When Narcissistic Parents Become Grandparents

Clare Lane

10 min readOct 19, 2021

In my experience it is when a narcissistic parent becomes a grandparent that their true toxicity shows.

You see, for a narcissist, the arrival of a grandchild is the time when they have to reassert their authority over you.

A narcissist seeks complete power and control over people, most especially their family members.

When you are having a child, a narcissist knows that the dynamic between you and them will shift.

The narcissist fears that your child may become your priority.

So, to re-establish themselves as the number one and only in your life, they will ramp up their abuse.

In part it is a test, to see if you will take this new dynamic knowing that you have a child on the way.

A narcissist wants to know that you will continue to be a satisfactory target for their abuse, but also that you will allow them to abuse your child.

You and your child are a double target, plus you witnessing them abusing your child is another benefit for the narcissist.

This test could begin before the arrival of your child.

The narcissistic parent may demand to attend your antenatal appointments, perhaps they advise you on your diet or expect you to give up work sooner than you want. Whatever it is they will expect that you will do as they tell them, no matter if it suits you, or was your plan at all.

Your wishes for you and your unborn child don’t matter to a narcissistic parent.

The delivery of your child becomes the crunch point for them.

Many narcissistic parents will expect to be at the birth, even if they are not invited or not wanted.

It’s not because they care, it’s because they want to brag that they were there or be the first to know what’s happening.

Or else if they’re not at the birth, they will expect to be allowed to visit whenever they want.

What you, your partner or your new-born baby require or want does not matter to a narcissistic grandparent.

For the narcissist the delivery is the point at which they must ensure the new dynamic is the way that they want it.

They will want to take charge of the process, in one way or another, and will take your acquiescence due to exhaustion or wanting to keep the peace, as they ‘win’.

This is their power struggle.

To a narcissist, a child, especially a grandchild, is an excellent target for their abuse.

Children are easily manipulable, loving and desire to be loved and approved by their grandparent. This makes them very vulnerable to their narcissistic grandparent’s abuse.

The baby will soon learn what their grandparent finds acceptable or not. And will soon realise that their grandparents love is conditional on the child serving them in the ways that they desire.

All the manipulation tactics and all the abusive manoeuvres they used on you will be used on your child.

The toxic patterns of your childhood will be repeated for your child.

If you are the scapegoat, then your child will become the scapegoat grandchild.

If you are the golden child, then your child will become the golden grandchild.

Your wounds and trauma from your childhood will continue in your children, in childhood and adulthood until they are either free themselves or they become narcissistic themselves.

There is a message which is pervasive today, that a grandparent is allowed to spoil their grandchildren.

Narcissistic grandparents take this to the extreme and use it to abuse their grandchild and undermine their parents.

They see it as their right to do so, and don’t care about the consequences for your child or for you.

A narcissistic grandparent assumes total control

A narcissistic grandparent will expect to be in complete power and control of you and your child.

You are seen as just the caretaker for their grandchild, someone to do all the dirty jobs. Changing nappies, looking after the child when they are ill or paying for them.

There is no support from them, just constant micromanaging if they are engulfing narcissists.

An ignoring narcissist behaves very differently

With ignoring narcissists it will be as if you’ve not had a child, they will still not make any effort.

Perhaps you expect them to make more effort for your child, their grandchild.

These narcissists feed from your hurt that they don’t care about you or your child.

They will, however, appear to care about a sibling or someone else or their child. It’s to provide a contrast which you are meant to feel.

This is to make you feel that it is you that is at fault.

It’s a different way to scapegoat you.

As your child gets older they will feel the same confusion and hurt that you do about their grandparents.

Your ignoring parents will be sure to make sure that they spend time with, and money on your siblings children or other children.

For your child, this will mean that there is something wrong with them, that’s why they are ignored.

They will also see other children with their loving and caring grandparents and feel a loss.

The engulfing narcissist want opportunities to be fun or improve their image

A narcissistic grandparent will want to show off their grandchild, mainly to show what a fabulous grandparent they are.

None of it is about their grandchild, but all about the attention they will get as grandparents.

So, they will want to do all the fun things, to be seen in public and photo opportunities.

If they don’t see your child frequently, they will demand regular photos of them. They will assume that you will give these photos no questions.

Often these photos are demanded, but no signs of care or interest in their grandchild.

These photos are to be shown off, either to people they meet or on social media. All to back up their image as remarkable grandparents.

A narcissistic grandparent will want to ‘spoil’ their grandchild.

However, they will take it to an extreme.

This will mean for them that they never say no to their grandchild, whatever it is that they want.

All your rules for your child’s life will be broken, and the narcissist knows it.

They may buy expensive and inappropriate gifts, making sure to give them to the children in front of you.

It could be that they disrespect your diet choices for your child and give them foods you don’t agree with.

