CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Q&A: The Authoritarian Parenting Style

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

Whitney defines what authoritarian parenting actually is (beyond just being strict), explores how it's rooted in control rather than raising independent humans, and explains why these parents struggle when their children develop agency and can no longer be controlled the same way. If you have an inkling that your family of origin might have been drawing on some of the principles of authoritarian parenting this might be a useful listen. Whitney also answers a listener's question about coming to terms about accepting an uninvolved parent.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]⁠⁠Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠⁠Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhitFollow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft⁠⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity⁠Learn more about ad choices. Visit podcast.choices.com/adchoicesThis podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice.02:00 What authoritarian parenting actually is (and isn't)07:20 When you can’t be controlled anymore12:45 How authoritarian parents respond to loss of control24:43 Listener question Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, everyone and welcome back to the following our podcast. I'm your host, Whitney Goodman. One of my favorite things about having this show and about having social media is that it has given me a place to work through new ideas that I have concepts that I'm fleshing out and get your feedback so that I make sure that I am speaking correctly to the experiences that so many of you have had. And it's been such a gift to learn from all of you over the years so that I can create resources that are a better fit for your needs. This is going to be one of those episodes where I am working through a concept. And this is something that I might kind of revisit. I might have different thoughts about. My ideas are not set in stone on this.

and I'm looking for your feedback or your thoughts about what I'm going to say. I'm going to dive into talking about authoritarian parents in this episode, who they are, why they behave the way they do, and why it becomes so difficult and sometimes impossible to have a healthy adult relationship with them. And at the end of this episode, I will also answer a caller question, which I do every Thursday and you are more than welcome to send me your question via email to Whitney at callinghome.com or call and leave me a voicemail. That phone number is in the show notes. And I pick a different question to answer every week. So we'll get to that at the end. And if you want to fast forward to that,

if this doesn't apply to you, go for it. All right. I want to start by grounding us in a clear definition because I think the word authoritarian get thrown around a lot and sometimes it's confused with other parenting styles. And some people seem to confuse it with just like being strict or having rules. And that's not what we're talking about here. Authoritarian parenting is a style that includes strict rules, obedience, punishment, and a top-down power structure where the parents' word is final and the child's job is to comply. And there is very little warmth connection or two-way communication. Okay.

The parent is in charge. They're always right. And they are rarely questioned. And the child's needs, feelings, or perspectives are either dismissed or treated as disrespect. And so this might sound like, if this is sounding familiar to you, it's sort of like this, because I said so, parenting or my way or the highway or shut up and get over it, like these are the underlying beliefs that drive this parenting style. And there are a lot of communities, cultures, religious groups that hold this type of parenting

in the highest regard. It's what was consistently recommended, preached about. And even though we have a pretty robust amount of literature on the fact that this type of parenting doesn't have great outcomes, its impact still persists. And there's a lot of nuance here, but there's also a lot of false beliefs about this style of parenting and how good it actually. is for authoritarian parents, the goal isn't to raise like a thoughtful, independent human being that exists separate from you. The goal is control at its core. And authoritarian parenting, I think, is less about what children need and more about what parents want and what helps them feel in control and good about themselves. And again, this type of parenting gets normalized

in a lot of families, especially generationally in certain cultures, certain religious backgrounds. It's very popular. And it can become abusive. It's more likely to become abusive than other types of parenting because when the parent believes that their right to control their child outweighs the child's right to autonomy, independence, or safety, they can cross over into abuse very, very easily. And so when parents use things under this umbrella of authoritarian parenting, under the guise of like, I'm just teaching you and helping you, they do things like using fear, humiliation, screaming, hitting, withdrawal, or chronic criticism as their primary tools for parenting. And it's not tough but loving. This is full-blown domination.

And it often becomes abusive again when the parent is more focused on making sure that they feel superior. And this is fueled by some beliefs like, I know best, you don't. I'm entitled to your obedience and your deference. Any challenge to me is disrespect. And you exist solely to reflect well on me. And so if you're hearing this and being like, wow, this really sounds like my home, you probably learned pretty quickly that you could earn some form of safety, perhaps.

