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Family Roles and Narcissism Recovery

A few days after I posted about the stages of grief in narcissism recovery, I saw a video about the relationship between narcissistic mothers and their sons. Judging by the content, it appeared the content creator based the video on their own experiences with narcissism, and the creator was still very much in the anger stage of grief.


I do think people benefit from connecting with content that provides a voice for anger. Anger is an important stage of grief, in large part because anger is the only separating emotion. Anger helps us separate from our own emotions, which explains why anger is usually the emotion that follows denial and bargaining, and precedes sadness and acceptance. Anger also helps us separate from others, which makes it a necessary emotion when grieving the end of a relationship, or the end of a relationship as we hoped or expected it would be.


Unfortunately, angry voices in social media pose certain risks. I often see my clients get stuck in angry thoughts and feelings by focusing only on angry content, which prevents them from moving through the stages of grief. (The same can be true for other stages of grief, but the one I see most often is anger.)


There’s also the risk of viewing emotionally based content in general. When content is presented to appeal to emotion, it can be hard to get out of your feeling brain, and back into your thinking brain.


And when angry content is based solely on one person’s lived experience, you’re not only running the risk of getting stuck in your feeling brain experiencing anger. You may well be getting angry about information that’s not even accurate!  


The video I viewed online was a perfect example of this. The video claimed that narcissistic mothers have a particular kind of unhealthy relationship with their sons, which then creates narcissistic sons. The narcissistic mother and narcissistic son then share a particular kind of relationship throughout the son’s adulthood.


This video is inaccurate on two counts. First, narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is, by definition, a personality disorder. It requires the individual to have a particular kind of personality. In other words, the son must have a particular kind of personality that puts him at risk for developing narcissistic traits. If this video was correct, then every son of a narcissistic mother would then become a narcissist himself, and this is simply not true.


The video also implied that narcissistic mothers create narcissistic men, completely leaving the impact of narcissistic fathers out of the equation. And, of course, it didn't discuss the relationships that lead to narcissistic women who become narcissistic mothers.


In addition, the video failed to take into consideration that there are different kinds of relationships that parents with narcissistic traits have with their children. In narcissism recovery, we acknowledge that parents with narcissistic traits use their relationships with their children to meet their own emotional needs, rather than caring for their children’s emotional needs.


One way we see this play out is that parents with narcissistic traits assign “roles” to their children. If you grew up with a parent with narcissistic traits, you and other children in your family were assigned at least role, and understanding those roles will help you in narcissism recovery. Each family is unique, but here’s a brief guide to the roles, and how and why they are assigned to children in a family unit:


The Golden Child


The Golden Child can do no wrong, and on the surface, it appears they don’t have to “do” anything to be the narcissistic parent’s favorite child.  But in fact, there’s something about the Golden Child that is emotionally significant to the parent.


Sometimes the Golden Child meets a cultural expectation, as in being the oldest son. Or, the Golden Child may, through no effort on their part, represent a personal preference of the parent. For example, the Golden Child may be tall, look like the parent with narcissistic traits, or be considered physically attractive.


More commonly, what I observe in families with a narcissistic parent is that the Golden Child is a stand-in for the parent with narcissistic traits. For example, the Golden Child might struggle in school, the way the parent with narcissistic traits did. Or, if the parent with narcissistic traits was the second son, they may elevate their second son to the role of Golden Child.


In the parent with narcisisstic trait's childish emotional world, they are recreating their own childhood, and righting the wrongs done to them in their childhood. In fact, of course, the parent is perpetuating, rather than healing, intergenerational trauma.


The Hero Child


The Hero Child can also do no wrong, but they have to earn their keep. The Hero Child has some trait or ability that the parent with narcissistic traits finds useful. They may be cooperative, athletic, do well in school, be artistic or musical, or be financially successful. Whatever the characteristics may be, the Hero Child has to maintain them, or they will lose their standing as Hero Child.


Parents with narcissistic traits often blur the line between Golden and Hero Child. It’s not uncommon for a child to start out as a Golden Child, then gradually become a Hero Child. For instance, the oldest son might start off as a Golden Child, but then become an excellent student or a standout athlete and become a Hero Child. Or a daughter who resembles her narcissistic parent may be the Golden Child until she is financially successful as an adult, at which point she become a Hero Child who is expected to maintain a wealthy lifestyle.


