4 Signs You Have A Transactional Parent — Who Only Reaches Out When They Need Something
Could your complicated relationship with your parents be a result of their transactional parenting?
fizkes | Shutterstock In the absolute most basic of terms, relationships and relating to loved ones come in two forms: relational and transactional. Relational interactions are more heart-based and emotion-driven, while transactional relationships have a score-keeping element to them.
Parent-child relationships fall into these two categories as well. Many adult children only realize they have transactional parents later in life, when “reward and punishment” strategies begin to manifest as a few distinct signs in their relationship.
Marsha, otherwise known as Dolcé or @dolce_vents on TikTok, has developed an understanding of her transactional mother’s behavior since becoming a licensed therapist and life coach. “Transactional parents are something else,” she admitted in a recent video. “Guard your heart.”
Here are 4 signs that you have a selfishly transactional parent:
1. They only reach out to you when they need something
If you’ve had a difficult relationship with your parents growing up, you understand the complexity of that connection once you grow into an adult.
Your relationship is no longer held together by the essentials like needing a ride to school, food on the table, and a home to live in. These are all things you can now provide for yourself — yet you yearn for something more from the people who were supposed to raise, love, and care for you.
“I have a transactional mother. She’s not going to text me to see how my day is going or how I’m feeling. She’s not going to inquire about how business is going this week and whether or not I’m happy in my role as a therapist,” Dolcé admitted.
The kind of love and empathy she yearned for as a kid still lingers in her adult life, but their relationship, once founded on “necessity,” doesn’t hold that same power.
“She’s going to hit me up because she needs something,” she honestly added. “When I open that text message, even though I might want to hear ‘I love you’ or that she ‘misses me very much,’ it’s going to be something like, ‘Can you buy this?’”
2. On holidays and special occasions, they prioritize their own needs over yours
During the holiday season, when social media is flooded with Norman Rockwell imagery, it’s a humbling experience to be an adult child of a transactional parent. Even when they do show up, you don’t feel appreciated or loved in the same way you hope.
Zivica Kerkez | Shutterstock
“She’s not going to prioritize me during the holiday season because she has things to do. She values other things more than she values family time,” Dolcé continued about her own mother. “After all, she’s a business owner, so holidays mean big money. So, why would she take off to spend Christmas and Thanksgiving with her only daughter?”
Like a business transaction with clearly defined terms, transactional parents interact in an if x, then y approach to relationships. Sure, you know what you are and are not going to get from them, but it doesn't exactly create a warm and fuzzy feeling in the recipient.
“I have a transactional mother,” she again emphasized. “That’s how she is. That’s who she is. I no longer look at the way she is as a reflection of who I am.”
While her relationship with her mother was often a disappointment, she no longer lets it hold power over her present. In her relationships with others and herself, her work connections, and her lifestyle, her mother’s absence and transactional attitude are no longer a burden she’s chosen to carry — a commendable, yet difficult, feat to achieve.
3. Transactional parents often condemn creative outlets and creativity
Dolcé also considers the way her marginalized background reinforces her mother’s transactional behavior. “They’re thinking about survival more than they are connection,” she admitted of her mother’s Haitian roots. “A lot of our parents, as Caribbean people, are from third-world countries. Because of that, their values are very different.”
Although her mother’s transactional parenting held a lot of power over the health of their relationship, she admitted she could understand, given her mother’s experience, why she acted the way she did.
Fixating on business, money, and survival resulted from her struggles growing up and moving to the United States. Fostering connections, creativity, and empathetic children weren’t as much of a priority.
She put food on the table and a roof over her children’s heads in the United States, which is unfortunately not an easy feat for immigrant families. Unfortunately, it often comes at the expense of the kids.
It’s why many transactional parents, who also might be hyper-focused on money or material offerings, avoid creative outlets and endeavors. Will that liberal arts education make you enough money to survive? Will drawing and painting put food on the table? Will creative solutions to typical parenting problems be as easy and efficient as reward and punishment?
4. They present rewards or punishments in exchange for what they want.
While behavior from transactional parents can look wildly different in each family, there’s one common theme: Everything feels like a transaction. Whether it’s a favor from an adult child or a response to their teenager acting out, they’ll always have some kind of threat or reward to encourage the behavior they want.
“I’ll pay for some of your gas if you pick me up.”
“I’ll take away your phone if you don’t stop shouting.”
Whether positive or negative in nature, transactional parents are focused on what they can gain from the interaction. They’re inherently transactional rather than empathetic or intimate. This kind of behavior often leads to an unbalanced relationship, where parents hold an unwieldy sense of power over their children rather than fostering a collaborative dynamic.
While it’s perfectly normal for parents to rely on behavioral outcomes in some scenarios, having that be the foundation for their parent-child relationship is a transaction, not a loving connection.
Transactional parenting styles breed resentment, create a divide, and cause emotional strain for many adult children.
“I’m so sorry that so many of us can relate to this,” Dolcé added. “I’m so sorry that so many of us have traumatic experiences related to the people who were supposed to protect us. It’s not that you’ll ever forget what’s happened to you … but in healing, you’ll be able to hold those thoughts in a completely different way.”
Oftentimes, acknowledgment is the first step to spark the healing process from trauma, especially struggles that relate to our parents. Once you can acknowledge how they continually drain you, take advantage of you, or fail to change, you can move forward — detached from them and focusing on your own well-being.
While there are many tactics and strategies professionals share to help move forward from parental trauma, it’s essential to prioritize yourself. Whether it’s “no contact” or strict relational boundaries, looking out for yourself in ways that your parents never could is the most important piece.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health & wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.