CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Q&A: Always the Scapegoat, Never the Golden Child

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

In this Q&A episode, Whitney reflects on the polarizing response to her recent "Dear Estranged Parents" episode and shares her feelings about being misunderstood while trying to help families. Later, she discusses reality TV dynamics from Real Housewives of Miami about family sacrifice and entitlement, then addresses a caller's question about why dysfunctional family roles like scapegoat and golden child aren't stable but shift throughout the life cycle of a family system. 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. 05:41 Reality TV and Family Sacrifice Dynamics 12:01 Family Secrets: Next Month's Topic 13:58 Why Family Roles Shift Throughout Life 18:40 When Everyone's a Scapegoat, No One's Golden Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia. So your child can continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes. Light the path to a brighter future with stellus lenses for myopia control. Learn more at SLOR.com. And ask your family eye care professional for SLR Stellist lenses at your child's next visit. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Calling On Podcast. I'm your host, Whitney Goodman. I want to thank all of you for listening to the recent episode that I put out. There was definitely some polarizing feedback about my dear estranged parents episode, which is always like the episodes that you know were right to record, right? I think there were a lot of parents who were deeply,

upset. And then I heard from a lot of other people being like, wow, this is the best episode you've ever recorded. I loved it, et cetera. And so I don't know why I'm feeling so I guess sensitive is the word or impacted by some of the words that were sent to me. And it's probably because I'm pregnant. And so I am more emotional and like more impacted by this. And I've noticed that when I am pregnant and on social media and like public facing, it becomes even more challenging to take some of like the critical feedback, especially because a lot of people go for the jugular and like weird superficial ways with me. Like I just start getting messages about my appearance. And like, I know what people are doing when they do this. But when you're in this like vulnerable state,

You have to have super thick skin to show up in these spaces and keep doing work like this. And I think what bothers me the most is that some of the complaints are so, so incongruent with what I'm trying to do here. And so it's making me feel like I'm maybe not doing a very good job of explaining my intentions or maybe I know there's going to be some of you that listen to this and you're like, Whitney, stop explaining yourself, like just let it go. But, you know, I think when you dedicate your life to something, and maybe some of you can relate to this, when you dedicate your life to helping people improve their family relationships, helping them have better communication skills, learning how to set boundaries. And you literally spend 80 to 100 hours a week, like thinking about this and doing things for it.

And then someone consistently tells you that your goal in life is just to destroy people's lives and to make them not want to have relationships with, like, other people in their family. It's really a bizarre feeling. And so I want to go back to like what the root of our goal is at calling home and why I started calling home and not get so caught up in. people's pain that I know are like projecting on me, but it's really hard sometimes. And I don't know if you've ever been in a position like that where you feel like you're just being like so misunderstood. And I don't know why I felt like just sharing that here today with all of you, but I thought maybe someone here can relate to that feeling and know that you're not alone in that.

And I think that's one of the things that I'm always fighting up against. When someone accuses me of being out of line with my values, that's when I get really drawn back into that, like, feeling of wanting to explain myself to other people. I'm wanting to be like, no, that's really not what I want for you. And I want you to have good relationships with your kids and with your family members. And I want to help you. And I am trying everything in my power to do that. But I think that's just social media, right? People see a five second clip and then they just sort of like deduce everything down to that.

And it sucks. So for those of you that are here and who listen and have been like so loyal to the show and are part of the family cycle breakers club by calling home, I thank you and we could not do this without you. And I appreciate you really like hearing the mission and being a part of it and understanding it. That's it for that. If you haven't listened to the Dear Strange Parents episode, I encourage you to go back and listen to that. And I would love to hear your thoughts. I haven't heard many thoughts in the middle. They've all been like, I love this episode. It was one of your best or I hate you. You're like the devil. Those have been the two ends of the spectrum. And I guess that's how you know that you're on

