If you grew up as a child of narcissistic parents, it is very common that they cast you into a certain role within the family that you cannot escape no matter how hard you try. As long as you remain in a relationship with a narcissist, he will continue to treat you the same way he treated you as a child, no matter how much you try to change to please him.
There are some typical roles that narcissistic parents usually assign to their children, which are referred to as the scapegoat child, the lost child, and the golden child. There may be more than one of them, depending on the number of children in the family.
If you have recently begun to suspect that one or both of your parents are narcissistic, looking at the roles children are asked to play within the family can help determine whether this is the case.
Growing up, I didn’t know these labels as a child. However, I knew that my sister was the “good kid” and I was the “bad kid” in the family. No matter how much I tried to please my father, there was nothing I could do to escape this role.
#Scapegoat
For me, the scapegoat role continued into adulthood. No matter how successful I was, there was nothing I could do that was “good enough” for my narcissistic mother. I couldn’t please her no matter how hard I tried, and it was extremely painful to be in a relationship with someone who couldn’t accept me for who I was.
#goldenchild
However, being the “golden child” of a narcissistic parent is not all sunshine and roses either. No matter how much it may seem that way in terms of the praise, privileges, and financial support they receive from their narcissistic parent.
#According to the daughters of narcissistic mothers:
“The golden child can end up being swallowed up by the narcissistic mother, and her life can end up trapped in the life of the narcissistic mother. She may grow up without proper boundaries and a proper self-identity. She is likely to remain, either forever or forever.” For a long time, she has been a puppet of the narcissistic mother, and if she can break free, this process will be infinitely more painful for her than it is for the scapegoat.
This applies to my sister because she is the golden child of our family. As an adult, I became independently involved with our mother. This is true even though she has a family of her own. For years, she had dinner with our mother every night and had my mother babysit her daughter every day. They have lived together for years.
#lostchild
In families with more children, there may also be a lost child. This is the child who falls somewhere between the scapegoat and the golden child, who gets the most attention, both positive and negative. A lost child will receive less attention from others, will often have to fend for themselves, and may feel like they are raising themselves.
Although the missing child is not abused in the same way as the scapegoated child, he or she is still abused by the narcissistic parent. In some cases, they may feel invisible. They may learn, unseen and unheard, to be very independent but also have low self-esteem.
Related: What It Means When A Narcissist Says ‘I Love You’
#Family Dynamics
When a narcissistic parent assigns these roles to their children, they often pit the children against each other in competition. Love, care, and acceptance are scarce resources in a narcissistic family, and children may fight with each other to gain their parents’ approval.
In my case, since I was the eldest and also the scapegoat, I did my best to protect my little sister from our parents, by bearing most of the punishments. I felt that if I took their attention away from her, she wouldn’t be hurt by them like I was. It was misleading, but I didn’t hate my sister until adulthood.
After that, I felt like it wasn’t fair that my sister was always treated better than me, as the differences started to become more apparent to me. In my first year of college, my parents paid $500 for half of my laptop. In my sister’s first year in college, they paid her $27,000 to live on campus at a private university.
The stark differences become wider as we get older. Time, money, and care were always more of a priority for my sister than me. It was the same with the grandchildren. My niece was always her grandmother’s favorite – by leaps and bounds. When I saw my daughter playing the same role I did, I started making changes.
Although the scapegoat often recognizes unhealthy patterns of trauma and abuse for what they are and can break free, the golden child may remain enmeshed with their narcissistic parent for life. They don’t understand that this is not how normal, healthy relationships work. They get some benefit from the relationship with the narcissist, so they stay.
When parental separation occurs, sibling estrangement often results as well. If only one child can see the family for what it is, there will be little common ground to be seen between siblings.
My sister once summed it up very succinctly when she said to me, “Your experience with our family was very different from mine.”
This is often the case with a narcissistic family. Since each child has a role to play within the family, each will have very different relationships with their parents. This can lead to troubled relationships between siblings as well.
Related: How To Parent Your Child When The Other Parent Is A Narcissist
