CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Sibling Estrangement in Families with an Emotionally Immature Parent

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

In this solo episode, Whitney explores why siblings from the same dysfunctional family often have completely different experiences and reactions to their emotionally immature parents. She breaks down the common dysfunctional family roles - golden child, scapegoat, lost child, parentified child, and enabler - and explains how these roles create lasting divisions between siblings in adulthood. Whitney then gives guidance on how siblings can come to terms with these different reactions to their different experiences. 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. 00:00 Why Siblings Experience the Same Parent Differently 03:19 The Five Dysfunctional Family Roles 07:29 How Childhood Roles Divide Adult Siblings 13:21 Accepting Different Healing Paths Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome back to the calling on podcast. I'm your host, Whitney Goodman. I was inspired by the Q&A that I did last week for the podcast. You can go back and listen to that episode from last Thursday if you missed it, but I'm going to get a little bit deeper into what that caller was asking about. Have you ever found yourself thinking? Did we even grow up in the same house when talking to your sibling about your parent? You are not alone. And I think one of the hardest part of growing up with an emotionally immature parent is realizing how differently your siblings experienced and responded to that same parent. While it's true that no child has the same childhood, even those that are related and grow up in the same household, with emotionally

immature parents, I think you're going to see this be even more extreme in the sense that they do not treat any of their children exactly the same. perceived usefulness, birth order, temperament, personality, all of these things can play a role in how that parent treats each individual child. And the responses that the children have to those parents in both childhood and adulthood can vary, right? A more rebellious sibling might fight that parent more or go into that quote unquote like fight mode. you might see a more avoidant child go into more of that like flight response where they just don't want to deal with the parent. This might be the one that is more likely to just kind of like

disappear potentially become as strange, not want to interact with the parent very much. They're highly avoidant in how they choose to deal with the family dysfunction or with their emotionally a mature parent. You also see some children become very numb to the parents' actions. They are more compliant in some ways. But then you also have the very, like, boning, people-pleasing response of the adult child who really is just trying to stay in the good graces of the parent because they think that is what is going to keep them the most safe. And I think the really challenging thing here is that siblings can have very different memories of their parent, right? So one sibling may have received a lot more love, admiration, respect from the parent while others were maybe used as a buffer or

they were treated very poorly by the parent. And all of these recollections and experiences can be true and they can exist at the same time. But a lot of times the siblings are not remember. bring things in the same way because they had fundamentally different experiences with that parent. And they can often become even resentful of the sibling that had a quote unquote better experience. Now we've talked about dysfunctional family roles several times on this podcast and we also have an entire topic block dedicated to that on the calling home website inside the family cycle breakers club. So I'm going to do just like a brief overview of those roles. But when there is an emotionally immature parent or two emotionally immature parents,

you're going to see a lot of these dysfunctional roles. So there might be a golden child who is idealized, their pressure to succeed. They're often in denial about what is going on in the family and they may be doing more of that numbing, being compliant, and also have this belief of like, if you just perform, everything will be okay. If you just do the right things, you might even hear this sibling say, like, my, my sibling is always screwing up. They're always doing something bad. They would have a good relationship with our parents if they just got their life together. And they don't understand that they are also performing and acting out this way of being in order to survive their family much in the way that their sibling is. Their is just more rewarded

and socially acceptable. There's also the scapegoat. And oftentimes the siblings in the family, like I just mentioned, that golden child role, they will also join in in blaming the scapegoat. This is the person that is blamed for the family's problems. And the golden child or even the parentified child can often look down on that sibling and be like, it is their false that they're not getting along in the family, that they're not having a good experience. If they would just clean it up, like I said,

they would have a better role in this family. And they learn to scapegoat. sibling and to make them the problem. There's also the lost child. This is going to be the one that maybe goes into more of that flight that we talked about who is neglected, typically emotionally neglected or physically neglected. And they keep quiet just to like stay out of trouble, not get involved in the drama. And sometimes this child also gets scapegoated or blamed, especially in an enmeshed family

for not wanting to be as close, keeping so much distance, certain types of emotionally immature parents do not like that in a child. And that can also feel lonely for you as the sibling of someone like that. The parentified child is often the one that is put into the role of taking care of the parents emotionally and or physically. And I've talked a lot about parentification on this show. We have the free Prentified Child Workbook that you can get on our website at Calling Home. But because this person is the emotional caretaker for the emotionally immature parent, which is an exhausting, debilitating role, that sibling can often become very resentful of their other siblings who have distanced themselves, who have stronger