to something good, right? And that's why I've been drawn to talking about these things. But I always have everyone's best interest at heart and always want to do something good on this show. And I hate when that doesn't come through the way that I wanted to. But the show must go on. So I wanted to talk about a little bit of reality TV today. I've been watching The Real Housewives of Miami and this season has been utterly like bizarre. But there's, um, there was a scene in the most recent episode where, um, I'm liking on her name, Kiki is a woman on. on the show and she is from Haiti and she talks about how she was sponsoring was what it sounds like I hope I'm getting that terminology right in terms of like immigration but she was

helping some of her family members come from Haiti to the United States and as part of that process she essentially becomes like responsible for these people when she decides to sponsor them and bring them over and she has to help them with you know medical bills and living and all these things. And I think she says that she brought, she helped maybe like 10 of her family members come to the United States legally through this program. And she talks about how difficult that has been on her and how because she's in the United States and she's on TV and it kind of appears like she has all this money and all this access and all this stuff that her family really felt so entitled to her resources.

to having her sponsor them and help them and pay for their bills and get them set up and that it even went as far as like she was getting death threats from her family members. And I thought that this was such an interesting storyline because it's ultimately a story about sacrifice and the sacrifices that we are expected to make for our family and that we should make for our family. And it really makes you think about like what is our responsibility to our family members who are in a more challenging situation than we are, you know, they're living in a country where they feel unsafe or they're struggling and how much should we give of ourselves in order to help them have a better life? And what expectations are there for how they treat us in the process of

helping them do that. And ultimately, I think she says that her father had to step in and, you know, help her and make them stop. You can tell that this was so challenging for her that she wants to be helpful and save her family. And she's also wondering, like, how much of myself do I give and I have to be responsible about this? And can I really help all of these people or am I going to put myself in a position where something bad could happen. How can I be responsible for all of these family members? And are they going to do the right thing when they get here? You know, it's, it's a very tricky position to be in. And I think that there are many people that could look at this and be like, oh, how selfish that you wouldn't want to help everyone. And there's people

that would say, no, she needs to be responsible for who in her family, she helps. And what that's going to mean. What are the long-term consequences of that? And I think that it just really opens this debate again about how we feel about family members and what they owe us and what we expect and what we can get out of those relationships that I thought it was a really interesting storyline. I've also started watching the show Animal Kingdom on Netflix. It's an older show. It was on in like 20. 2016, I think, and there's six seasons. I don't know how I've never seen it because it's something that's right up my alley. But the family dynamics in this show are wild. There is like a mom who is the matriarch of the family. And then there are four sons, three biological. One of them is

adopted. And then her grandson ends up entering the picture. And there is so much going on in this show when it comes to the family dynamics and power dynamics and their relationship with their mother and the gender dynamics that like, if you've ever watched Shameless, this family is on that level of dysfunction. And if you like to kind of see these family dynamics play out, I would definitely check out the show because it will give you a lot of material. And sometimes that's a really helpful way for you to figure out things that are going on in your own family or bring things to therapy because you have examples of stuff that you have been looking at and seeing that you can, like, relate back to. Or it might make some of you feel like, wow, I'm really

normal. My family wasn't crazy because this is so wild. I highly recommend. And it's, it's on Netflix now. And it's a great, like, binge watch because there are a lot of episodes. Before we could do the Q&A segment of this episode, I also just want to report that I am on a blocking spree. I do not care if people want to leave me comments disagreeing with me. But for everyone that keeps coming on my page, just being absolutely so mean to people, like not just me, like to other people, you're getting blocked. Go do it on your own page. Like I think it shows that you are just so unhappy with yourself, with your life, whatever it is that you're just sitting there just like yelling at people on the internet.

