is till this day. Unfortunately, he has taken on the characteristics of a narcissist, just like my mother. I remember both of them ganging up on me when I was about 16. Telling me how antisocial I was, how little I was involved in school and basically how just unappealing I was to them. Of course, I was very shy and reserved, but I still had friends, did very well in school and had a boyfriend, who I am currently married to. When this incident occurred, I didn't have anything in me to fight back. I just took it, like I took so many other things when I was a kid. I basically felt like a stranger in my own home and hid in my bedroom a lot. Of course, I was belittled for that as well. Why didn't I want to hang out with the family? What was wrong with me? I am 47 and it took me well into my 40s to realize that I grew up with a narcissistic mother. I consider myself intelligent and perceptive and it still amazes me that it took so long to come to this realization about my mom.
Bca123: Many of my readers express the same feeling of dislocation and confusion as to why it took them "so long" to identify the narcissist(s) in their lives. But realize this is a common reality for so many of us. I have readers in their 80s and 90s who are coming to terms with it. You are on the path now, and you are in good company.
Great article, thank you
Reading your story of recovery bca123, was inspiring.
It took me becoming a therapist to fully understand the pathology of my family of origin. I remember in school, watching a video of a baby monkey clinging to a steel wire mother (Harlow). I was struck by how sad that was but I now believe that reality of narcissism is even worse. The narcissistic mother is like the wire mother but with barbs. Every time the infant tries to get close, it is cut again.
Such a good read. Explains so much. Thank you. I really wish my sisters and I could have read this years ago.
I hear you. I wish I had understood these things much earlier in life.
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I'm the scapegoat of my family. I recently confronted my mother about her treatment of my father via text and she showed it to my siblings who have frozen me out. I was in hospital they did not contact me at all. She has two personalities - shes lovely in public - and when I question her she gaslights me telling me its just my perception or dents. Others think she's a pure saint.
I was the scapegoat in my family of origin and I did recreate the scenario in my adult relationships, until I got a better understanding in therapy. But when I left one situation I had to leave them all, which left no one. I do have amazing kids and an ex husband who is a great father, and plenty of friends. But breaking free from the cycle has been the hardest things I’ve ever accomplished
Thanks for the valuable information! I am co-parenting with a narcissist and it is already clear that he treats our only 3 year old daughter as the scapegoat. His older son from a previous marriage is the golden boy. He lives with a girlfriend who is clearly an enabler. The narc already declares how developmentally challenged our daughter is and how this is of course all my fault. These lies couldn't be further from the truth, she is so smart and understands already so much for her age. She definitely has a strong character and as you wrote, that must be a threat to him. I really hope that I can help her going through all the challenges that are ahead of her and I am very worried about all the trauma she will have to endure. Do you think that having another parent in a separate household can counteract enough the trauma the narc parent is causing? I haven't read through all your blog posts yet, but I wonder if you also good tips for co-parenting with a narcissist?
Being severely scapegoated is bad enough, but when the narcissistic mother knows you have caught on, be prepared to be punished for being abused. She will run a smear campaign against you, isolate you from everyone, call you crazy, say your attacking her, cut you out of everything, sabotage anything she can for you, and that is just the first day! She cares only about protecting her image and will gladly discard one of her children if need be. That is the true meaning of Narcissism.
I am my mother‘/s only child and never had a dad. We spent 20 years living together hand-in-hand, in which I experienced both sides of the coin with my narcissistic mother….At first, when I was still very young and up to my preadolescent years, I tried my best to be the most compassionate, diligent daughter and always please her. She used to love me dearly… and she had a busy working life so she didn’t have time for me. I gained her love and attention by supporting her, being loyal and being completely submissive: I never questioned or asked…” I have to save my mom and help her, after all it was only me and her.” But as I grew up, I felt this pressure inside me: I wanted to be myself and live a life of my own, but that came at the expense of not being who my mother wanted me to be. I was a teenager, so it was natural in that sense to seek my independent self. Out of fear, I tried to lie for many years about who I am. But sooner or later my mom started fidgeting in my things without permission and discovered where I went and who I was with or looking at my photos in my social media… I became her enemy. Her traitor. A liar. A whore. She took everything to an extreme. Having condoms, for instance, is not a reason to be called a whore. It is my sound responsibility of taking care of my sexual health and I did right to have them.( I was at a proper age too.) But nonetheless I was a whore for her ever since, and got kicked out of the house for that. She shamed me in front of my entire family (playing the victim) and I was ostracized and labeled as “the difficulty one” the “rebellious one”…. I went from being the sweet, beloved golden child, to the scapegoat or the black sheep. And that was only a mild example. I never did anything to deserve that criticism…not after having been loyal to her and supporting her for so long! I really did it out of love back then. Later on, all I cared about was having a roof over my head and surviving the daily aggression and violence. I can’t explain how confusing and painful it is to have lived both sides… how much anger I bottled up. How guilty I felt all my life. How much I despise the silent treatments… I still remember her heated footsteps reverberating across the floor indicating her explosive anger. I felt endangered. I was afraid of her and also afraid of leaving her. “Who was I without her? How could I do this to her? She would be all alone! I would be a bad daughter…” It is almost impossible to explain the twistedness of this experience… And on top of all: the loneliness you feel, when nobody believes you. Because, “how could a mother have treated her only child like that?”… someone who hasn’t had a mentally ill parent can’t possibly know or understand the dimension of hurt this creates in their children. I developed anorexia, bulimia, PTSD, insomnia, anxiety disorders,… self-harming behaviours and ended up in a hospital twice… and, as if obvious, I experienced again narcissistic abuse from a partner. It was soul-crushing…. I am only 23 years old, and I feel incredibly strong for all that I have been through and experienced… but I don’t wish this pain to anybody. I decided to awake and be brave, and even if it takes time, I take on the responsibility of healing from this pain and all this anger, that doesn’t belong to me…. Slowly freeing myself.
My mother had Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I refuse to see NPD as,a "mental disorder" because people with NPD know exactly what they're doing to their victims. It takes insight to manipulate and gaslight and mentally torture your own children. My mother was hateful, cruel, and sadistic. My sister was the golden child. I was the scapegoat. My sister grew up to be an entitled narcissist and a psychopath, a pathological liar and a thief. She still gets away with everything. I cut her out of my life. I have PTSD. It is taking me years to heal from the emotional damage caused by abusive, narcissistic mother.