Am I denying my child a grandparent, if that grandparent is a narcissist?
This is the question that you ask when you’re considering distancing yourself from a narcissistic parent when you have children.
Perhaps your parents play a big part in your child’s life.
They shower their grandchildren with attention and gifts, often very expensive, and not often appropriate for the child’s age.
And they were involved in the children’s life, going to school plays etc, maybe even volunteering to help at their school.
As for your home life, they are deeply involved and expected to be consulted about every decision about your child from their diet to their choice of schooling.
Often, they would give unasked for advice about a child, or go direct to the child themselves and interfere.
They would expect to be able to visit regularly, with no regard if it’s convenient for you. Often these visits would be with little or no notice.
If they can’t visit often, they expect regular phone calls to and about your children. There is no regard as to if it’s a good time for you or not.
These are engulfing narcissistic grandparents.
They take over, disrespect boundaries and your rules with your children. They spoilt their grandchildren. And if there are ever any problems with your child, somehow it becomes about them.
Narcissists place most importance on their image.
In this situation the grandparents have portrayed themselves as good, caring and loving grandparents. This is all that matters to them.
These grandparents want the photo opportunities, the chance to splash photos of their grandchildren all their Facebook and to be seen outside the home with their grandchildren.
It’s about the glory shot, getting all the fun bits of being a grandparent and all the bits that make them look good to other people.
When it comes to the daily grind of caring for a child, they won’t be interested.
Perhaps your parent is a quiet or absent grandparent.
These are the grandparents that don’t bother at all with you or your children.
Perhaps they send a gift at Christmas or for birthdays, perhaps they don’t.
Often you wonder why they don’t contact you, but maybe they still want to have photos of your children.
They never ask after you or your children.
If they do communicate, the messages are short, brusque and down to business. They want something and they want it now. They don’t bother with any of the small talk, asking how you, your partner or kids are.
Communication may be very erratic, and maybe concentrated around holidays or birthdays, if they do bother.
It’s often you that has to make contact with them. And when you do, they are uninterested, busy doing something else or just talk about themselves.
This is the ignoring narcissistic grandparent.
Sometimes a mix
Sometimes your parents will change their behaviour, for a while the engulfing narcissist becomes the ignoring narcissist and vice versa.
It depends on what’s happening in their life.
If you have a sibling who’s not doing as the narcissist wants, they may punish them by withdrawing from their life and becoming an ignoring narcissist.
Conversely if you have a sibling who is doing what they want they may reward them by giving them more attention and ‘love’.
This swift change means that everyone involved with the narcissist is never sure where they stand.
People unsure of their role or position are much easier to control.
Scapegoat and Golden child roles
If a child is the golden child, then their children will be the golden child grandchildren.
Often the golden child and their golden child grandchildren are given all the narcissistic grandparents attention and usually money too.
They appear to have it all.
However, the narcissistic grandparent is abusing both their child and their grandchildren.
It is not a healthy setup.
The golden child is often enmeshed with their narcissistic parent. So, it follows that the golden child grandchildren are entangled with their grandparent too.
There are no boundaries or no rules.
The golden child and grandchildren have an unhealthy reliance on the narcissist. This gives the narcissist a huge amount of power and control.
Sadly, it is rare for the golden child, or grandchild, to break free. They can’t see how unhealthy the setup is.
With the scapegoat, the scapegoat’s children becomes the scapegoat grandchildren.
These children are punished with no attention or money from the narcissist. They are ignored, unless the narcissist deems it in the interest of their image to be involved.
The narcissist’s image is top priority for the narcissist.
All the abuse you took as a child, will be put onto your child. And, sadly, as narcissistic abuse is your normal, you may not even be aware of it.
For the most part the children and grandchildren keep the roles of golden child or scapegoat.
However, these roles can shift temporarily depending on the narcissist’s mood or whims.
The common points
In all cases, of either engulfing or ignoring narcissist, scapegoat or golden child, anyone involved closely with a narcissist never knows the security of being love and accepted.
Love is conditional, based on how the person is serving the narcissist.
The engulfing narcissist or narcissist’s treatment of the golden child is seen as being ‘love’. But it is not love when it can be revoked in a moment’s notice.
The ignoring narcissist or narcissist’s treatment of the scapegoat is seen as being disregard, dislike or even hatred. But even this can be changed in a moment depending on the whims of the narcissist.
There is never true unconditional love and connection between a grandparent and their grandchildren when that grandparent is a narcissist.
Grandchildren will never experience the safety and security of being loved and accepted just as they are.
Narcissistic parents make narcissistic grandparents.
Your childhood experiences with your narcissistic parent will become the experiences of your child with their narcissistic grandparent.
The pattern repeats with your children, no matter how closely you watch them to try to stop it.
Not only that but a narcissistic grandparent can do irreparable damage to your relationship with your children.
Disrespecting your rules, teaches your child to do the same.
Making you out to be the bad one, when your child can’t have that expensive or inappropriate gift, makes your child resent you.
Ignoring your boundaries, encourages your child to do the same.
Spoiling their grandchildren teaches your child to be selfish and entitled and to value material possessions above love and connection.
Ignoring your child, or else picking and choosing when they are involved, teaches your children that they don’t matter.
Are you truly denying them a grandparent, if you are freeing them from a lifetime of potential abuse?
A child habituated to narcissistic abuse, will be a target for abusers for their lifetime unless they break free.
It leaves them vulnerable not only to their grandparent, but also to narcissistic friends, partners, colleagues, bosses, anyone in their life.
Are you truly denying them love and connection if you distance yourself (and them) from their narcissistic grandparents?
Children often understand the situation better than you do.
They will feel:
obligated to their grandparent, rather than doing it because they wanted to.
guilty and responsible for their grandparent’s feelings, if they do anything to upset their grandparent.
afraid if they don’t do what is expected of them, afraid that their grandparent won’t love them anymore.
Would you choose to spend time with your narcissistic parent, if you had a choice and they weren’t family?
This is an interesting question.
The answer that you give, if it’s not based on fear, obligation and guilt, will tell you all you need to understand about your relationship with your parent.
And if you don’t want to spend time with them, what about your children?
Conclusion
It’s so hard at the beginning to understand the depth of the true dynamic with your narcissistic parent.
And even more challenging when you have children that are being dragged into the dynamic too.
However, the priority is to protect your child from abusive people. And if you are distancing yourself and your children from your narcissistic parents, this is what you are doing.
Narcissistic abuse is a generational curse, it will have gone through your family for generations.
The only way to break the curse is to liberate yourself and your children from narcissistic parents and grandparents.
It’s so important to teach your children the difference between conditional love and unconditional love.
A child used to unconditional love is much less likely to be involved with a narcissist, and to live free from abuse.
Distancing yourself from all toxicity is essential to the healing process. Only with time and space can you see the abuse for what it was, process it and begin to heal.
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Originally published at https://comebackbrighter.com on February 15, 2022.