who are coming to my content to try to learn and heal and feel better and it's just like not going to happen and there's such an epidemic of people coming on my page and just being assholes and so I'm done with it. I'm warning you if you come on there and you start saying like you entitled little brat all the stuff you're just going to get blocked so just if you don't see myself anymore. That's what. Td Bank knows that running a small business is a journey, from startup to growing and managing your business. That's why they have a dedicated small business advice hub on their website to provide tips and insights on business banking to entrepreneurs. No matter the stage of business you're in, visit td.com slash small business advice

to find out more or to match with a TD small business banking account manager. All right, we are still talking about as old children, emotionally immature parents for the entire month of August at calling home. Next month is going to be all about family secrets, how damaging they can be, why children are asked to hold secrets, what happens when secrets get out in these families, how you can let go of the family secrets and set boundaries around them, and how family secrets. and how family secrets that have been held for generations and decades can still hurt families. So members of the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home will get access to all of that content starting in September at Calling Home. But you still can join and get all of our adult children emotionally immature parents content. It will be available for members as long as your membership is active. And there are three weeks of content up now on the site.

next week is week four, so you still have, I think, like, two more opportunities to join us for groups on that topic. The content is available forever. And then, of course, our twice a month Thursday, adult children of emotionally immature parents, that is a mouthful group, will continue in perpetuity with me to Thursdays a month. So if you miss the groups this month, not too late to join and still get access. I will be running another one of us again tomorrow on Thursday when you hear this episode. All right, let's go ahead and get into the Q&A portion of this show. I am going to play our caller question now. Hey, Whitney, I'm glad I finally have a question for you.

I'm a longtime listener. You're my lunchtime podcast break. I'm really glad that you were talking about the different roles of different family members in a dysfunctional family unit and like the golden child or the scapegoat or the child who disappears. I think you had a better name for that. But whenever, I think that these are really great explanations and give a lot of clarity, but I wondered if they just seem very stable. And in my own experience, I've noticed that I've done these different roles at different times. Sometimes I was a rebel.

Sometimes I was the shrinking violet. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the instability of these roles. Why that happens, when it happens. Is it because of the specific type of the immature parent? I think also in my family, there was no golden child, but everybody was a scapegoat. So I'd love to hear what you have to say about that. Thank you so much for calling in. What an excellent question.

And thanks for listening to the podcast. It really means a lot to me that you're listening to this on your lunch break when you have free time. So I really appreciate it. You are so right that these roles can feel stable, but they often change a lot throughout the life cycle. And we do have an entire content section on the website that is about dysfunctional family roles. So if anyone's looking for more information on this, you can go to callinghome.com and just type in family role and a ton of resources, scripts, articles, videos, all of that are going to come up

and you can access those if you're a member of the Family Cycle Rickers Club. To answer your question, though, these roles can absolutely shift throughout the life cycle. And you can shift in those roles. I want to tell you a couple of reasons why you might see this shift. So we think of families as being like a cell, right? So I want you to imagine that there's you, there's your parents or whoever your caregivers were, any siblings, like people who are involved in like, let's say that nuclear family in that cell. And then of course there are all these rings of like outside influences. that cell is going to shift and adjust to reach what we call family homeostasis,

like just kind of like the status quo functioning of the unit as things change. And people really fight that change a lot. But there are often roles or people in the family who have more power and who have an ability to set the tone of the family. family in a much stronger way. So you can think about in your family certain life events or things that people did that really had a huge impact on the functioning of the family and made people act differently or change. And I also want you to think of these roles as ways that we survive and feel comfortable and get our needs met within the family system. They are also roles that

sometimes are decided for us by those other people in the system. And so because of all of those different variables, you are going to change throughout the life cycle of the family and your role is going to change. And there are certain roles that are more compatible with certain life stages. It might be much easier to have a young child who doesn't have a lot of agency, who's struggling to like define themselves and achieve independence as a scapegoat, right, or as a problem child. But maybe as that child gets older, it becomes harder to put them in that role or they start to push back on it or there's ways for them to assert agency. You might have a parent that achieves power by sort of dominating the family system and identifying who is a scapegoat.

