10 Signs You Were Raised By Emotionally Immature Parents
People often assume that parents will be the mature adults in the room, but that’s not always true.
perfectwave | Canva Many children are raised by parents who are neither emotionally mature nor intellectually mature. Those kids lead hard 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 the ways 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.
Here are 10 signs you were raised by emotionally immature parents:
1. You become afraid of members of your gender — or are constantly trying for their approval
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. Trying something new scares you
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?
3. You get called an 'overachiever' or an 'old soul'
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. Boundaries remain an issue for you
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.
5. You often feel trapped because of how much your parents depend on you
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
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.
7. Self-esteem feels like it was meant for others, not you
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
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.
9. People say you have “orphan energy”
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
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.
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 on Medium, Substack, and more. She is also the founder of RaggedRiches, a personal finance site for people who don't fit the typical wealth mold.