If you just were not disruptive, did what you were told, stayed small, were really agreeable, and you become trained to avoid punishment. You don't learn how to think or feel or have any critical thinking skills or express yourself. You just learn how to be obedient and compliant. And this works for parents with little kids for a long time, right? Especially because we often view a child's level of obedience as the scale for how good a parent is. So the more a child defers to their parent does everything they say, never questions them, always behaves, sits perfectly still and quiet, the more we think, wow, that parents

really got it figured out. I mean, I don't think that. But there's a lot of parents that think that, right? Or that might have been, you know, how your parents would brag like, oh, my kids are so good. They never challenge me. They never disrespect me. They never do anything except what they're told.

And that's how I know that I'm a good parent. And for many decades, we prioritized obedience to parents, again, as the ultimate marker that parents were doing a good job. And people still do that today. Now, when you parent this way and when you're a child that grows up in this type of home, and this is kind of what I'm working through right now, you become an adult that has agency, okay? and that cannot be controlled in the same ways because you've got, you know, legs and feet and a brain and the ability to go and support yourself and walk out the door and not pick up the phone and really not respond to your parents' control in the same way because they do not have the same authority over you.

What are they going to do? Ground you, lock you in your room. Like, their skills stop working. And oftentimes this is where we see the relationship. start to fall apart when adults have this big realization. And I think this is where the third party comes in and we start blaming partners and therapists and coaches and other groups and friends because people around them are like, hey, you know you don't have to do that, right? Like, what are they going to do? Kick you out of your apartment that you pay for. And we start to have like this questioning

of like, oh, I'm not going to get in trouble. They can't do anything to me. and adults start to question how they are responding to these authoritarian parents in adulthood. And adulthood brings something to the authoritarian parent that they do not know how to tolerate or interact with. And that is a child with power, an agency who no longer depends on them for survival. And for a lot of authoritarian parents, this is their absolute nightmare. So they start to double down on some of the tactics that they used to use because they used to work. And we often do things behaviorally to get a certain result.

And when our child starts changing, we think maybe if I just turn it up a little bit more, be a little bit more strict, a little bit more threatening, they're going to come back to me. They're going to listen because that's always been our dynamic. They're still relating to their adult child as if the hierarchy is intact, as if I am up here and you are down here and I get to control you, you are an extension of me, you are of the child, I am the parent. They believe that they still fundamentally outrank you, that they should be deferred to. They believe in obedience is the ultimate sign of love and respect.

And look, let me give my caveat for everyone that's like, parents deserve respect, obviously. Like, of course, I as a child show my parents respect and love even in adulthood. I probably am not going to do the same things around them that I might do in certain other situations. I am going to treat them respectfully, not just because they're my parents, but because I love them and care about them and respect them. And that's the difference here, is that, again, we're talking about the quality of the relationship, not just the role. When you are so focused on the role and being an authoritarian in your child's life, you are not thinking about getting those needs met, creating that relationship outside of anything

other than dominance, power, and control. You don't think about maybe if I got to know them better or if we understood each other, if we spent time together, we had shared interests, we bonded, maybe then we would have a better relationship. It's all about know how can I maintain that position of superiority. And I know that I can probably do that by making them afraid of me. dependent on me and feeling like I am the authority on their life. So this isn't about showing love and respect. This is about power. I think anyone out there who has a good relationship with their parent or a good relationship with their child would agree that we should show respect and love and honor both ways in those relationships. And this is not about not allowing your parent to have

any influence over you and not caring about anything having to do with them. That's not what people want. But I think that this conflict around who's in control, who gets the final word, who has the most power is where so much of the exhaustion and fighting and eventually estrangement is coming from, especially as we see attitudes about authority shift over time. we are seeing young people, younger generations as they age, having very different perceptions of the role of authority in their lives. And this isn't just isn't just parents. It's also about government institutions and college and teachers and the police. And when people start to feel failed by institutions in their life, they begin to question them. And I think we are in this

extreme unraveling and questioning that has some bad and some good, of course, of the role of authority in our lives. Now, authoritarian parenting, like I said, is really built on hierarchy, which means that it is not my job to guide my child. My job is to maintain control over them, to assert my authority. And for people who are abusive to children or abusive to their partners, they often have this worldview that everything is hierarchical, right? Someone's at the top and someone's at the bottom. It's not about mutuality or negotiation or curiosity.

