CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Q&A: All Her Fault Analysis, Why Therapy Speak Backfires, and Mothers Who Compete with Daughters

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Whitney addresses one of her recent viral posts about why using therapy speak with family often causes more problems than is useful. She also breaks down a scene from the Peacock show "All Her Fault" about parentified sibling dynamics. Then she answers to listener’s questions about different sibling reactions to a narcissistic family and a mother’s competition with her daughter. Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles. Have a question for Whitney? Send a voice memo or email to [e-mail] the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠ Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft ⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity Learn more about ad choices. Visit podcast.choices.com/adchoices This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. 00:55 Why you shouldn't call your parents emotionally immature 05:54 Breaking down a scene from Peacock’s All Her Fault 13:45 Listener question #1 18:22 Listener question #2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on select nights now through January 3rd. Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights, festive shows, rides, and holiday treats. Plus, Coca-Cola is back with Canada's kindness community, celebrating acts of kindness nationwide with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at canadaswunderland.com. Hello everyone. Welcome back to the calling on podcast. I'm your host Whitney Goodman. I'm excited to be here with you today for another Q&A episode. There's a couple of things I want to talk about. So here is what is on the agenda for today. First, I'm going to talk about an Instagram video, TikTok that I did, about not calling your parents emotionally immature that went pretty viral recently. And I want to answer some common questions and

comments on that. Second thing I want to talk about is a scene between the adult siblings in the show all her fault that's on Peacock. At the time of me recording this, I think I have two episodes left in the show. So I'm not going to spoil it if any of you are watching. But I do want to talk about this really pivotal scene that I think happens in episode seven between the three adult siblings. And then I'm going to answer two caller questions at the end of the episode. All right. Let's go ahead and dive in. All right. first let's talk about that post that I did about calling your parents emotionally immature and using this therapy language with them. I'm going to play that for you now in case you

haven't heard it, but you can find it on my Instagram or my TikTok. I'm begging you to stop telling your emotionally immature parent that you are protecting your peace. And I'm saying this as a therapist. I'm begging you to stop telling them that you're setting boundaries with them. I'm begging you to stop telling them that they are emotionally immature because I know that this language is helpful and maybe empowering for you and maybe you feel like for the first time you can actually explain what's going on but for them they're not going to get it because they've already shown you consistently if they truly are emotionally immature they've shown you consistently that they cannot understand feelings they don't have the capacity to hold other people's perspectives and honestly

this like therapy speak it's really triggering for them because they don't understand it and they're probably going to weaponize it against you try to poke holes in it, maybe even make fun of you. And it's honestly just such a waste of your energy, of your breath, of just everything. I don't recommend it. It doesn't work. Instead, keep it simple. Stick to what you're going to do. Say what you're going to say and do it. And use the most plain language as possible. And honestly, sometimes saying nothing is even better than saying all of this. And use those words and that language in other places where it's understood. our support groups at calling home or with your friends or with your therapist who understand

what you're talking about. Don't use it with your parent. Let's clear up some misconceptions about this. I think for the most part, this post was like really well received, but there were some adult children that engaged with my posts a lot. Like I recognize the names that were really upset with this. And I found that so interesting because I'm not saying that you should. I'm not saying that you shouldn't express yourself or that you shouldn't say things that are true for you. The question is more about why. Why should I express myself in this way to this person? Is it actually making me feel better or more understood or like I'm getting somewhere or is it just opening me up to more harm and vitriol and condescension and all that stuff?

Because I think that's what's happening here. It's not that you're wrong or that. that you shouldn't be saying these things. It's that you are saying this and making yourself vulnerable in this relationship to a person who has shown you that they cannot or will not understand this type of language. Okay. So I wouldn't use these words with a five-year-old because they don't understand it. And they're going to get confused and they're just going to like ignore me and move on. And so it's not effective. It's more about questioning what is my goal here by using these words and trying to communicate in this way. Like what am I hoping will happen? And if every time I do this, nothing good happens. I just am on the receiving end of more

anger. Then why do I keep doing it? And I think like this is where it comes in. It's not that you have to censor yourself or not share how you really feel. It's just, why are you doing it with your parent if it's not working and it's not getting you anywhere and it's just leading to more fights? I think sometimes it just were caught in this cycle of like, I want to convince them. I want them to hear me and understand me and I want to get through to them. So you keep doing it under the guise of like expressing yourself. But again, just opening yourself up to honestly, potentially more abuse because I don't think that it works. And so this language is powerful and empowering and you should and can use it.