It's also possible for the Golden or Hero Child to be “demoted” to Scapegoat or Lost Child when they make a decision unpopular with the parent with narcissistic traits. The former Golden or Hero Child may decide not to go to the college of the parent’s choice, may decide to date someone the parent disapproves of, or may not dress or act the way the parent desires. If they displease the parent with narcissistic traits, they no longer meet the parent’s emotional needs, and the parent has no further reason to elevate the Golden or Hero Child.


The Scapegoat


The Scapegoat is the repository of the parent’s shame. People with narcissistic traits see themselves as all bad, and work hard to present themselves as all good. One way people with narcissistic traits do this is to use the immature ego defenses of early childhood, including displacement. (Displacement is making someone else feel uncomfortable when you are feeling uncomfortable.) The parent with narcissistic traits displaces their feelings of “badness” to the Scapegoat. Instead of the narcissistic parent being “bad,” now the Scapegoat is the “bad” one.


Scapegoating can be direct, in which the parent with narcissistic traits tells the child, family, and larger community outright that the Scapegoat is the “bad” child. Scapegoating can be less direct, in which the parent with narcissistic traits uses behaviors to favor the Golden/Hero child, and is abusive or neglectful of the Scapegoat.


Scapegoating can also be subtle, like smiling and thanking the Golden/Hero Child for a birthday gift, while mumbling a thank you with a blank face to the Scapegoat. Scapegoating can look like allowing the Golden/Hero child certain privileges, but denying the Scapegoat the same privileges. One form of subtle scapegoating I see often is the parent with narcissistic traits allowing the Scapegoat child to plan a sleepover or party, then cancelling it the day before, while providing a vague reason for cancelling, or providing no reason at all.


Lost Child


The Lost Child is the child the parent with narcissistic traits generally ignores. The Lost Child doesn’t get the praise and adulation of the Golden/Hero Child, nor are they on the receiving end of the parent’s abuse like the Scapegoat. This role may not seem as uncomfortable as that of Scapegoat, but brain research shows neglect is just as damaging as abuse to a child’s developing brain.


The way parents treat their children is the other-esteem and other-concept parents provide, which later becomes the child’s self-esteem and self-concept. When parents with narcissistic traits consistently ignore a child, children feel worthless and unlovable. This neglectful parent-child relationship becomes the foundation of how Lost Children engage in relationship with themselves and others.


The Rules of the Roles


Family roles are not hard-and-fast. I’ve worked with clients who were only children, and over the course of time, they were assigned all four roles, sometimes simultaneously, depending on what the parent with narcissistic traits was experiencing. In families with more than one child, a child may have multiple roles throughout their life, or they may be assigned one role and maintain it for a lifetime.


Ultimately, children are assigned a role because in some way, doing so meets the parent’s emotional needs. Because the focus is on the child meeting the parent’s emotional needs, rather than the parent meeting the child’s emotional needs, being assigned any of the roles is emotional abuse.

 

The video I viewed implied that all narcissistic mothers create a Golden/Hero Child relationship with their son, who then goes on to become a narcissist himself. Knowing a little more about the roles, their function, and how they work in various families, it’s easy to see that a parent with narcissistic traits can negatively influence a child with a personality disposed to narcissism, regardless of which role the child is assigned.


A son with a personality predisposed to narcissism is not going to develop healthy self-esteem in the role of Scapegoat or Lost Child. The way they evince narcissism may look different than that of a child who grows up as a Golden or Hero Child, but their behavior will nonetheless be narcissistic in its presentation.


And although being the Golden or Hero child may seem far preferable to being a Scapegoat or Lost Child, it’s a role grounded in conditional love. Golden and Hero Children are statistically least likely to go no contact or seek therapy, but they nonetheless are suffering internally as long as they buy into the belief that they have to be something or someone in order to be lovable.


If you resonate with any of the roles assigned in a narcissistic family, it probably significantly affected your self-esteem and self-concept. I encourage you to consider working with a therapist who specializes in narcissism recovery. You deserve a lifetime of thriving!


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