We don't share reality. I get to define reality and you live within that. reality. And this hierarchy isn't temporary. I think that's the biggest problem here is that for these authoritarian parents, their position doesn't change when their children become adults. This is the structure through which we live our lives and maintain our relationships. And so when these adults start to treat their parents as equals, or maybe even give them back the treatment they've been getting, which might include, you know, distance, emotional neglect, not being super supportive of their choices.

They experience this as an absolute upheaval of this hierarchy. It's disrespectful. It's insubordination. It's betrayal because everything you are doing breaks the rules of the relationship. And these are likely rules that they. grew up with too. And for people who really are desperate for power and control and authority, they have been so excited to have that power over someone and to finally get it. And maybe if they felt powerless their entire life, it's like, oh, I'm finally going to get to have this over my kids.

That's what kids are for. That's what having a wife is for. It's to be in control and to be powerful over people. And that makes me feel good. It allows me to get my needs met. this is often the foundational beliefs in these types of relationships. And this is why no amount of therapy or communication skills are going to change that. If you are in a relationship with a person who fundamentally believes that they are superior to you, better than you, they deserve more respect, and that any challenge to that is punishable, you can communicate all day long. they have to change that foundational belief in order to have a relationship.

Your independence as an adult is also not neutral to this parent. It is a threat to them. When the adult realizes, I don't have to do everything my parents says, they actually can't really hurt me. This is a big moment. I think it can happen at any age. but you start to be like, wait, I can leave. I can choose my own life. I can do what I want. I've never had this power or this feeling before. I always felt like a trapped little kid at my parents' mercy. And I think parents who have a healthy relationship with their child would say, I would like my

child to be able to have an independent, self-sufficient life where they feel like they can take care of themselves, they feel satisfied, they enjoy their life. For an authoritarian parent, this is not a moment to celebrate. This is a moment to start freaking out because your independence signals defiance, your boundaries are insults, and your new adult identity is fundamentally rebellion. It's not independence, it's not you creating your own life. Because again, this foundational belief is that they genuinely believe that a child, no matter how old you are, if you break out of that role, you are challenging the authority and natural order of the family. And this is why you continue to feel like a child, even though your parent might be saying, we're two adults. Let's talk like two

adults, they don't want you to be an adult. They want you to be a child. They want you to agree with everything. There's topics that are off limits. They respond to every limit you set with guilt, rage, withdrawal. They accuse you of being ungrateful. They still treat you like you're 10. And you're stuck in this double bind of like you want me to be both adults and child. And I cannot be both at the same time. I can't have the expectations or meet the expectations that we are two adults in an equal relationship while also being your subordinate. It doesn't work.

And this is why it always feels like you're talking past each other and you're not able to create this relationship because what they are looking for is not a relationship between two equal adults. They're looking to have power over you while punishing you if you act like a child, even though you're in a subordinate role. An adult relationship will not work if one person refuses to give up power. Because healthy adult relationships between anybody require that there's respect that goes both ways. Reciprocity, boundaries, accountability, and equality.

And authoritarian parents really struggle with all of these. areas because they want authority without responsibility. That's why they want to be in the role of the authoritarian parent, but they don't want to be responsible for how that impacts you and the way that you act when you are put in that subordinate role with them. They want loyalty, but without fostering any intimacy with you. So I want you to have complete and absolute loyalty to me, but I'm not going to show you why you need to do that. other than you are my parent. They won't respect without reciprocity.

They don't want to give it back. And they want access to you without giving you really any reason why they should have that other than being your parent and without providing any sense of emotional safety. So it's like you need to leave your door open, but you never know when they're going to come in and just like destroy your house. It doesn't work. They want contact, but without having to actually. actually form connection because that type of contact is just control and surveillance.

There needs to be closeness, but that closeness doesn't have any equality. And they maybe want a family, but instead it's not really a family. It's a group of people that they get to rule over. That's very different than having a family of adults that has closeness and connection. And I think that this is why so many adults feel like the relationship with their parent is so one-sided. It's exhausting. It's confusing. It's hard to sustain because you're an adult trying to relate to another adult who wants a child who acts like an adult but obeys them.

