CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Toxic Mothers with Patrick Teahan | Therapists React to Animal Kingdom

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Whitney is joined by therapist Patrick Teahan to break down one of the most diabolically toxic mother figures on television: Smurf from Animal Kingdom.Follow PatrickYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@patrickteahanofficialInstagram: @patrickteahanofficialWhitney 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] the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhitFollow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic PositivityThis podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome, Patrick, to the Calling Home Podcast. We're going to be talking about a show that I just recently binge watched every season, but it's a little bit older. And I think that she, the matriarch in this family is like one of the all-time most toxic, confusing mother figures I've ever seen on a show. Okay. Just to give you some context, this mom kisses her sons on the mouth repeatedly. wants them all to live at home.

She's also like the biggest crime boss in Oceanside, California. And so we are, it's a very complicated thing. I know, no, no, no. Brought out the big guns for you. So this is the show Animal Kingdom. Have you heard of this show? I think so. Yeah.

Okay. You have to go watch it after this if you haven't because it's insane. And there's like, I think there's like seven or eight seasons. It was on for a long time. I think until like, I don't know, maybe 2015, 2016. But I want to talk mainly about the mother today and her relationships with each of her sons. And so before we get started, I'm going to give you a little bit of a breakdown and for the listeners of this family tree so that you know what you're working with. Was it reality tea or something?

No, it is a drama. Yes. I think it was on like FX maybe and then it got brought to Netflix. So it's been on there now. But these are all actors, fake family. It's based off of a show or a movie from Australia. And they basically did this like Americanized version. But I'm going to give you a little background on the family tree.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me because there's a couple of like key players here. But the mother that I've been describing to you is Janine Cody. And she goes by Smurf. And they don't really explain that until the very. end of the show. And I honestly forget, but that's just kind of what we'll be referring to her as is Smurf throughout this episode. And she is the matriarch of the family. Okay. She's very affectionate physically, like I mentioned, but very controlling, very inappropriately enmeshed. And she has five children that live under her roof. Throughout the show,

the majority of the show is of her with these children as adults. And then later on we go back and kind of see how they came into the world. But all of these kids have different fathers. With the exception of one son that she basically adopted, like welcomed into her home as a teenager because his mother was on drugs. So she is four biological children and one that is adopted. her oldest son is they call him Pope. He was her first child. He also has a twin named Julia that we're going to talk about a lot today. Okay. So it's very interesting that she had these two kids right off the bat. One's a boy, one's a girl. And you'll see that they have very different relationships

with their mother because of their gender. And Pope has the most visible mental illness, I would say, like where he definitely hallucinates, he experiences depression and mania, and he even becomes very pathological at times where he has killed people, he doesn't feel much guilt or remorse, etc. Baz is her like unofficially adopted son and she loves him the most, I think, because she can kind of make him be sexually attracted to her because he is not biologically related to her. see her be the most, like, physically affectionate with her. I mean, with him, and it's very bizarre. Then she has Craig. Yeah, go ahead. So I just kind of want to, I'm just trying to get to my mind.

Like, when we started the conversation, I was really thinking of some kind of like reality TV. But this is almost like a Sopranos situation. Yes. Where it is there, there's a, yeah, I'll just stop. I'll just stop there and let you kind of continue. So we've got like this matriarch and then all. of her sons underneath her. It's a little bit different, I think, this show just because we rarely see a woman on a TV show in this type of position. And then, like, having this power over her sons that is also, it's emotional, psychological, but also very sexual, which is kind of bizarre, I think, to see a mother doing this on TV.

She has two other younger sons. So Craig is the middle one, very important. uses a lot of substances. He's like pretty like the wild child. And then Darren is the youngest son. You don't need to remember all of these names. But it's just that she's got all of these sons that they basically inhabit different roles within the family. Four sons and one daughter and the daughter's a twin of the oldest. Yes. Exactly. So I want to start out by describing a scene with the daughter. And a couple of scenes with the daughter because I think this is going to be the most interesting dynamic that we can talk about in this show. You just mentioned, you know, that Smurf has these four biological children. They're all boys with the exception of Julia, who is Pope's twin. And in the later seasons of the show, we start to get these flashbacks to Smurf when she was pregnant and the kids throughout their adolescence. And I think the one thing that really strikes me about this is the way she treats her daughter, Julia.

So I'm interested just like from what you know right off the bat about this woman, what do you think her dynamic with her daughter is probably going to be like? Kind of like an archetype like this. If a mother is extremely poor boundaries and is celebrating sons and maybe I don't want to throw out the word promiscuous, but just basically like poor relational skills. It's just kind of fitting into a paradox in my mind. It's probably going to be adversarial in a way that we see in just some cultures where boys are celebrated. And a mom like this, if she's very immature, she can get more attention or have more purpose with her sons, where the daughter is just, to be blunt, usually treated like shit. And in some cultures where boys can be criminals and do anything they want and be perpetrators or whatever,

and the family might encourage that. but yet the daughter is named as a whore. Yep. And the boys are kind of celebrated in that way. Yep. You are spot on because a lot of what we see is Julia, who now in the pre, in her adult life, she dies from a drug overdose. Oh, gosh. Yeah.

Yeah. So she becomes watching this stuff. I know. We have too much on our plates. The analysis is just too good. But my husband is watching it for fun. So I question him more than me. But we see throughout a lot of the show in the later seasons focuses on Julia in high school.

