CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Q&A: All or Nothing Relationships with Emotionally Immature Parents

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

In this Q&A episode, Whitney addresses a caller dealing with a mother who accuses her of being the toxic one while engaging in silent treatment and triangulation tactics. She discusses parents who weaponize big parenting gestures like Disney trips and birthday parties to deflect from daily emotional neglect. She also analyzes emotionally immature parenting through the lens of the TV series Friday Night Lights, examining how involved parents can still cause harm when their support is conditional on performance. Have a question for Whitney? Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [e-mail] 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. Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠ Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft ⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity⁠⁠ This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. 02:37 Friday Night Lights and Conditional Love 08:11 Disney Trips vs. Daily Emotional Presence 13:14 When Your Parent Accuses You of Being Toxic 21:24 The All-or-Nothing Parent Dilemma Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome back to the Calling Home podcast. I am your host, Whitney Goodman. I'm excited to be back today, as always, for another Q&A episode. But first, I wanted to update you on what is going on at Calling Home this month. So for the month of August, we are going to be talking about adult children emotionally immature parents. This means that for members of the Family Cycle Breakers Club, our membership community, you get access to a new worksheet, article, video, script every single Monday, plus unlimited access to our sub-workers. and there will be six opportunities to meet with me for an adult children of emotionally immature parents group this month. These groups are going to be on Wednesdays and Thursdays. So I would love to see some of you there. You can join the Family Cycle Breakers Club at callinghome.com. And our first week of content of the four weeks of focus on this topic is already up on the website. And the next week will drop next Monday. You're listening to this on Thursday. So we just had our first group yesterday. It's definitely not too late to join. You still have many opportunities to come to group and the content will be yours forever. The other thing I wanted to run by you all is that

we've always done this open house group historically at calling home and it's usually been at 5 p.m. Eastern time and it's just a general like open group to talk about anything related to your family dysfunction. There's not a topic for that group. And most of our groups get like 30 to 40 people attend them, but for some reason, I don't know if it's the time, the focus, the lack of topic. This group has been historically under attended. And so I really want to change it. I've tried to see if it was something that we could revamp, but I want to do something different. So I would love to hear from you. You can send me a DM. You can comment on Spotify or YouTube on this episode and let me know what would you like to see. Is there a certain group topic or

time. I thought adult sibling relationships might be a great one. That is something that we've had a lot of interest in over the years. And we do have an entire four-week content block dedicated to adult sibling relationships as well. But let me know because I'm going to run another group and I want to make sure that it is exactly what you're looking for. All right. So let's get into the TV segment today. I have been rewatching Friday night lights. Something that I do when I am like writing or I need to really focus deeply or I'm having trouble falling asleep is I will rewatch like old shows that I have seen a million times. And as I'm watching this show, I have really been noticing there's some great examples of

emotionally immature parents in this show. If you haven't seen this show, it is like 15 years old, maybe even more. I think it was on until like 2008. 2009, something like that. But it is about a small town football team, high school players, the parents and the coaches and all of that are very prominent parts of the show. And it is a spinoff of the movie and the book Friday Night Lights. So that book has really been successful in three different mediums, which is really cool. And if you're into some of those like small town dynamics or sports shows, you'll really like it. And I think right now it's available. on Apple TV is where I'm watching it.

So one of the best examples of an emotionally immature parent that I have seen in this show that I think is a little bit less obvious at first than the others is J.D. McCoy's father. And so this is a young kid on the football team whose father is very involved in his football career and in the sport. And he does a lot of things to help him. he hires special coaches. He's always at the games. He's always at practice. He moved his family to help his son's football career. And I think that this is a really important thing to note about this type of emotionally immature parents because on the surface, they can appear