I just think in other contexts, unless you are comfortable saying these things to them and not being understood or potentially having it weaponized against you. If you're okay with that and that feels more important to you to use this terminology then, like, the result, then that's okay too. But I think the idea that this was about, like, censoring yourself or not being honest was not the goal there. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Like, have you been successful in sharing this with a parent or telling them this?

Like, has any parent who's been called emotionally immature ever been like, yeah, you're right? I am. I should reflect on that. I don't think so. But if that has happened, I want to hear from you. So please leave a comment, send me a DM. Leave a review on the podcast. I would love to hear about it. All right. Now I want to talk about an episode that I just watched last night before recording this episode. I've been watching the show all her fault on Peacock. And this is a show about a child that goes missing. And it's so complicated. I can't even begin. to explain it to you if you haven't seen it. But there is a missing child. There's a nanny that kidnapped the child. And there are all these adults that kind of all have their own thing going on that raises suspicion about their involvement in the disappearance of this child. And at this point, I have not finished the show. I don't know everything. But last night when I was

watching it, I watched a really pivotal scene happen between these three siblings. Okay. So in the show, we have an older brother, a middle sister, and a younger brother. Okay. There's three children. And the older brother is the father of this child that's missing. And the younger brother is in a wheelchair because of an accident that happened when he was a child. Okay. This brother, the brother that is in a wheelchair, lives on the property of his older brother. And his older brother has been very financially successful. He's able to support him and he's hired him as a day trader. So his disabled brother is fully reliant on him like for housing, income, food, job, etc. The sister has lived her life feeling that she was responsible for what happened to her brother. There was an

incident where they were playing as kids and on multiple occasions throughout the show, the older brother says that it was Leah the sister's fault. She's the reason why the brother is semi-paralyzed. I think he uses like crutches or a wheelchair to get around and he has a lot of difficulty with movement. And the three siblings are very intertwined. So the older brother also supports his sister financially and has put some money in a trust for her. And she's been to rehab a couple of times and has relapsed, I think twice on prescription pills. And in this scene, we see that the older brother is accusing his sister of stealing their younger disabled brother's medication. And he's made this distinction off of just like checking one pill bottle that's in the cabinet and he doesn't really

investigate any further. And he automatically, based on the amount of pills that were in this bottle deduces that his sister has relapsed and she's using substances and she's been stealing pills from the younger brother. He accuses her of this in front of everyone and this fight breaks out between the three siblings. Okay. And the sister's boyfriend and also the wife of the older brother's co-worker, that's the same person, are also in the room while all of this is happening. And it then comes out that Leah, the sister, actually did not cause the younger brother's accident, that the older brother did. He had gone his entire life knowing this and blaming his sister and allowing her to believe

that she was the one that caused this. And this is likely what spurred. her addiction and issues with substances throughout her life because she is rattled with guilt about this incident, about making her brother disabled. And we find out what actually happened is that the kids were running around the living room and the sister had turned her head to like look back at her younger brother. And in that moment when she was turning her head, I guess the older brother stuck his foot out when she couldn't see and the brother tripped over the foot and he like hit the coffee table and laid down and then he couldn't move and the parents

called 911. But for this girl's entire life, her brother has never contradicted this story. Apparently in that moment, she just was scared, took responsibility, told her mom that it was her and that became the narrative for their entire life. These people are in their 30s now. And he never once was like, it was actually me. He allowed her to believe that and saw the guilt that she was just riddled with for her entire life and how she blamed herself and the impact that had on her. So this comes out in this moment. We also find out that the younger brother was speaking or consulting with a doctor to potentially get a spinal surgery to allow him to have more mobility. And his older brother had a meeting with the doctor without him