And again, these two realities cannot coexist. It's not possible to assert. complete authority over someone but have an equal relationship between adults will not work. And this is where I think adults who have these types of parents in childhood and adulthood start to get very confused. Because on the one hand, you might want or deserve autonomy, but you cannot find a way to achieve it while maintaining closeness to your parent. And it feels like you have to choose.

You're still very much wired for and conditioned like to play these roles that you always played growing up. And so anytime you do something different, it's like guilt, fear, panic, dread, shame. Like, you just feel like you cannot step out of that dynamic. The stakes feel too high. And this really is the conditioning, you know? And it's like their reactions are just reinforcing and repeating the pattern. And they are trying to assert control in these ways that used to work when you were seven. And they might work now on some level if you just kind of go back to that place of how you felt at that time and you acquiesce, but they're not actually working in the same way because your parent cannot trap you in the ways that they used to be able to when

you couldn't work or make money or have your own place or drive a car. Like it's different. They cannot assert control in the same way. And so I think the, the really hard truth that I'm working through here that I would love your feedback on is like, do you think you can have a relationship with a parent like this, with someone who sees themselves as superior to you, having ownership over you? You cannot negotiate boundaries with someone who fundamentally believes that any boundary you set is disrespectful. If they want obedience, you can't reason with them.

It's their way or the highway. If someone is refusing accountability, you can't repair with them. You can't even grow up if this person believes that no matter what happens in our relationship, whatever changes, how old I get, I will always outrank you. And that means that my beliefs, feelings, decisions, and life always gets priority over yours. And they might believe that, like, their worldview is fundamentally the only worldview. It's the only way to look at things.

It's the only correct way. And so for a lot of you, the only thing you can do is stop organizing your life around this because you cannot convince them that you were an adult. The only thing you can do is live as an adult. and take radical responsibility for your life and what your life is going to look like. Because otherwise you get trapped in this cycle of feeling like I could never grow up because my parent was always pulling me back in. And this is what I, when I talk about like stepping into your adult power, it's not that

they don't impact you or have a level of influence over you or that you don't have a lot to heal over. It's taking a step back and being like, I am no longer a helpless child. This is where it ends. Today, I decide how I want to live my life. Because ultimately, this person might believe they have power over me. They may try to assert control, but they don't really have it. Not in the way that they used to.

That's for sure. I would love to know your thoughts on that if that resonates with you. If you feel like you've seen this play out in your own life, it would be really helpful. I think that we're getting closer to really uncovering a lot of reasons why this is happening today in the way that it is between adults and their parents. All right. Now let's go ahead and get to that caller question.

I'm going to go ahead and play the voicemail for you. Hi, Whitney. I'm not even sure how to pose the question. I don't even know if I have a question. I think it's more of just trying to understand that at some point there has to be an acceptance that happens for us as adult children. of certain things without intervention and without another conversation and just kind of really realizing this is the way things are and having to just come to terms with it.

I'm one of three children. We are all late 30s, married kids. I would say all things consider we are in really positive good marriages. We have really happy families we're raising our kids really well. And we have parents who are married for 40-plus years now. And it's a marriage that even as we were children was never exemplary. But again, like so many, it wasn't that it was horrible, but it was not great. And there's always kind of been the dynamic of one very difficult, narcissistic,

domineering energy parent and one very flexible over-compensual. dating parent who kind of has swept things into the rug and allowed that behavior, a lot of enabling. All this to say now as adults, we see it in such a different light, and it's always been this way and it will always be this way. These are, you know, people who have both played their roles. And as adults, we are still a family who gets together for a lot of things, and it's not that there are big blowouts and really toxic situations and fighting.

It's not that. It's just so obvious that there is one parent who is so invested in us and our children and another parent who is so detached and unable to be that way. And I think there's just a lot of disappointment that we still feel about it. And we have individually and collectively over the years had conversations, especially with the enabling parent about it. Nothing's changing. And we know that.