boundaries or who are just not even taking on that role because they're like, do you see what I'm doing? I'm doing all of this heavy lifting to try to keep mom and dad okay or keep mom okay or keep dad okay. And you're not doing anything. And this can lead to some tension and then divide or conflict between siblings as well. And then there's also often an enabler sibling, right? There can be a sibling that closely aligns with the parent who is being abusive or disruptive or is causing most of the dysfunction and their alignment with that parent often affords them some type of security, right? Maybe they feel safer aligning with that parent. That parent gives them some sort of positive benefits because of it. Or they try to emulate that parent and they start

replicating some of their dysfunction. And so that can make them an extremely difficult sibling to be around and can also cause dysfunction in those relationships as well. When we see siblings who grew up with emotionally immature parents move into adulthood, a lot of the time we're going to see that they are not all on the same page. And this is what was happening with that caller question last week. And so I think there is this really heartbreaking moment. When you look around and you realize, okay, I don't have my parents, they kind of suck or they have some deficits. And I also don't have my siblings. Like they are also not agreeing with me, supporting me, doing the work that I'm doing, seeking the understanding they're not

trying to handle this in the way that I want them to. And you want them to be aligned with you because it would feel really good to have all of you on the same page against like a common, quote unquote, enemy, right? And I think that what typically shakes out here is that you're going to have potentially a sibling that is closely aligned with the parent and always defending them or going to battle for them. And so this might mean that the other siblings then are always being told that they're being dramatic. They're blowing things out of proportion. It's their false that they don't have a good relationship with mom. They just need to try harder. And this defensive sibling, they cannot have relationships with their siblings who see how their parent is

behaving and who are being negatively impacted by it. And so they often have to distance themselves from that sibling that is being the defender. And I think that defender really needs, to believe that their parent is good in order to protect themselves from that pain. It's also possible that they were treated differently. They don't have the same experiences with that parent. It could be true that most of their experiences with their parent are good and happy and nice, but they are not that way with their siblings. And so when you are a sibling who was treated very poorly by that parent and you have

your sister or brother, whoever, constantly defending the person who has harmed you, it's really hard to have a relationship with that person. It's very hard to understand how they cannot see your side. And in some of these families, I think it really feels like it's either me or mom or dad have to pick one of us. You can't have both. And for that defensive sibling, they're just like, why can't we all just get along? Why can't you just let it go? Or even, why can't you stop using substances. Why can't you just get a job? Stop treating mom so poorly. And you get wrapped up in this reality that the two of you are living in completely different realities and you're not seeing eye to eye and you don't see your parent in the same way and you don't have the same

experiences. And if both of you aren't able to understand that you're living in two different realities, it's again very hard to have a relationship. You may also see a a sibling that completely pulls away from the family. They become estranged and they say that, I am cutting you off, or they just become extremely low contact. They're not involved. They don't want to participate and they're just like, I'm out. And this can be very challenging for the parentified child, adult child, for the adult child who is really stuck in that role of like, I need to be the fixer for the family. They can feel left behind and abandoned. And that adult child that took distance, that sibling can also feel smothered.

And like, you're not giving me space. You don't understand why I can't be around the family. I don't want to fix them. I don't want to be a part of this. I don't want to approach this in the way that you are. And that can create a lot of conflict between the siblings. I think that when each sibling is responding in their own unique, way to the trauma of growing up in that family and they cannot come to a consensus on like

we can all have different experiences with this. It's very hard for the siblings to have relationships and also maintain relationships with the emotionally immature parent in adulthood. There's also a very common dynamic where the parent will engage in triangulation, trying to pull different siblings into fights so that they can assert power or manipulate have control over certain dynamics, you might see a lot of gossiping, spreading of lies, using certain siblings as flying monkeys. And this makes it impossible for the siblings to have healthy relationship. And I think ultimately for a lot of highly dysfunctional, emotionally immature parents, they actually don't want their children to all get along because this would

mean that they would not have full control and power over what was going on in the family. A lot of the time, when you see siblings that are connected over their issues with the parent, let's say they all become estranged, they all decide to set boundaries, they're all on the same page, that parent cannot assert control anymore. And they do not have control over the narrative or what's going on in the family. And so a lot of times in very dysfunctional families, discord between the siblings is actually on purpose and it is a manipulation strategy. and there needs to be that scapegoat or that person who's like messing up in the family that can be blamed so that the parent doesn't have to do anything different. When we talk about navigating these adult relationships with your siblings and we've covered adult sibling relationships at Calling Home, we have a four week content block dedicated to that on the website for members