extremely involved, dedicated, driven, attentive, and like they care a lot. And they do. But the reality is that this kid's father only cares about one thing. And that is his son being successful at football. He doesn't care about any other part of his life. And he becomes extremely emotionally and physically volatile when his son does not perform in the ways that he wants him to. So if his son does not do well at a game, we see this happen in one of the episodes, he becomes physically abusive and goes as far as to hit his child in front of other people. If his kid wants to go out with a girl or wants to hang out with friends. You'll see that he really goes above and beyond to shame his child, guilt him, make him feel like he's bad for having any interest in anything

outside of football. And the only time that his dad shows him love, affection, care, or even attention, positive attention, is when he is successful at football. Anything else is really either ignored, shamed, or punished, right? And the family's entire life revolves around the kids' success in this area. So this puts a ton of pressure on the child in this situation. And it lets the child know, I can only have a relationship with you and an attachment to you if I am performing well in these ways. And that makes the relationship totally insecure and anxious, right? Because he knows, J.D., this young kid knows that I'm going to get rejected or abandon or hurt if I don't perform. And so he's constantly having to choose between honoring his father and giving his father what he

wants or choosing what he wants. And the very tricky part here in the middle is that some of what this kid's father is doing is good, right, is helpful, wanting to believe in your child, supporting them, getting them the assistance that they need, showing up to their games, cheering them on. These are all really great parenting characteristics that are supportive. But sometimes they get taken to such an extreme that when you have a parent that is very emotionally immature and ties their entire image and ego and self-worth to the performance of their child, those positive parenting practice are actually not being done in good faith. They're being done to meet the needs of the parent, not necessarily to meet the needs of the child. And these are the type of parents

that I think later on will weaponize this kind of stuff against their children. Like, what are you talking about? I got you every coach you needed. I was always there. I was in the stands. I was at your practices. But yeah, you were there. You were doing all that stuff. But what else were you doing in partnership with that? And so for any of you that had like a highly involved, attentive, driven type of emotionally immature parent like this, this can be a good show for you to watch and kind of see these dynamics play out. And you'll notice that this parent appears much more healthy and grounded and involved than some of the other parents in the show that are struggling with addiction and that have totally abandoned their children and are not even there. This father looks amazing compared

to them. But he is still doing some damage to his child. And I think that, He appears in either the second or the third season. I can't remember. There are five seasons of the show. So definitely something interesting to check out if you're looking for more examples of that. Along the same lines, I wanted to bring up this trend that I saw on Instagram where people are posting videos of their kids doing really nice, fun things like a trip to Disney or a birthday party or doing something fun.

And they're saying, sharing this. So whoever my child tells they had a rough childhood, like, no. those basically that they didn't. And I know that these are totally being done as like a joke and in good fun. And I think a lot of the parents that are posting these like are genuinely giving their kids a good childhood. But it's so interesting to me as someone who specializes in relationships between adults and their parents that this is something that consistently gets weaponized by estranged parents or emotionally immature parents like we were just talking about with the Friday Night Lights example is that I will hear a lot of.

parents say, I can't believe my kid cut me off after all I did for them. We went to Disney. We had birthday parties. Their room was always clean. I always made sure that they had new clothes or the nicest new electronic, whatever it is. And they bring up these examples that are just these like every once in a while big events in a child's life, like a birthday party or a trip. And they're using that to counterbalance the day-to-day lived experience of that child. And I think what gets mixed up here is that you can take a kid to Disney once a year, throw them a really big birthday party, and keep a roof over their head, and otherwise be completely and utterly neglectful or even abusive.

And a lot of abusive parents take their kids on trips. or throw them birthday parties. But what's often missing is this piece of what was every day like in your home. How did you treat your child on a Tuesday, not just on that one day out of the year? I've even heard parents who did not live with their child, did not spend any time with them, but showed up on their birthday or sent them money in an envelope every year, use that as a way to say, it couldn't have been that bad. Look at what I did for you.

