Narcissistic Parents Don't Love Their Children — They Use Them

They said they were managing the finances — because you weren't good with money. That every purchase had to go through them. 

But somehow, there was always money for what they wanted. They made you feel like a child asking for an allowance — in your own home. And the moment you tried to leave, you realized you had nothing. Because they had made sure of it. 

That wasn't financial stress. That was financial control. 

This Thursday episode, Kerry  reads from your stories — real accounts from people who lived inside financially controlling relationships — to break down what financial abuse actually is and what the 'broke' narcissist tactic looks like from the inside. 

In this episode: 

• Why narcissists use money as a tool of surveillance and control 
• The 'broke' performance: how narcissists claim poverty while draining your resources 
• How financial abuse creates a dependency trap designed to make leaving feel impossible 
• Why survivors so often exit these relationships having to start over in debt, isolated, and exhausted 
• What financial recovery really requires

Key Moments:

00:00 — Caught in the middle: the child who can't take sides
02:05 — "My worst enemy, but also my best friend": love with conditions
03:39 — When the sensitive child becomes the target
05:07 — The gaze that builds a self — and the one that breaks it
06:36 — "I never said that": memory gaslighting and siblings who stop speaking
08:55 — Protecting your kids: hypervigilance, loyalty binds, and staying regulated

Resources

• The Complete Recovery Collection: Narcissistic abuse resources
• First Steps to Leaving: Online self-paced digital course
• Toxic-Free Relationship Club: Live coaching & community support

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Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D., an author and educator, helps listeners decode toxic dynamics, recognize manipulation, and rebuild self-trust.

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This podcast/video is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute therapy, counseling, or professional mental health advice, nor does listening create a doctor-patient or therapist-client relationship. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please call 911 or contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988 (US/Canada).

Transcript

Caught in the middle: the child who can't take sides

Dr. Kerry 0:00

Narcissistic mothers and fathers don't hate their kids. They actually believe that they love them. They don't realize, though, that that love is not an unconditional one, that it's actually transactional. Sometimes children become the predatory target. Sometimes they're chosen for this. When you're a child growing up in a home with a narcissistic parent, you're caught in the center. You're the one who's feeling confused, like there's divided loyalty and you don't want to injure either parent. That you're trapped in the middle of something that you can't get out of because you don't understand the dynamics and you have no power. And maybe you don't even have the words to describe what's been going on. That's what I'd like to talk about today. I'd like to address what happens when you're caught between the two people you love the most. And some of you now have become adults and you survived this. You know what it's like to be in the middle of all of this because that was you. I'm describing what you went through. So we're going to talk about what happens in these relationships when you're experiencing conditional love and you're trapped between two people who are going at it, and you don't want to lose the relationship with either one. A viewer wrote in and shared something that I think captures this very well. She says, My mom was my biggest bully, but also my biggest supporter. And to say this is confusing for me to the extent that I can't even articulate enough what it felt like to be caught like that. I have a feeling that a lot of people understood that because that comment got over 2,000 likes. 2,000 people immediately recognized themselves in that kind of confusion. And by the way, that wasn't accidental. Being caught in the center wasn't the accident. That was actually what happens when you're in a narcissistic family, when you're caught between a narcissistic parent and another parent.

My worst enemy, but also my best friend": love with conditions

Dr. Kerry 2:05

Because narcissistic mothers and fathers don't hate their kids. They actually believe that they love them. They don't realize, though, that that love is not an unconditional one, that it's actually transactional. They want you to be there to reflect back well on them. And when you comply and you perform well, then they're excited that you did that because you gratified them. You showed them as a good person. But when you don't, then you get the criticism and the all the injury from that. Then they at that moment you're a bad object for them. And so you end up growing up in this terrible bind where you're both the accolades or the trophy, but also you're the disappointment at the same hands of the person who sees you in both ways. Another viewer wrote in to say, her mom used to say to her, I think you're my worst enemy, but you're also my best friend. This viewer said, I didn't really understand what she meant by that. But now I realize she's trying to convince herself. Yes, her mom was trying to convince herself. She wasn't just managing you by saying that, that you're my worst enemy, but you're also my best friend. She's trying to manage an internal narrative that you as the child was something that you actually were never intended to be. You weren't supposed to be her enemy, but you also weren't supposed to be your her best friend. You were supposed to be her child, somebody she showed up for. And instead, she didn't understand exactly what it meant to be

When the sensitive child becomes the target

Dr. Kerry 3:39

a parent to you. Sometimes children become the predatory target, which even creates a greater level of confusion because they're not just caught in something bad between two people who no longer like each other or want to be around each other. Sometimes they're chosen for this. One viewer wrote in to describe this. She said it was so unfair being this treated this way. I deserve love. I was sensitive. I had a soft heart and my mom and dad ate it up. Think about that. She experienced being eaten up because she was a kind person. That's a description of predatory behavior. This is a child who came into the world open and she encountered people who consumed that openness instead of protecting it. Again, that comment got another 2,000 likes because 2,000 of us could really identify with that. Another survivor wrote, My mom, my whole life was telling me that I was the ugliest baby she ever saw. She would go on and on about how she cried for hours when the doctor handed me to her. It was probably one of the cruelest things she's ever done to me. Think about that. This is a person who's supposed to love you unconditionally, but she purposefully would tell this harmful, horrible story about her disappointment that you weren't a good enough object that she thought you were the worst in the world and cried about it and then bragged to the world that that was her

The gaze that builds a self — and the one that breaks it

Dr. Kerry 5:07

reaction. That's not unintentional. That's not accidental. This is somebody who wants to message you that you have no internal worth. That's predation. Our sense of self is not built out of isolation. It's built in the context of relationship. The parents we see mirror how we then come to think of ourselves. When that mom or dad holds the infant in his arm or in her arms and they give the bottle to them, and there's that gaze between caregiver and infant that's warm and loving, the child learns I'm a good person. I'm delightful, I'm worth looking after. I feel safe. But when we have a parent who gazes with us with criticism or only conditional approval or contempt, the child doesn't conclude to themselves, oh, my mom or dad has a problem. This is them, not me. No, they conclude that there's something wrong with them. This is something that we internalize and becomes the very core of how we perceive ourselves. Narcissistic parents exploit this process by destroying it with their own unworked, unmet needs. So a child ends up growing up in this situation thinking, I have to earn my keep. I have to be the right kind of person that my parent feels proud of, or otherwise I'm not worth having in this room. This causes horrible pain to children

"I never said that": memory gaslighting and siblings who stop speaking

Dr. Kerry 6:36

when they're seen in this way. It's extremely difficult to extract that and to rework this and see yourself as somebody worthy of love and unconditional regard. Another way that parents can really harm kids is through memory gaslighting and creating divisions among the siblings. One of the adult survivors wrote in to describe how her mother would actually rewrite history and deny reality. She says, My mom's catchphrase was, I never said that. And she said, I still feel confused. And if it wasn't for the fact that I had younger siblings, I wouldn't know that that was a lie, that my mom did say that. This is an example of how a child's actual sense of reality was being rewritten into something that it wasn't. And thank goodness she had other family members that could validate what her experience was. But sometimes toxic parents destroy sibling relationships. I saw that with my grandmother and my father and his brother's relationship, how she would play them against each other to the point that when she died, they like fought over who could get to her house first to get the items that she shared in order to get her special things so that the other one couldn't. And they end up not speaking after she passed away. She'd so thoroughly ruined that relationship that they wanted nothing to do with each other. Somebody else wrote in something similar. She said, I'm one of five children in my family, and none of us talk to each other. I've tried, but I've now given up. That's what happens when one parent is constantly ranking the kids, comparing, shifting alliances. The siblings just feel it's not safe to bond. Instead, they see each other as competitors, and that creates such deep resentment that sometimes they can never reconnect, even after that person passes on. So if I'm describing something you can identify with, I want you to know that it's never too late to heal and to come back from this, to be able to be released from these traumas. Somebody wrote in and said, Hey, it took me 60 years to figure out what's wrong. I was a golden child who then got discarded. And now that I understand this, I feel so freed. I want you to know that this can be due too, that there is no timeline on healing, that you can be able to look back at these experiences, be able to put them into perspective

Protecting your kids: hypervigilance, loyalty binds, and staying regulated

Dr. Kerry 8:55

and find real recovery. So I want to end today by talking about if you're in a toxic relationship right now, or maybe you're in a custody battle with a former ex, here are some things to watch out to help your children. First, pay attention to which child might be the hyper-vigilant one. This is the child who knows the mood of everybody before even anyone has ever said a word. They're the person who tries to manage you emotionally instead of being cared for you. They have learned that the adult emotions are their responsibility. Help them name what they're feeling and consider releasing them from that job. Also pay attention to how some kids end up feeling like there's loyalty bonds. Maybe your child has had a visit with that co-parent and they come back and they just seem tense or stressed or distant. Don't interrogate them. Instead, create a like a low pressure space to talk by asking something really general and calm, like, hey, how did it go? Without any agenda. Don't like put them on a spot, but just let them feel like free to show up in a way that makes them feel comfortable. Or maybe you see there's a lot of sibling friction, like your kids are starting to play off of each other, they're ranking each other, they're competing with each other. Maybe even you hear your ex-partner's language coming out of their mouth as they try to describe the situation. If you're seeing triangulation, consider naming it with your kids in an age-appropriate way. Not so that you alienate them, but whether that you can call out the dynamic, like, you know, hey, if you have an issue with so-and-so, why don't you go talk to them? Or I don't need to be pulled in and refereed every argument you guys have. You can learn to work it out. Or I know that's what happens at dad or mom's house, but that's not what we do here. The best way we can support a child who's surviving narcissistic parenting is to believe them. If they tell you something hurts, accept that it hurts. You don't need to balance out the other parents' narrative and explain why they may or may not do that thing. Take that your child at their word. The second thing you can do to be helpful is to be the regulated parent. You don't need to be perfect. Just be the one who knows how to handle your own emotions, how to handle when there's been an escalated experience. Be the one that stays calm so that they don't need to rescue you, but they can see that you're somebody that they can lean into through a very difficult time. This reminds me of when my late husband was dying of cancer. Every night I would sit in a chair, listen to dark music, and sob. And I thought all my kids were asleep that they had no idea that I was in so much pain. And then, of course, when the day got going the next day, I would be up and going and acting like business as usual. I didn't know until years later that one of my kids happened to be able to overhear me. And he said, I heard you cry, mom. He said, But I knew we'd be okay because you always seemed okay the next day. That was me showing up as a regulated parent. You can do the same. And if your child's in therapy, I want you to see the therapy as therapy. Don't you see it as case building. You're not looking for this person to create documentation for the custody hearing. Please, kids know the difference. When they feel there's a bigger agenda going on in the room instead of just it being a safe space for them to process things, they sense that. They sense that they're turning into a witness and they're not being allowed to be the patient in the room. And that's really going to shut them down. So allow their therapy to be child-centered, focused on them. And if any of these stories reminded you of your own, please consider leaving a comment. Not just for me, but for those that are watching, maybe watching next week or next year so that they know that they're not the only one going through this. And if you're in a co-parenting battle right now, consider watching Monday's conversation with Dr. Josh Davis. Because the tools he shared were so practical and grounded, and I'm sure you'd find it to be a lot of help. And if this is your first time here, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. You found your people, we're team care. And if you'd like me to share one of your stories on air, consider emailing it to clients at C L I E N T S at CarryMakAvoy PhD.com. And I'll see you back here on Monday.