and found out that he was eligible for this surgery. But instead of telling his younger brother that he lied and said, you're not eligible for the surgery, you're not a candidate. And the younger brother goes on believing that he is not a candidate for this surgery and his situation can't get better. And he's very tortured by like, should he use a wheelchair? Should he walk? You can tell he's in a lot of pain when he uses the crutches to walk. And there's a lot of family dynamics at play here of like who is bothered by his pain or

his inability to walk and how he kind of perceives other people. attitudes towards his disability. And so the younger brother ends up using his wheelchair for the first time and coming into the room and he's been drinking and he confronts his brother about this. And so in this moment, these siblings are all learning about these serious secrets and injustices that have unfolded between all of them, that their older brother has been lying about all this stuff. And this is the really interesting part, is that the older brother basically says, like, you guys need me and you like needing me and you like being taken care of by me.

And he tells his younger brother, like, you don't want all the things that come with more autonomy. You would have to work and take care of yourself and live on your own. And you don't want to do any of that. And he's really, like, projecting. his need to be needed onto his siblings. And the sister calls him out for this and is like, you want us to need you. You need us to need you. You need us to be sick. And we find out that the older brother really feels like their parents did not give a shit about them. And he knew that

and he knew what it felt like. And so he wanted to compensate for that and to be like a parental figure to his parents. And I think he was very much parentified and saw himself in this parent role with his younger siblings. And he talks about how he fell in love with them and wanted to spend time with them because he was taking care of them. And I really think he does not know who he is without that. He needs to be in that role of caring for his siblings. It's what feels best to him and he's so scared to lose that, that he has gone to the lengths of making sure that his siblings stay stuck. It's like he wants his sister to relapse so he can keep her in that position. He wants his brother to need his help financially and logistically so that he still

feels needed. And in this moment, I'm just looking at these three siblings that have been so obviously failed by their parental figures and the family system. And they all have so many wounds in this moment, like to take care of and how much pain they have because of their older brother, but also how much he did for them. And it's so, so complicated. And I'm really interested to see how this plays out. But I think this is one of those. really extreme situations where we can see what happens to a child when they are tasked with being the parent for their siblings and how complicated it can become for those siblings to have a relationship because they are all relating to one another from a place of pain and loss and

grief. And I think it's very easy here to blame the older sibling and be like, look what he did. He lied. He manipulated the situation. But he was also failed. And he was also a child. And I think that the younger brother or maybe the sister brings up like, yeah, I know you were nine, but now you're an adult and you still haven't tried to fix this. And it's wild how deeply ingrained these patterns can become for these siblings that even though they've gotten older, they really haven't aged out of these dynamics at all. I'm curious if any of you have noticed like you and your siblings are still locked into some of these dynamics from childhood and what role your parents' support or lack of support or involvement played in that. And if you have any feelings of resentment or guilt or grief over having to be the caretaker or the one being cared for by a sibling and how that has played out in adulthood. All right. Now let's go ahead and get to those caller. questions. I'm going to go ahead and play the first question for you.

Hi, Whitney. I am calling with a question about a relationship with a sibling after you've estranged from your parents. So for context, I've estranged from my parents and come from a very narcissistic family system. And I'm kind of unsure of where to go with my relationship with my sister, who, for me, we have an okay relationship, but she's in denial about the abuse that we endured. She also just doesn't remember a lot. So I'm not really sure where to go in that relationship because it's just so superficial and any kind of talking about our upbringing. We have just very different perspectives, which then ends up feeling almost like gaslighting me.