And Smurf is constantly giving her substances. Like they drink together. They smoke weed together. She has a lot of like unsavory characters around who are also doing drugs. And I think because I would say Smurray. Murph was probably like maybe 18 or 19 when she had her first kids. So she's in her 30s, you know, when her children are, she's in her later 30s. Right. That's a huge factor in this stuff. Right. Exactly. Right. And she never really got to be a kid. And so she's partying a lot

with her teenage kids introducing them. She always wants to be like a cool mom, it seems like. And she gets some benefit out of this. And you were totally. on the nose that Smurf is so in competition with Julia for men and when she's in high school Julia actually starts sleeping with Baz the adopted brother

this young boy that they've brought into the house and this pisses Smurf off this is like the first time we see them really start to get be budding heads and Smurf's response to this is to buy Baz this like 17 year old

kid a beach house put him up there and tell him that if he continues to speak to Julia, he will take the house away or she will take the house from him. And then she throws him a party with like a bunch of teenage girls and they're all doing cocaine together. So what do you think of this mother thus far? It's just kind of it there's some of my own childhood in there to share a little bit. So for the listener hearing all this, it's just kind of like, a lot of our audience will be like, Jesus, it wasn't that bad. You know what I mean? But some people have a childhood like this where I'm thinking about Smurf in the way of that who taught her how to cross

boundaries, who taught her to not, what was it about Smurfs' upbringing that she does not know the system of hierarchy, that a parent being up here in charge of the emotional wellness of the children kind of below. And we will just see men and women who are survivors or have mental health issues where they are essentially in competition with their kids. Or it's what a woman named Janet Wojtitt would say in a book called Healthy Parenting, the Cool Mom. So I also had a cool mom. And there was childhood drinking and sharing of cigarettes and that kind of a thing. But that's just how some parents only know how to relate to it. Yeah.

But it takes a lot of work for if Julia hadn't passed away or for childhood trauma survivors to overcome this because the mind of it all is like your mom is incredibly boundary crossing and immature and she feels like a friend and not a mom in some ways. And there's a lot of manipulation going on. But she's still your mom. You still need a parental slip sign. You still need a ride to the mall. Do you know what I mean?

Here's what's a really, really the key factor with a parent like this for anybody out there is your friends lover. Your friends, Julia, if she had friends or these boys if they had friends, they want to be like, I want to stay here all the time. You don't have to go to bed. You can get cocaine. You can watch porn. You can do all this stuff. It's like a free for all. And for the survivor, that is extremely confusing.

Because when you think about the crossroads that that childhood trauma survivor is at, you know, if I was working with one of these kids, they would eventually, we would probably eventually get to like, I kind of just wanted to watch Charlie Ground Christmas and go to bed at the right time. Do you know what I mean? There's no structure. So it's a very, it's what I call it, anything goes childhood. And it has its own severe kind of damage to it.

it. Yeah, you're spot on that I think they're always having parties at the house and people there and chaos, yeah, cooks for people and has barbecues and there's alcohol around. And that I think it is, when you look at the house from maybe a teenager's perspective, who they get to live out that, that dream there, like sort of that hedonism that they're feeling rebellion they want to have at that age, it feels good to go, like, visit that house and go back to the safety, you know, of your own. Can I ask, does Smurf thrive on the drama of all that? Oh, yes. Like inviting kids in and some of them are sleeping together or crossing boundaries and then she's taking sides.

And, you know what I mean? Like, it's, yeah. A hundred percent. I think she loves to be the puppeteer of the drama is really what it seems like, even among her children. And so that's something, you know, that you're kind of pretty. predicting here is that Smurf is also extremely envious of the twins' relationship with one another. And she does not like her son, Pope, to be close with his twin sister. She's okay with him being close with his brothers.

But the dynamic with the sister is very, very triggering for her. And so Smurf finds out that Julia has been, you know, they run this big like, crime ring. They rob people and stuff. That's how they make money. And she's training the kids to be involved in that. And so Julia is doing these jobs. Is that kind of like more white collar or a blue crawler? It's like they will rob banks. They will rob jewelry stores and fence it. Like they call it doing jobs. And so they'll kind of just do these random heists here and there. And that's how they survive. As a family, or are there other men and women kind of doing that footwork for? her. They're doing it as a family and they're very, Smurf is very insistent on like, we only keep

this between the family. This is what our family does. The kids are not allowed to have any identity outside of that. I think whoever came up with the show, the writers, I wonder if they were working through something. I know. Do you know what I mean? Because it's just like, this is very specific. This is very, you know what I mean? And it's, it's, it's in, it's got, you know, it doesn't sound good, but it's like it's enticing. It's like a car crash that you can't not watch. That's exactly how I felt watching it 100%. And the layers of manipulation and like the dynamics between the characters are so deep that it's hard to know this unless you had spent a lot of time with people like this or lived it, I think.

but the ultimate, I think, sort of chathom that happens between Smurf and Julia that ends their relationship and I think ultimately leads to Julia's death is that she starts stealing money from her mother, like off of these jobs. She will skim off the top because she is trying to take like an SAT course and she wants to move out of the house and she's ultimately doing it so that she can differentiate herself and escape from the family. She's very smart. