People Who Were Raised By Emotionally Immature Parents Usually Develop These 10 Sad Behaviors As Adults
People often assume that parents will be the mature adults in the room, but that’s not always true.
Igordoon Primus | Unsplash Many children are raised by parents who are neither emotionally mature nor intellectually mature. Those kids lead complicated lives, often by no fault of their own. When you grow up with a parent whose immaturity affects you, you end up dealing with weird issues.
As someone who’s seen it up close and personal, I can attest to how a parent’s immaturity can harm kids as they grow. These signs below suggest that an emotionally immature parent might have raised you — and it may have affected you more than you think.
People who were raised by emotionally immature parents usually develop these behaviors as adults:
1. You constantly seek approval
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Immature parents may end up viewing their children as competition or may even be jealous of them. When this happens, the parent may lash out at their child or sabotage their lives “just because.” According to Psychology Today, this kind of dynamic is most common with narcissistic mothers, but it can happen to sons, too. Children who are constantly treated as same-gender competition tend to grow afraid of people of their gender.
Some children, on the other hand, might become adults who still try to get a parent to like them. People like these may end up weighing the opinions of others more heavily. This, in turn, can make them act like extreme people-pleasers.
2. You're scared to try new things
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Emotionally immature parents tend to make the world a scary place for children. Some just assume that their children can’t do anything that they, themselves, can’t do. If they’re narcissistic, they may also encourage children to give up on outdoing their own achievements. Unsurprisingly, many children of immature parents tend to be unwilling or unable to branch out.
It’s not uncommon for adult children of immature parents to be stuck at home well into their 40s. After all, if Mother Dearest convinced them they can’t go out without their help, who are they to question it?
While a fear of trying new things can be a symptom of being raised by emotionally immature parents, it's not a definitive indicator, and there are many other potential causes for this behavior. A 2023 study found that emotionally immature parenting can lead to insecurity and difficulty managing emotions, potentially impacting a child's willingness to take risks and explore new experiences.
3. You're often called an 'overachiever' or an 'old soul'
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One of the most common signs that a parent is emotionally immature deals with parentification. Parentification is the phenomenon where a child is expected to act as a parent would.
A child who’s expected to care for their siblings or parents in an emotional, physical, or intellectual way is a child who often has a world-weary look in their eyes by 16. People often call them “old souls” or tell them “they grew up too fast.”
Because children of immature parents often have to be the adults in the relationship, they tend to be more serious than their peers. They can be very job-oriented and studious, if only because they realize their parents won’t be able to care for them as adults.
4. You struggle maintaining boundaries
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Immature parents will trample on your boundaries the way a stampede of elephants tramples the ground of the Serengeti. Most emotionally immature parents will guilt-trip, use silence as a punishment, or just start screaming at kids who try to maintain boundaries.
If you’ve ever dealt with this long-term, you probably have difficulty holding boundaries. You might not even be aware of certain boundaries that are typically commonplace among healthy families. This can lead to oversharing, wedging yourself into things you’re not supposed to be involved with, or excusing your parents’ behavior with a shrug.
According to a 2021 study, struggling with boundaries, particularly as an adult, can be a sign of being raised by emotionally immature parents. These parents may have violated or ignored your childhood boundaries, leading to difficulties establishing and maintaining them later in life.
5. You often feel trapped because of how much your parents depend on you
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Does your relationship with your parents make you feel suffocated? Do your parents act like you’re their own personal validation bank or expect you to comfort them at the drop of a hat?
Many, if not most, children of emotionally immature parents have felt suffocated by their parents’ needy behavior. This is also a major reason why many children of emotionally immature parents eventually go no-contact with them.
6. Your personal needs always seem to come last
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Children always want to be center stage. If your parents are emotionally immature, they will often act like the main character in a movie — and yes, they will demand to be the center of attention, too.
As a result, children of emotionally immature parents get the hint quickly: their needs come second to their parents. They often internalize the idea that their needs don’t matter at all.
Many children who deal with immature parents will end up putting themselves on the lowest priority rank possible with both their parents and others. If they’re in a relationship, they may “silently martyr” themselves because they assume that’s what they’re supposed to do.
Consistently prioritizing others' needs over your own and feeling like your own needs are always last can be a sign of being raised by emotionally immature parents who may have struggled to meet your emotional needs. A 2016 study found that without proper emotional modeling, children may find it challenging to manage their emotions, potentially swinging between extremes of repression or becoming overwhelmed.
7. You struggle with healthy self-esteem
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Most of the people I’ve met who have emotionally immature parents are lacking in the self-esteem department, big time. Their parents carefully whittled away their sense of self, their confidence, and yes, their ability to trust themselves.
People who deal with emotionally immature parents often have their self-esteem gutted. They’ve been pushed around, gaslit, and manipulated until they can no longer trust themselves.
If you ever met a person who constantly second-guesses themselves, it’s probably because they had an emotionally immature parent who kept gaslighting them. Some therapists like Kim Egel also note that an insecure attachment style is common among children who were raised by emotionally immature parents.
8. You master the art of walking on eggshells and diffusing situations with words
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Though this can happen for a wide range of reasons, children of emotionally immature parents are often mavericks at calming down volatile people. If you’ve seen one in action, you know it’s almost uncanny how they know exactly what to say and do when someone gets heated. You might think they became professional negotiators, but they didn’t.
This is a holdover from living with a parent who never learned to control their emotions. Emotionally immature parents can be extremely volatile, to the point of abuse. Being in a household with a “loose cannon” parent means you learn to walk on eggshells, calm them down, and warn others not to mess with them.
You become the calming voice because you have to be. It’s not uncommon for parents of this genre to use their kids as therapists. It does a number on a growing child. Constantly being hyper-vigilant and cautious in relationships, particularly with parents, to avoid upsetting them can be a sign of being raised by emotionally immature parents.
This can lead to learned behaviors like people-pleasing and emotional suppression. Psychotherapist Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson explained that these learned behaviors can significantly impact adult relationships, leading to difficulty expressing emotions, setting boundaries, and forming healthy attachments.
9. You may have 'orphan energy'
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Most people can tell when an adult or teenager doesn’t have parents they can count on. I’ve heard it described as an “aura of rejection, seriousness, and sadness” that seems to follow you.
Sometimes, the way you carry yourself says a lot about your upbringing. If you’ve ever had people randomly look at you pityingly and say, “Your parents love you,” then you probably have what I call Orphan Energy.
Orphan Energy is the calling card of children who were neglected, abused, or abandoned. This means the way you carry yourself resembles that of an adult who never knew what safety at home was like — or who never really felt loved.
10. You become determined to break the cycle
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Most people I’ve met who came from emotionally neglectful or immature parents are adamant that they don’t want to raise kids in a similar environment. They want to break the cycle of abuse altogether.
This often means they’re hyperattentive, loving parents or choose to eschew having kids. In many cases, emotionally immature parents also choose to break the cycle by limiting contact with those who repeat those same cycles.
Recognizing patterns of emotional immaturity and actively seeking to break them demonstrates a level of self-awareness and a desire for healthy emotional functioning, which is a sign of emotional maturity. An article by Anchor Light Therapy explained that the conscious effort to change and break the cycle suggests a passion for a more fulfilling and emotionally healthy life, a positive step towards personal growth.
With time, therapy, and a bit of self-help, it’s possible to overcome the aftereffects of life with an emotionally immature parent. That’s the great thing about adulthood: you have a lot more control over what you do and how you handle things.
Ossiana Tepfenhart is a writer whose work has been featured in Yahoo, BRIDES, Your Daily Dish, Newtheory Magazine, and others.
