Narcissistic Parents Are About To Have A Rude Wakeup Call
One of the biggest cultural shifts I’ve ever seen is happening and it’ll get ugly.
Does anyone else think the term “narcissist” gets thrown around a little too much these days? If you listen to pop culture psychology, you might think that everyone is a narcissist.
As a person who’s dealt with people who have this personality disorder, I think the term is thrown around a bit much. And yet, it’s one of the biggest signs of things about to change in our society — in a way I’m thrilled to see.
Talking about something is the first sign that people will change how they behave about a topic. The fact that we’re talking about narcissists as much as we are means that people are finally getting wise to narcissistic abuse.
The increase in talk has also kicked off a new trend of going no-contact with narcissistic parents.
If you’re like me, you know a lot of people between 20 to 45 years old who have no contact with their parents. In certain circles I hang out with, it’s practically a given that you have either walked away from your family or have an extremely strained relationship with them.
During the early 2000s, it was a phenomenon that was seen as rare. Adult children (and teens) who stopped talking to their parents were treated as an underclass — a “failure of society” and a sign that they were somehow broken.
I swear, I still feel those pitying, faux-concerned looks of people when they realized I was low-to-no-contact with my parents back in the day. It was a look that you could feel to your core.
You weren’t just judged; you were seen as a failure and threat to other people’s family. The rationale was that you were so broken inside, you would likely mess up other families too.
Today, things have changed dramatically.
A recent survey showed that 23 percent of adult children are no-contact with their dads and that 6 percent of all adult children are no-contact with their moms. It’s no longer uncommon. Its becoming the new norm.
One of the main reasons it’s happening so frequently is because people are actually talking about the abuse they faced from narcissistic parents.
For decades, narcissists coasted along with the idea that their children won’t ever leave.
There are few things as horrible to experience as a narcissist running amok. It’s part power trip, part guilt trip, and part them just trying to control every aspect of other peoples’ lives just so they can look as nice as possible to others.
In a word? Living with a narcissist that thinks you can’t leave is a serious slice of hell. And for decades, the narcissists were right. They could bank on kids staying in their lives until they died.
Things are starting to change, though. And I’m not sure that narcissistic parents realize how bad things are about to be for them.
A narcissist’s worst nightmare is that their victims will leave them.
A parent whose child cuts ties with them is a parent others will regard with suspicion. Others will ask, “What did this person do to make all their kids run away?”
Our society as a whole is beginning to realize that children don’t cut ties with their parents for no reason. They cut ties when something is so bad, so dangerous for their mental health, they can no longer handle being around that person.
Cutting ties is not the first step anyone takes. It’s a last resort that says, “Okay, there is nothing I can feasibly do to have a healthy parent-child relationship. You’ll bury me if I try anymore. I’m out.”
People are growing wise to that fact, which is why a lot of narcissistic parents are taking more extreme measures to make it hard for their kids to leave. After all, narcissists can’t stand being exposed as shitty people.
I believe certain “parenting trends” are being used by narcissistic families as a way to keep their kids from leaving.
I can’t be the only one who noticed a lot of interesting parallels between Christian fundie influencers and narcissistic parents, right? A lot of the “parenting” they suggest make it harder for kids to leave them by design.
While I was watching the 8 Passengers/ConneXions scandal unfold, I couldn’t help but notice that both narcissists there tended to do the following:
Homeschool. Homeschooling can be wonderful for dedicated parents, but most narcissists don’t take homeschooling seriously. They pull their kids out of school to prevent them from having a viable education and also prevent them from talking to teachers about what happens at home.
Threatening into silence. Ruby Franke and Jodi were famous for this. So are the Pearls. Kids have to look happy and comply, or they know all hell would break loose.
Extreme control over friendships. Does anyone else notice how isolated the kids of fundie influencers tend to be? How few of them seem to have any friends they see or how few have their own social media accounts? That’s by design. It makes it harder for them to get a support network around them.
Claiming “it’s God” telling them to punish them. I can’t be the only one who noticed how often religious narcissists use God as both a scapegoat and a cudgel to beat others with.
Homebirths. A lot of those homebirths do not get reported to hospitals or authorities. This leads to kids who have no birth certificates. No birth certificate means that you have almost no rights in America. You can’t even get an ID without one.
While outsiders occasionally saw warning signs of ConneXions abuse, the truth is that Ruby Franke’s kids had nowhere to turn to. It was only when one escaped and ran to a neighbor with egregious wounds all over him that people believed him.
Now, Ruby and Jodi are both serving time. Worse for them, their narcissistic masks fell. No one will ever be able to buy their cute Christian PR package again.
Despite their failure, I can’t help but see their parenting tips being implemented by other families with a narcissist at the helm. This is more common and yet more extreme than typical narcissists behaved in the past.
Personally? I surmise that it’s not just a parenting trend. It’s a trend of desperate narcissists to make sure they have a death grip on their kids.
Whether narcissistic parents realize it or not, their children will still find a way to leave.
Breaking a person’s legs so they won’t walk away is not enough to make them stay. The Ruby Franke case, the Turpin case, and others like it are proof of that. Eventually, almost all adult children will talk about what happened to them as kids.
Our society is growing increasingly aware of how narcissistic families behave and the warning signs of child abuse. Our society is also becoming aware that kids don’t cut ties with their parents for no reason.
While it will take some time for this attitude to fully take over, the writing is on the wall. And honestly? I think that troublesome parents are starting to recognize it, too. That’s why they’re panicking.
Narcissistic parents are running out of time when it comes to their shenanigans…and if they want to keep their kids by their side, they are going to have to work on themselves.
Fantastic article. We used to say, "pack your bags kids, we're going on a guilt trip!" When I broke away from my dad, it was as if I received constant BS pressure from strangers to fix the relationship who know absolutely nothing about it. You almost never received any hint of an understanding that you were doing what you needed to do to survive. I'm glad that's changing. Very, very good work here!
Thank you for this post!!! I'm 55 yo and after many emotional dumpster fires within my fundie christian bio family (I'm LGBTQ and as a female I wanted to go to college instead of marrying the man they'd picked for me) in the early 90's I got a Victims Protection Order against both of my bio parents and have been strictly no contact with them ever since! The protection order was the best thing I did (besides therapy) for myself!! The protection order was easily attained in court even back in the early 90's within a religious town/district where my bio parents religious views were the norm. That's how bad their abuse was.
I have gone on to live a happy successful life with a life-partner of almost 30 years and many supportive friends and chosen family! The best revenge is to leave the abusers and go on and live well!
While I was school age, thankfully the option to homeschool did NOT exist and I was able to get away from my biologicals by reminding them of the then existing truancy laws. I wish homeschooling or private religious schools were under much more scrutiny today.
All of what you refer to in your newsletter is absolutely true - I've experienced it - including the fact that people have slowly been realizing that religious people aren't always the saints they claim to be and are often using god as a co-conspirator, scapegoat or cudgel.
Nowadays people are much more likely to accept -rather than argue- when I say I don't have contact with biological family and most people even accept when I say I'm not religious. When someone refuses to accept my stated reality that is a red flag for me and I am very wary of that person.
Thank you for writing this! Did my heart such good to read it!! And btw I am no longer living in that very red fundie religious state either! If possible leave abusive states and vote out government systems too!!