So thanks for listening and I hope you hear response. Thanks. Thank you so much for calling in. We've got a lot of sibling questions lately. I think this is something that so many people are dealing with and it kind of reflects what we were just talking about in the TV show. This is hard when you have decided. to estranged yourself from a parent because of your relationship and circumstances with them and your sister is in a different place. It can be hard to connect and have a relationship. I think that when you feel, you know, some of the words that you said were like, she's in denial. She doesn't remember a lot and she has trouble talking about it. When I think about people that are in that

position, one, there's a chance she doesn't remember things depending on her birth order and where she was in developmentally in that time when certain things were happening in your family, she also might truly have a different perspective just because no two children have the same childhood and the same family. And it's possible that your parents have always or were then relating to her in a very different way than they were to you. And so I always err on the side of like all children in a family in adulthood have reasons. for choosing to interact with the family system in the ways that they do. Like, there's, there's always a reason behind the choices that you are making for having

these types of interactions with your family. And so for you, there are reasons why you've chosen to become estranged. And for your sister, there are reasons why she has decided to stay in the family system. Where it becomes difficult is that sometimes your needs and desires are very incompatible as a result of those differences. Or it feels like our relationship can only be superficial because if you don't understand this really deep, painful thing, or if you're able to be around mom and dad knowing what they did to me, like it doesn't feel like we can have a genuine relationship. Now, not knowing a lot of detail about this,

family system. I don't want to speak to like where alliances should lie and what makes sense because there are certainly certain situations in a family system where if something was done to you and people are choosing to align themselves with a person who may be engaged in certain types of abuse with a child, I understand why people cannot maintain those relationships. And again, everyone has their reasons, but you're justified in being hurt by the those alliances happening, right? And so if you want to have a relationship with your sister in adulthood, I think that it has to come from a place of acceptance of we are not going to see eye to eye on this because we are different people who had different experiences. And because of

those experiences, we are making different choices in the present when it comes to our parents. Now, that being said, if I accept that and I see that about my sister, can I have a relationship with her? Can she have a relationship with me? What would our relationship look like if we decentered and took out this piece about our parents? Is that possible? Can we have a relationship without including this like narrative and story about our parents or are they so intertwined in everything that like it's not possible? Now I've seen it done both ways. I've seen siblings that say I cannot relate to you if you don't see this part of me. And I've seen siblings be able to have their own unique adult relationship with one another outside of the dynamic of their parents.

That's going to take time. You cannot remove your relationship with your sibling from the context of the larger family dynamic overnight. This all has already happened. And so thinking about, you know, it might be okay for it to be superficial for a little bit. It might be okay for us to start to get to know each other in a different way and maybe try to practice, like, not talking about our parents with each other or about those types of things. Are there some ground rules that we can put in place to make this easier? And I always tell people, look at these things that I'm talking about as experiments, try it

out, see if it works. If it doesn't, you can always change the rules. You can change your approach. You can go to deciding, I don't think I can have a relationship right now, but you can do all of this from like an experimental lens and then figure out what you want. And sometimes that's an easier way to approach it that kind of like takes the pressure off. Thank you so much for calling in and asking that question. All right. Here is caller question number two. Hi, Whitney.

I just had a question for you regarding my relationship with my mother. I've noticed recently that she has begun to, what I interpret as copy me, for example, like putting her hair up in a certain way that I've always worn it. She hasn't. I'm using certain types of like hair ties that I have used, and she has never those types of things. And it really irritates me. And I guess I'm just kind of trying to see if that's a really irrational response

or what that's kind of linked to. This has happened before with my mom, where I felt like, especially when I was dating my husband and boyfriend, where it felt like she was trying to kind of hang out with us and be a part of our relationship in some way. I think there's always been some triangulation between myself, my mom, and my dad. So I don't know if this is just a process that happens or what or if, yeah, I think that the copying me feels very inauthentic and it feels like it's infringing on my autonomy. me a little bit. So I just wanted to get your take. Thanks so much. And I love the podcast. Thank you so much for calling in and leaving this voicemail. I think for people who are unfamiliar with this type of dynamic, you can hear something like this and be like, oh, this is so innocuous. Like it's a nothing burger. It's okay if, you know, you do some of the things the same.

