CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Q&A: Should My Homophobic Parents Be Grandparents?

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Imagine your parents disapprove of your partner, and they're outwardly hateful about the life you've chosen to live. You had to end your relationship with them because of this. But now you're thinking about having a baby, and you want your baby to have grandparents. What would you do in this situation? That's one of the issues we're navigating in the latest Q&A episode out now. About the Host 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? Call in and leave a voicemail for the show at 866-225-5466 Calling Home Monthly Topic May | Grieving Complicated Relationship: ⁠https://callinghome.co/grieving-complicated-relationships ⁠ • Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club • Follow Whitney on Instagram • Follow Whitney on YouTube • Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Q&A episode. I am going to be answering two caller questions. One is about navigating pregnancy and parental estrangement and the other one is an adult daughter who has lost her father after alcoholism and substance use and she's dealing with some fallout in the extended family in the wake of his death. The second question is a perfect fit with what we're doing this month at Calling Home. Every month inside the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home, our subscription community, we focus on a different topic and you get a worksheet, article, video, and script delivered to your inbox and on our website every Monday. And this May, we are talking about grieving complicated relationships. And we are really going to help you figure out how to

grieve either ambiguous loss, someone who is still alive that you can't have a relationship with or deal with the actual death of someone that you had a complicated relationship with or who hurt you or who you were estranged from. We will have groups every Wednesday with me to go deeper into the content so you can meet other people going through the same thing, ask for advice, get support. These groups are really, to me, the best part about calling home. and you can take everything that you learn on this podcast to step further and actually implement it in your life and use the tools. Our tools are also great for therapists who work with families, especially who work with estrangement or adult child and parent relationships.

Or if you are in therapy yourself, you can use our worksheets, our therapy guides, book recommendations, all of that to take to your own therapy. In these Q&A episodes, I always talk about my three little epiphanies for the week. And I'm kind of going to condense this into one topic today because my husband and I have been rewatching succession. We watched it when it was on and we like to rewatch shows at night that we've already seen so that we can fall asleep easier. And this has been our rewatch. And I forgot how many really like golden just family moments are in this show that illustrate family dysfunction in such a crazy way. And And so one thing that I was noticing is that there is a stepmother or, you know, a second wife that Logan, the father, the patriarch of this family is married to.

And she's constantly making comments like, your dad does all of this for you and you are so ungrateful, you know, to the older children. And what's so interesting to me, and I talk about this in my episode about blending families of the podcast, is how disconnected she is from. the entire childhood that these adults spent with their father and how that might have set them up for this type of emotionally distant, really difficult relationship with their father that is totally dependent on work and money and output in that regard and is really always like one second away from falling apart because this guy is constantly hitting the kids against one another. And I think her history is that she possibly came, you know, from a background which she didn't have a lot of economic security, maybe didn't have a lot of freedom.

And so she looks at these adults and is like, wow, how ungrateful of you because they are getting the thing that caused her to have so much lack or pain in her childhood. And she cannot understand why they might be acting or feeling the way that they're acting. And I think we all do that in so many ways when we don't understand the context of someone's behavior, you know, in the larger landscape or ecosystem of, the family. The second thing that happens in this show a lot is that Logan, the patriarch, who has a lot of narcissistic traits, can even be kind of antisocial at times, is very disconnected emotionally, will constantly say things publicly, like everything I've done, I've done

for my children, everything I do I do for my children, and people just like eat this up, right? when for the viewer, anyone that actually knows how this family is functioning, it's so obvious that the things he's doing have absolutely nothing to do with his children and really are only for him kind of appeasing his own ego and, you know, how he feels and his level of success and his external perception. And I think he knows on some level that saying, I do everything for my children, is a very PC palatable and even like, you know, well looked upon kind of belief to have publicly that a lot of people would look at him and be like, oh my gosh, how nice, what a nice father. And this is something that I witness a lot in my work with estranged adult children and