of the Family Cycle Breakers Club as well, I think that it's really important that you abandon this idea that you are all going to see your life and your parents in the same way. You have to accept that everyone is reacting in their own way. And that doesn't mean that you have to tolerate bad behavior or have your boundaries violated or even have a relationship with that sibling that is doing destructive things. But you don't have to convince them about your way to heal. And I think this goes for adults who choose to seek distance from their family and adults who choose to stay in it. You might be the person who is like, I became estranged. I needed to get away from my family and I do not understand on any level my sibling that has

decided to stay in it and be the fixer and all of that. You might be the sibling that's in it trying to do something different, going to therapy, trying to set boundaries, having tough conversations with your parent and you're like, my lazy sibling. I cannot believe they just took the easy way out and they don't want to help me with this and they're abandoning the family. Both of your experiences are real. And I understand why both of those archetypes would have resentment towards one another, would feel confused, would not get why the other person is doing what they're doing. And that's where everyone has to just say, we are all reacting to a system that is sick

in our own ways. We all have our own dysfunctional ways of dealing with this and we all have our own functional adaptive ways of dealing with this. And I cannot look down on the ways that my sibling is choosing to handle this. I can set boundaries. I can choose not to have a relationship with them. I can distance myself from them. I can ask them to assist me in certain ways. I can try to seek understanding and I have to accept that this is how they were affected by the system that we grew up in. And I think sometimes we pathologize certain ways of being impacted by these sick systems and we celebrate others. We celebrate the daughter who has sacrificed her health and well-being to totally take care of, excuse me, a parent that was abusive to her and continues

to be abusive to her. And we demonize the child who said, you know what, I've got kids and a husband and a career and I cannot give all that up and I can't run myself into the ground trying to take care of this parent. And in the end, both of them are reacting. to what they lived through, to the system that they are in. They're reacting in different ways. And each of them deserves the right to process and heal through that in their own way. I think that we try to ascribe some sort of morality to the way that people are impacted by their dysfunctional family systems instead of looking at these things as a reaction and also knowing that we have autonomy and independence in how we choose to react. And we don't have to react

in the same way as others. And I think that when you feel empowered and like you're standing in the truth and integrity of what you actually want to do, you're less worried about what your siblings are doing. So if I know that what I want to do is to preserve a relationship with my family or to take care of my aging parent and that is in line with my values and what I want to do, I'm not as concerned about my sibling not showing up and doing it. that because I know that they're making their own choice and I could make that choice too if I wanted to. I think that's sometimes where the resentment builds up is that we're telling

ourselves that choice isn't an option for us and that they're doing something bad by making that choice and we may need to instead investigate like why do I feel like that's not available to me but they're able to do that. What do I think would happen if I decided to make that choice too? And then that's when we start to get into the dialogue, right, of like, oh, I feel like my family would abandon me. I wouldn't be loved. I would lose everything in my life because I've always been parentified and I'm the one that needs to show up for people and take care of everyone. And once I realize that that's the script I'm operating off of, I know that I'm operating also from the dysfunction that I experienced in my family and the role that I was given. And so maybe your sibling isn't aware of all of this and they're actually just being avoidant

and abandoning themselves and feeling like this is the only way they can survive and they're actually living a super unhealthy life and not doing anything to work on themselves or maybe they've made a conscious decision that this is what they have to do to save themselves and they cannot participate in the family dynamic. No matter what their reasons are around it or what you think of it, We have to come to a place of acceptance that if I want to help my parent, if I want to take care of them, if I want to have a relationship with that, I am doing that knowing that that is my choice and my sibling's going to make a different choice. There is a ton of grief in this. And so everything

I'm saying, I think comes with the caveat that like, this is allowed to hurt and you're allowed to be upset about it and you're allowed to have all of these feelings. And you can do that while releasing the control over, I need to get my sibling to see this the way that I do. If you want to work on this more this month, we are spending the entire month of August in the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home talking about adult children of emotionally immature parents. And that includes your relationships with your siblings and how having an emotionally immature parent has impacted your relationship with the rest of your family and how you build your new family in adulthood, whatever that looks like. You can join the Family Cycle Breakers Club

at Callinghome.co, and that will give you access to our entire content library, new resources every Monday, and unlimited support groups with me and our other licensed therapists. I would love to see you there this month or any other time. And as always, thank you so much for listening or watching the show. Please don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review, or like this show, wherever you are watching or listening. Thank you so much, and I will see you on Thursday for another Q&A episode. Bye. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship

between you and Colling Home or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Home's terms of service linked in the show notes below. Thank you.