And yet there's still that disappointment and there's still that frustration. And there's still one grandparent who is heavily involved. and one grandparent who really kind of sits on the sidelines doesn't come to many things, and it's just the way it is. And so I guess what I'm asking is, is it okay to just say this is the way it is. You can't really estrange yourself from somebody who kind of has a strange themselves in so many ways into adulthood. There's no assangement to do, you know, and there's no intervention conversations

to be had that will do anything. But I think just add more tension or discomfort and rock the boat in a way that won't help. So I'm just trying to understand if there are a lot of other adult children who... The question got cut off there, but I think I have a lot that I can say about this. And thank you so much for calling in with that question. You ask a really good question in there about, like, Is it okay to just say this is the way it is? And I want to say yes, absolutely. And I think that's what

you're kind of walking yourself through in this voicemail. And acceptance is such a helpful pathway for adults who are having difficult relationships with their parents or for these types of situations where there is just so much that is out of your control. what one of your parents decides to do with the other, the way they handle their marriage, the relationships they choose to be in, totally out of your control. And it seems like you can identify some good things here that you get to experience with your family and some really positive qualities about having your family together and doing things together and the involvement of one grandparent.

And there's always going to be that juxtaposition of like when I compare this parent to this parent, this one looks a lot better than this one, but I can see how both of them have contributed. Like, you can get really lost in trying to make sense of all of that. And so I cannot wait until my book comes out in hopefully like the next year because this is a concept that I am fleshing out in the book about how there's nothing really too estranged from with. some parents because they're choosing distance and a surface level relationship. And so this is where I want to encourage people in situations like this to empower themselves to dictate the terms of the relationship from their perspective in a little bit different of a way.

So instead of it being that your one parent, you know, is distant and there's nothing to a strange from, like, there can be this acceptance of this is the way it is with this parent. And we have a surface level relationship. And what does that give us? Okay, it gives us, you know, the ability to get together as a family. It gives us the ability to spend time with our parent that we feel more connected to who is not willing or doesn't want to leave this relationship. It allows our time together to, maybe not include screaming and yelling and fighting and all that stuff. And you can look at that and compare it to what would it be like if I did cut this person off or I didn't have them in my

life or if these parents got divorced, what would that look like? And I think sometimes when we come at it from the lens of like, this is the relationship that I am choosing to have with this person because it's the relationship I can have with the parent I have. It is the best outcome, it feels a little bit more empowering because of course, every single person on this planet would love to be able to say, oh my gosh, my parents are my best friend. They see me. They get me 100%. They always know what I'm thinking. They can anticipate my needs. They're the best grandparents. They're so involved. Like, I don't think there's anyone that doesn't want that. It's just not achievable because unfortunately, your parents are human beings. And so that means that they likely have a lot of

deficits as humans, like we all do, some more than others. Some are absolutely incapable or unwilling to be that type of parent. And so this is where the acceptance comes in of like, this is the person I've got in front of me. It's what they can give me. And this is what I'm willing to do with them. And if I can redefine that relationship to feel empowering to me, it feels a little bit different and maybe less from the lens of abandonment and more from the lens of I am an adult and this is how I'm choosing to interact with this person. Now, that doesn't mean that there's not a lot of grief and old feelings there because you're describing a longstanding pattern that has existed for quite some time. And that means that you have memories and body

sensations and feelings associated with being disappointed, you know, by your parent or by their marriage dynamic, being impacted by it. And you're allowed to have all of those feelings. It's more about how are you going to choose to relate to what's in front of you as an adult while also making room for those feelings. Thank you so much for listening to the show. As a reminder, you can always call me or send me an email with your question to Whitney at Callinghome.com. I answer caller questions every Thursday. And please don't forget to like, subscribe, leave us a review, follow the show. It really, really helps. I also want to remind you that if you would like more content like this,

for the entire month of January, we've been working on how to be more emotionally mature. This is a skill that everyone can benefit from. You can join the Family Cyclebreakers Club at Callinghome.co, where we have private discussion boards, therapist-led groups, weekly content delivered to your inbox, book recommendations, therapy guides. You get access to our entire content library that is created by me. And you can access that content from anywhere, anytime it is exactly what you need to help you break patterns of dysfunction in your family and build healthier adult family relationships. Thank you again so much for listening and I will see you again on Tuesday. Bye. in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services.

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