adult children of emotionally immature parents, that there is certainly a huge disconnect often between how the parent presents publicly and how they present to the, the children. children or to the family. The other thing that's very interesting in this family is that there's absolutely no emotional intimacy. And these siblings and the parents have no idea how to spot when one another is struggling. And sometimes the people in this family will be struggling in such a overt, obvious way, like rampant drug abuse and going to rehab and making poor decisions. And even in the face of all that evidence, they will be like, they will either not notice or be like what's going on or will label the behavior in like a totally incorrect way. And it's like all of

their problems are personal failings. They don't look at them as being like systematic failures of the family. And whenever someone is failing, it's good for one of the siblings because that gets them a chance to kind of step on top of their sibling and be in a positive light with their father and be the chosen one or the golden child in that moment. And you see that these siblings are constantly being pit against one another and they all have very unique strengths and weaknesses that make them able to be constantly like swapped out depending on who the parent needs or wants in that moment. So if you haven't watched that show and you're into like analyzing family dynamics. I would definitely check it out. It was on, you know, years ago, but you can always watch it on

HBO. And it's a nice rewatch if you're trying to like look at the family dynamics as well and see how some of this stuff plays out and see how it connects to your own family. Sometimes using fictional characters and shows can be a great way for you to bring that into your therapy and tell your therapist like, you know, I was watching this and it reminded me of this and they can utilize that to help you get deeper, which is really nice. All right, let's go ahead and dive in to those two caller questions. I am going to play you the first voicemail now. Hi, Whitney.

My name is Becca, and first I want to say thank you for all you do with the calling home podcast and the community in general. It makes such a difference, and I truly appreciate it and the perspective that you bring to thing. My question is about how to navigate pregnancy and parental estrangement. My parents and I have been estranged for almost a year now. There were a lot of factors that went into that decision, but ultimately, I am a queer woman, married to another queer woman, and my parents are very conservative, religious people who would not change their kind of bigoted, hateful behavior, even for the sake of a peaceful relationship with us. So I made the decision that that relationship wasn't healthy or beneficial for us to engage.

agent. My wife and I are in the process of going through IVF, and I am struggling to figure out how to navigate any possible relationship between a child that we hope to have and my parents. I don't want to be a parent who prevents my child from having a chance at a relationship with the rest of their family, but I also can't imagine how that relationship would work. Do you have any advice? am I just making things harder than they need to be by considering letting my parents be around our child one day? I'm just getting really lost trying to figure out the reality of that relationship. Thanks again. Okay. So I have some pretty strong feelings about this type of situation and the ways that it could go. I think that you made a decision to end the relationship

with your parents out of a protection likely of your marriage, your identity, your mental health, all of that. And when people decide to grow their families or get pregnant, there's a baby coming in, I know that there can be this overwhelming sense of like, I really want things to be different. I want them to be good for my child. And even if you're not pregnant yet or you don't have a child coming, I think that your desire to have things be normal and good. is coming from a deeply rooted and positive place of wanting to be a good parent and give your

child access to the best life and family life that they can have. That being said, sometimes this can cloud our judgment and make us feel like things are different than they are. And so the questions that I would want to ask, you know, if someone was coming to me and saying, should I reunite with my parents, should I give them access to my child, is has this shifted at all? Has anything changed? Have your parents changed their beliefs? Are they able to be kind and understanding and compassionate? What is it going to be like for that child to have a grandparent that, you know, is homophobic and hates their parents? Like, that's not a good environment. And that is so confusing for a child. And so you have to think about the fact that you're going to be bringing a child

into this world that is going to have you and your partner as parents. And having people around you that are kind and supportive and understanding and that want to support you as a family and believe in your right to exist as a family is very important because your child is not going to know anything different than that. They're just going to know that these are my two parents. And to have them be confused by this reality of like, I have these two parents that love me and they take care of me and they're wonderful. And then I have these grandparents that seem to not like my parents or saying very mean and cruel things about my family and the people that are my parents. That's not great for a child. And so I think sometimes we can get into this mindset of like, I want them to have grandparents.