And so while I know these videos are being like done in good fun and it's a joke, I do think that it's something interesting to think about, about how for a lot of adults who are looking back at their childhood, these moments have been consistently weaponized. And I actually think that it is so much easier as a parent. And I'm a parent. It is so much easier to buy your kids a bunch of gifts and take them to Disney than it is to be like emotionally and physically present with them every night at bedtime or when they're crying or when they're having a hard day or when they're sick. That stuff is easy. Even if you had to work really hard to do it and you had to make a lot of sacrifices, it doesn't compare, I think, to the emotional and physical and

mental labor that you have to invest if you want to be an emotionally and physically present parent during your child's hardest moments. And so sometimes when we use these things and we throw them in our kids' faces, like, they don't understand what that means because there's not that same feeling there. I don't think that the attachment is as solidified in those moments than when in comparison. to those repeated, you know, foundational moments that you're building between you and your child when you are parenting them and you are showing up continuously day after day, not just in the moments when it's, quote, unquote, like, fun or you can throw a gift at them or something.

And so it's not a lack of those things that makes kids say they had a hard childhood. I very rarely hear, I would say almost never, do I hear an adult saying my childhood was rough because I didn't get a lot of stuff. I mean, yes, kids who grow up in poverty or who are poor or don't have access to a lot of resources, they will talk about the trauma and the difficulty of that, but a lot of those people still had close good relationships with their parents. Not having access to a lot of resources doesn't always guarantee that you don't feel loved and taken care of. And I have worked with adults who grew up incredibly wealthy with access to a lot and they have felt extremely neglected and uncared for in a much more profound way than those

adults who did not have access to a lot of physical resources. So money and things don't always mean that your parents were more attentive or more connected to you at all. All right. That is it for our TV and social media things I've seen recap. Let's go ahead and get to that caller question for this week. Hi, Whitney. My name is Dana. I was wanting to reach out to you about a situation with my parents.

It's a long story, but I'll try to condense it. Basically, my mom's M.O. for years was the silent treatment. And I decided in 2019 for other reasons to get into therapy. And my therapist really encouraged me not to accept that behavior from her anymore. And we went through a lot of back and forth with me trying to do cordial contact, low contact, just making myself less emotionally available to her. And basically, that did not go well and everything spiraled. So I ended up kind of just taking a 90-day break in 2020.

when the pandemic hit and then her response to that was just to block me on Facebook and and all of the things but what has happened is everything that um they have done they have turned around and flipped to accuse me of doing and I know they've had a story in their head about my husband they confronted me way back in like 2003 about feeling like Like he was toxic and unhealthy and narcissistic and that I was in an unhealthy marriage. And I chose at that time to stay in my marriage and we didn't talk for about two years until I got pregnant with my daughter. So I've known all along that that's how they felt about my partner. But then when all this happened, she had continued for the next 15 years, you know, to continue to bring up narcissism to me in conversation.

and trying, you know, discussing other people and she would ask my daughter questions about my husband and just created a lot of tension. And then we had our own issues too between me and my parents. So now basically, um, for the last several years, we've been kind of intermittent contact trying to resolve our issues. And I really felt like we were all approaching it in good faith. And they had been in therapy and I have been in therapy. And, and I have been in therapy. And, calling home and all those things trying to help me sort this out. And basically just this week, she sent me, my mom sent me an email communication of her with her therapist from two years ago,

where she basically was saying that I was not responding to them and that I, because I didn't agree with her perception of events that I was gaslighting them. And I'm just, I guess, really, lost as to what to do with this realization that they are accusing me of being the toxic person. They're accusing me of being the narcissistic, emotionally immature person. And I feel like I have enough checks and balances in my life that I'm self-aware enough to own my mistakes and take accountability. And I have in the past changed my opinion and direction based on new information and so I don't feel like that's a fair assessment of me but I'm also exhausted from

trying to convince them that it's not so um you know I had a therapist tell me before that these things don't generally change she gave me very little hope um I think that's where I've been at the last few days since I got that email I've just you know kind of felt like I was grieving the reality of it all so if you have any insights or input um I would really appreciate your feedback. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for calling in and asking this question. I think that so many people that I work with in therapy and in our groups at calling home have kind of hit this point. And so I just want to recap some of the things that I think are important for you to pay attention to. That is that there's been attempts at having less contact or what you described as