who is, you know, the problem in the family, who has all the authority and the power and they're able to assert this in certain ways. But then maybe the other parent stands up to them or they start to assert themselves in a different way. And so the family kind of shifts. There's also the idea that you might learn that if I push back on this family system or if I challenge my parent in some way, I get blamed, I get scapegoated, I get all this extra attention and grief put on me that I don't want. So it actually feels kind of better. Maybe I learn that it would be better for me to just drift into the background and become more of like a lost child and try that out for a little bit and see if that works better for me. And maybe when I do that, a different scapegoat emerges in the

family and my sister starts to get blamed for everything. And sometimes these roles can also be self-fulfilling prophecies to a degree where if you start to take the blame for a lot of things, you actually start to act out and you start to inhabit that role. And it almost becomes like, well, if they think this about me already, I might as well do bad things. I might as well get the rush and the enjoyment of like actually, you know, okay, you think I'm bad, watch this. Like some people will meet those roles with a challenge. Or you realize that if I start to drift back and no one notices me, like, yeah, I miss out on some of that attention. It's actually a lot better.

I can get away with a lot more. I can live my life. It's better just to like be the lost child and float away. I also think that in some families, this idea of their never being a golden child can be accurate. it, but it can also be that the person who was maybe like the quote unquote golden child in that family at the time was just the one that wasn't getting scapecoated, you know, and everyone was trying to like move out of that role and try to find a way to be quote unquote good so that they could escape being blamed for everything. And maybe then the person that moved into that

scapegoat role was like, no, now I'm the one being blamed for everything, but you're not noticing what this person is doing. And so it can feel like there's no true golden child to that definition and that might be accurate in your family as well. These these roles are just sort of like archetypes, descriptors. They're not fixed. Not all of them exist in every family. Some of them are interchangeable. And some of you might have different identities in different subsystems of the family. So it's possible that you could be constantly scapegoated by your siblings in adulthood, but maybe feel like the golden child with your parents or vice versa. Or that you are able to sort of fall back in your relationship with one parent or they think you're the golden child maybe and

your other parent thinks that you're the scapegoat and you're the problem or you're the one that's always getting blamed. Maybe you're always like the family mascot or the jokester as a way to avoid anything else, you know, in that family. And so you're absolutely right that like some of these roles may not fit you during certain parts of the life cycle. Some of them may feel like they only come up within certain relationships. And some of them just might not exist within your family. And that totally makes sense. Great question. Thank you so much for calling in. And again, if you would like any more help with this, you can go to calling home.com, click on our little search icon, and type in family roles or even just roles and tons of resources on this will come up.

I also think I did several podcast episodes on this topic last year. So you can search that with calling home as well and get more resources on dysfunctional family rules. Thank you all so much for listening today. As always, I really appreciate you. Please don't forget to like, subscribe, leave a comment, leave a review wherever you're listening to this on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube. we just hit a million downloads on the podcast. And I am so, so eternally grateful to every single

person that has downloaded these episodes, shared them with other people, pressed play, watch the video. Like, it just makes me so happy. I really only did this podcast as sort of like a way to get people into calling home. And it has become one of my favorite ways to connect with all of you. And something that I've noticed is every time someone joins one of our new groups at Calling Home and they're new, they say, I'm here because of the podcast or I've been listening to the podcast for a year. And then I finally decided to join. And I really think that this show has become like the gateway for people taking that next step and deciding to really take this work to the next level for themselves. And so I'm so grateful that it has been resonating with

you and your continued commitment to this show is what allows us to keep it free for you and keep making episodes every week. So thank you so, so much. We also just hit a little bit smaller of a milestone, but this has been a very steep hill uphill climb for me, a thousand subscribers on our YouTube channel, which is very cool. We do all of these episodes also on video on YouTube. So if you're watching on there, it seems like only one specific audience has called my videos and they really hate them. So if you're watching on YouTube and you like this video, please like it, comment, help us out a little bit with our crowd over on YouTube. Thank you so much. I will let you all know now and I will see you next week on Tuesday

for another episode. Thanks. Have a great day. 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 relationship between you and Colin Holm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Collingholm's terms of service linked in the show notes below.