I want them to have this healthy, you know, environment and this healthy union. But like, is that actually what's going to happen if you allow them to have a relationship with these people? And I will always say that I have seen people change in miraculous ways, you know, or I wouldn't do what I do. And I have seen people go from feeling this way and then having, you know, grandchildren or new people in the family and they do shift and they develop new beliefs. And I have to believe at my core that that is always possible. And we have to decide how much we're willing to take to facilitate that type of change and how much we want to expose ourselves and our children to in service of that. And so I think that really what has to be established first is like, can your parents

have a healthy relationship with this child? Do they believe in this child's right to exist and to their formation of their family? Are they going to be able to like keep their mouth shot for lack of a better word? Like if they don't change their beliefs, can they be supportive and kind? and encouraging and treat this child with respect and treat them, you know, as they would any other child with any other family organization or arrangement because I think that's what's most important here is that if you're going to have a relationship with grandparents, they need to be loving, kind, and supportive grandparents, not grandparents that, you know,

hate your parents. That's nobody benefits from that. So that's just some things that I would consider in this situation. All right, let's go ahead and get to that second voicemail. Hi, Whitney. I was hoping to share with you an experience I've had since my father passed away about a year ago and see if you could give me any insights on how to kind of navigate my own emotions and grief related to the situation. So for context, my father struggled with alcohol and substance use for my entire life. Our relationship was really kind of like partially estranged throughout maybe the past 10 or 15, 20 years. However, you know, we always had a lot of love for each other, and I always showed up for my dad whenever he needed me.

I don't think that I was getting a lot out of the relationship with my father for a lot of those years into adulthood, but I always did kind of act as a caretaker for my father. He had burned a lot of bridges, as a lot of people with addiction do. But unfortunately, when he was referred to hospice about a year ago now. He only lived for about a week after that and then he died. During that week, it was myself and my father's only sibling, which is my aunt, who were helping to kind of care for him throughout that week, you know, get everything in order as far as funeral, obituary, and then ultimately cleaning out his apartment and, you know, kind of handling his affairs. To my surprise, my aunt was really unhappy with me the day that I cleaned,

out my father's apartment. I really felt that I had kept her in the loop about the day I was cleaning it out, you know, that she, is there anything that you want from his apartment? I sent her pictures even all throughout that day, keeping her updated on how it was going. And very much to my surprise, she was very angry with me for not like, I guess, overtly inviting her to come to help clean out the apartment. That then turned into, she didn't say hardly a word to me, at his entire funeral or the burial that day. It was really, really hurtful for me. Again, like she's the only person from his family that I had left other than her children,

my cousins. And it's been over a year now, and I still have not heard from any of them, which is very unusual in our relationships. And so I feel I've been really hurt over the past year. I've been talking to my own therapist a lot about it, of course, incorporating it into like our grief work. But it really just feels like for me, there's a lot that was unsaid or just like no conversation or closure around like this cutoff that I've just been really struggling, coping with the loss of my father, but then the loss of my relationship

with my aunt and my cousins. And I'm having a really hard time with anger around the whole situation and also just sadness and at this point I don't really know what I would want from those relationships if it were even an option to have a relationship with them at this point and so I just you know would love to hear your thoughts or any maybe guidance that you can give me on how I sort through I think a lot of the hurt and the anger that I feel towards them and feeling kind of abandoned during, you know, one of the hardest parts of points of my whole life of losing my father, who I already had had a lot of, like, you know, trauma and a lot of tension with throughout my life. Losing him was extremely complicated and then not having contact with

his family any longer. There were really the only other people aside from my sibling who understand kind of what it was like to have a relationship with my father. So it's been feeling really lonely and confusing for me. So any thoughts that you might have, I would love to hear. Thanks so much. Love your podcast. Thanks, Whitney. Okay. So there's a couple of things going on here that I think I want to comment on. I think that in a lot of ways, while you had distance from your father, you were the one that was very much showing up. It sounds like you were there when he needed you. And despite the distance, you were there in his final days. You were by his bedside. You were helping clean up his home. And I imagine that, like you said, you have some anger about

the way that things went down after the fact. And I think that that might be rooted in the fact that you didn't get probably what you needed fully from your parent. I think any parent that struggles with alcoholism and substance abuse, like, they're not able to be there 100%. It's just the reality of addiction and of the disease and they can even want to and feel like they were. But you can't be emotionally and physically present when you're under the influence for decades of your life. And so if you grew up feeling, and I might be putting some words in your mouth here, but if you grew up feeling like I did not get everything I needed from my dad and there were moments where I couldn't even have a relationship with him because of how he was, and I still