cordial contact. There's been an attempt to take a break from this relationship. It sounds like your mom has blocked you, engaged in the silent treatment. She has very strong opinions about your husband and she has been bringing your daughter into this and triangulating her in all of this. I don't know that your mother has the skill set in order to engage in a healthy, reciprocal, close relationship. It's kind of what it's seeming like here. It sounds like whenever you try to set a boundary or bring something up, there is a big pullback in avoidance, which likely is because of feelings of shame, guilt,

embarrassment, this feeling of like, you told me I'm wrong, so I'm bad. And so I'm going to cut you off. I'm going to block you on Facebook. I'm not going to speak to you. And I'm going to kind of like punish you until you decide that you want to come back to the relationship. And I think that if you've tried all of these different types of engaging with one another and you realize that this is a pattern that has developed. It's not just a one-off or a like coincidence. It's something that keeps happening every time you bring up issues in this relationship. That's something to consider. And it sounds like you're getting to that point of like maybe this is something I need to accept about my mother. And the point that you bring up about like my mom thinks that I am

the one doing all of this. I am the one that is engaging in all of this behavior. I'm the one that's gaslighting or whatever it is. I'm in a relationship with someone that's not good for me. I think it seems like you're having some self-doubt or some anxiety about whether that is true or not, and that makes sense. And I feel like you have to explore that out of the context of your relationship with your mother. You have to do that in your own therapy in groups with people that you love and trust who you feel like have a stable perspective and good head on their shoulders because I don't think that you can trust the ability to figure this out between you and your mother just because it seems like there's so much distortion going on and that's likely

like a lifelong pattern, that you're not going to know what's true, what weighs up, any of that, you know, if you're trying to decipher all of this. And this is where we get to this crossroads where you can't have a limited boundary relationship with everyone. And I've talked about this a lot in our groups at Calling Home that some parents will not allow you to have that. They won't do distant. They won't do boundaries. They won't do like acquaintance surface level. They want to at all or they want nothing. And so they're going to push you to be totally immersed in their world, to be telling them everything, have this really deep, like, invasive sort of enmeshed relationship, or they're going to say, I'm going to cut you off. I'm going to block you. I'm not going to

speak to you. And so not everyone can have this distant surface level relationship. And I think that's what you might be discovering is that that's not possible. And often, I think, with highly emotionally immature parents, parents who are struggling with untreated mental illness, that of personality disorders, whatever it is. That is the last stop on the train, is trying to have a surface level compartmentalized kind of distant relationship. And some people are able to achieve that and say, okay, we can stop here. We can have this kind of relationship. I don't need to take this all the way to estrangement. This feels better to me to at least be able to have this person in my life under these conditions. And others will say, no, absolutely not. I can't maintain this. Then there's the

third option, which is that the person that you're trying to have this surface level relationship with decides that for you and says, nope, that's not an option for me. It's either we go back to how things were or we're completely cut off. And so if I had to guess, like that might be the point that you're at of deciding, like, can we have this type of relationship if she's involving my daughter, if she's saying these things about my husband, if we can't have a surface level relationship, what is that going to look like? I hope that that's helpful for the caller and for anyone that is in this similar position. If you can relate to this caller, our estranged adult child groups and our adult children of emotionally immature parents groups are extremely

helpful. We also have a family estrangement group, so that's anyone who's dealing with estrangement, whether you have initiated it or you're on the receiving end of the estrangement. And then we have our adult daughters with difficult mothers group. So that's another group that would be a

great fit for someone in this position. You can join the Family Cycle Workers Club at calling home.co. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back on Tuesday with another episode. if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend or someone who needs it. And don't forget to like, subscribe, leave us a review or a comment. Thank you so much. I appreciate you all, and I'll see you again soon. 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 Collin-Colm or Whitney Goodman. For more information, on this, please see Colleyholm's terms of service linked in the show notes below.