Whatever it is that they do, they will do to undermine you with your children.

They will look like the good and fun grandparents.

The more you say no to everything that they do that breaks your rules, the more you will look like you are mean and nasty to your children.

You are the one that ruins the fun or takes things away from them.

This, of course, will be backed up with what your parents say or hint about you behind your back to your children.

If you ever address this with them, the one incident will be treated as a nothing.

Then they will accuse you of being unfair for not letting them treat their grandchild or for being jealous or over-sensitive.

Things will go right back to what they were before, the narcissistic grandparent will not change their behaviour.

If you mention it again, they may either swear that you’ve never said anything before (gas-lighting) or disregard you again.

A narcissist will never change their behaviour.

So, it comes to the point when you either have to continue taking their abusive behaviour to you and your children or put a stop to it.

It might be easier for you to go no contact, but when you consider that your children will lose their grandparent it makes it more difficult.

The damage that a narcissistic grandparent does to their grandchildren, and your relationship with your children is not to be underestimated.

They are not loving and caring people.

They are habituating your child to abuse, which will have consequences for your child for their whole life.

It isn’t just a narcissistic grandparent that does the damage, it is the normalisation of abuse.

A child raised in any contact with toxic people assumes that it is the way that people behave. They are attracted to and attract toxic people as partners, friends, colleagues, bosses, anyone that they have contact with.

The only way to ensure that narcissistic abuse isn’t your child’s normal is to go no contact.

It is a huge step and not one to underestimate, but it is the only way to free yourself and most importantly free your child.

Parenting is a difficult enough job, without being undermined, made out to be the bad one all the time, and having all your rules for your child broken.

And this is done by family members, supposed to want the best for their grandchildren.

However, none of this will be about the best thing for the children.

It will always be about the best thing for the narcissist.

Free yourself and you will heal yourself.

Free your child and you stop the cycle of abuse that has been in the family for generations.

Christine

A neighbour, Christine, had seemed to be a nice woman, although there were some strange goings on with her family.

Throughout her house, there were loads of photos of her grandchildren. I assumed that the grandchildren were around teenage, because the children were around that age in the photos.

Whenever she spoke about family, she would say things like they stopped coming to see her because she refused to give them any more money. Or that she was on her own for Christmas because she refused to buy them the expensive gifts they demanded.

It was as if all of a sudden these children had disappeared from her life.

When she mentioned that one of her granddaughters had had a baby, I was surprised. I hadn’t thought that they were that old.

Then she was very strange about them visiting her with their new child. She didn’t seem to want to see them.

I couldn’t understand it until my son had a playdate with Christine’s great granddaughter. She was being babysat at the time by her grandmother, Christine’s daughter, Marie.

This is when the truth came out.

Marie’s children had spent a lot of time with her mother and father.

Then one day as the children were approaching teenage, Christine told one of the girls that they had to chose between their parents and her. She told her granddaughter not to tell anyone.

However, her granddaughter told her sister and her mother.

From that day onwards the girls never went to spend any time with their grandparents.

The only visits were when they were adults, and these were rare and only out of a sense of obligation.

When the narcissist’s grandchildren become teenagers, the relationship shifts.

The grandchildren are becoming their own people, with their own tastes and preferences.

They are no longer the perfect little robots, programmed to only consider granny or granddad. The narcissist doesn’t like this.

So, this is the time when the narcissist has to reassert their authority over their grandchildren.

They will expect to have complete control.

However, if they don’t they will walk away from their grandchildren without any care at all.

If their grandchild isn’t serving them then they aren’t interested.

They won’t care about how confused, hurt or upset their grandchild is. None of that matters to them.

My father-in-law’s wake

When my father in-law died suddenly, fortunately my husband was able to get to see him just hours before he died.

My parents offered to take my then 2 year old son, the night before the funeral, so we could sort out the last minute arrangements.

I wasn’t keen on the idea, but thought it wouldn’t do any harm. In fact, I think my father had to talk me around to it.

The next day they dropped my son off at the hotel for the wake. They refused to come into the hotel to offer my mother in-law their condolences, just handed over my son in the car park.

My son in the hotel was uncontrollable and like nothing I had ever experienced with him before (or since for that matter).

He raced around the room, with more than the usual exuberance of a 2-year-old. He refused to sit still.

I am convinced, that my mother had fed him on sweets and ice-cream.

She probably kept him in his pushchair or car seat too, so that he had all that pent up energy to release at the wake.

It would have been better to have had him ourselves overnight and for the funeral too.

There was nothing appropriate or caring about their actions when they had him. It was all to make themselves out to be the good ones, feeding him up with sweets and ice-cream.

Neither of them cared for the consequences for him after so much sugar.

And they certainly didn’t care about the increased stress in an already stressful situation for me and my husband.

All they cared about was making themselves look good.

That was the first and last time he ever stayed with them.

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