showed up and I still did all these things and I was still like a dedicated devoted daughter in the most like biggest way that I could and then people are still getting upset with me for how I did that and giving me the silent treatment like that child version of you can be really getting triggered in this moment of like gosh I still I tried to be a good daughter I tried to show up I tried to do all these things and you guys are still like oh you needed to call me or you needed to do this and based on what you're saying you know from this caller's report i'm hearing like you did make a really good faith effort to try to like keep her up to date and send her photos and you know did she did she make it known that she wanted to be there to to clean and to help out it doesn't sound like

she did you were just expected to kind of know that and then when you didn't fulfill her on like announced wishes, you were then given the silent treatment. And so that must really be very frustrating and like must fill you with a lot of anger and resentment, I would think, because you're going above and beyond maybe what you might have even actually wanted to give in this situation and what maybe you feel like it was just like I gave so much even when I had been given nothing and you're still not seeing that. And I think that you're so right. You're so right. when you say that like losing him was so complicated, this grief is so complicated. And now I don't even have contact with these other people. And it almost feels like I'm being punished, even though I showed up

and I did what like anyone would say like a quote unquote good daughter did if you were being judged for that. You know, people would say like, yeah, well, she showed up. She took care of things. Like she helped. And I think you would assume this reaction of like the silent treatment. and distancing to happen if you didn't show up and do all of those things. So maybe on some level part of you feels angry and resentful that you're being treated this way despite your dedication and devotion to this. And especially because what these needs and wants were not communicated to you. So how are you supposed to know that this is what the other person wanted? I think this is one of those situations where you have to ask yourself, like,

is it worth sharing this with the person and trying to understand what they might be feeling, them just not speaking to you and being silent, I think is a sign, of course, that there is some type of unmet need and frustration there. And maybe you and I are totally unaware and off base about what that might be and what she could be feeling. And so if you felt like it would be worth it to ask and you feel like you have the support like internally and externally to handle whatever she says, maybe that could help give you some clarity and you never know. Maybe the two of you could find a way to come to an understanding of like we were both grieving and going through a hard time in our own ways. And this is what upset you because of that grief. And this is what I thought

I was doing and how I thought I was doing the right thing. But again, it depends on this person's capacity for understanding and listening. And I don't know if you've ever had conversations with this person before to kind of inform that belief about them. But that's really where I would start. If you don't feel comfortable having a conversation, I think it's about getting comfortable with the fact that you're really being misunderstood in this situation. And maybe their grief and their own frustration and doubts are clouding their thinking and they're not able to see you fully in the correct light. Thank you again so much for calling in. I really, really appreciate it. As always, you can always call me. I have the phone number linked in these show notes and

leave me a voicemail. I pick two voicemails to answer every week on Thursdays. And I would love to hear from you and try to help you out. As always, you can join the Family Cycle Breakers Club at callinghome.co. We have unlimited groups every month for members and you always get new content delivered to your inbox. So if you've been listening to this podcast or following me on Instagram, the best way to get more resources and actually get like the full scope of my work is to join Calling Home. Thank you again for listening. Don't forget to share this episode with someone who might need it and leave us a review on Apple or Spotify and subscribe to the podcast. Thanks, everyone. Bye.

Thank you so much to everyone that called in this week and asked questions. I love being able to help you with these family situations and hopefully help you find a way to better navigate them with your adult family relationships. You can always call and leave me a voicemail and I may pick your question for an upcoming Thursday episode of the Calling Home podcast. Just call 866-225-4-66 and leave me. a voicemail. I do these episodes every Thursday and I love being able to get to help each and every one of you with your family relationships. If you're ready to work on your adult family relationships

outside of this podcast and take what you've learned to the next level, we do have the calling home community. You can join us for weekly groups and watch videos, take courses, get access to worksheets and more, and those groups are run by me so we can actually meet. And you just need to go to www.callinghome.com and join the Family Cycle Breakers Club. Thanks, and I will see you all on Tuesday for another episode. 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 Calling Home or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Holmes Terms of Service linked in the show notes below.