But there can be more insidious patterns that like if you've seen it, you've seen it or if you've experienced it, you know what I'm talking about where there is competitiveness between the parent and typically their same-sex child. So we see this between mothers and their daughters, particularly mothers who feel very competitive with their daughters as a result of like their youth or beauty or the attention that they're getting from men. Like this is unfortunately a thing. I think we cannot assume that like all mothers want their daughters to succeed and like look better than them and all this like it happens. And it sounds like this is something that has happened before and that you've, you know, you mentioned another time when

you experienced it. But I would guess that there's more to explore here for you for anyone that's felt like this where you get into these modes where you're like, why does it feel like she's copying me or like she wants to be like me or she's trying to hang out with my boyfriend or dress like me because it's not really normal for you know let's think of an age gap between mother and daughter even if even if your parent was like 20 when they had you it's not really normal for a 35 year old to want to be like a 15 year old and so when you sense that your parent is engaging with you like a competitive peer, it's unerving. It feels weird because that does not feel like they are a parent that is like loving and wants the best for you. It feels like they're an

enemy. And I've done posts about this before that I know got some pushback that like some of you know that like your parent can be like your biggest hater or critic or person out there that wants you to fail. And then there's others of you that realize like your parent wants to be you. and they are in competition with you. And I think that sometimes we see a pattern as women or men age, and they feel particularly threatened by their loss of youth or attractiveness or desirability, and they maybe look at their child and say, you have what I want. I feel jealous of you, and I want to be like you.

I'm having trouble dealing with those feelings and even differentiating between like what is my role as a parent, particularly people who grew up in families like this, where their parent was competitive with them and they think that it's a normal thing. But I would lean into the feeling a little bit of feeling like irritated or uncomfortable and not blame yourself for having that feeling or think it's weird or strange and just maybe go a little bit deeper. This is definitely something I would want to explore with a therapist because I would imagine there are more stories or things there or there could be something that's completely unrelated to your mother that is coming up, you know, something else that's being triggered. But this does happen.

It's a thing. And there's some good books on mother-daughter relationships. I really like mother hunger by Kelly McDaniel. We also have a group. for adult daughters with difficult mothers that meets twice a month at calling home. This would be a great group for someone like this. And then we also have covered mother-daughter relationships last year on calling home. So we have an entire month of content dedicated to that. And we're going to do mother-daughter relationships again next year in 2026. I know I've already worked on a lot of that content.

So definitely if you relate to this, family cycle breakers club at calling home, our membership community would be a great fit for you. So thank you so much for calling in and for leaving this question. As always, I want to thank you all so much for listening to calling home. I have been blown away by the support of the show. I love reading your comments and reviews. If you comment on Spotify, you'll see that I always go on there and respond to mostly all of you, unless you're being mean, then I don't respond. But thank you. I appreciate all the feedback and support and all of that. We have loved growing the show. It is my favorite thing that I do. So please don't forget to like, subscribe, comment, leave a review, et cetera. We are going to be taking a break from the show through the new year. So the last episode for 2025 will be on December 11th. Next week, you're going to hear my TV reaction episode with Kate Gray. She's joining me again after doing that reaction to an estranged mother's video that you guys all loved. I'm bringing her back again to talk about what I think is one of the most.

dysfunctional family holiday dinners ever depicted on television. You're going to love that episode. And then we're going to do one more Q&A episode on December 11th. After that, the show will be taking a break until January 6th. And I will be back with a new year episode to help bring you into the new year. If you're going to be missing the show during that time and you really need extra support. I want to remind you that December at Calling Home is all about adult family relationships and dysfunctional holiday moments. So if you want to join us for groups, Q&A's with me, extra content, the only place that you will be able to get access to all of that during the little show hiatus is in the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home.

Would love to see you there. You can join at Callinghome.com.com. Also linked in the show notes. Thank you, everyone. Have a great rest of your day, and I'll see you soon. Bye. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Collingholm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Collingholm's terms of service linked in the show notes below. I don't know.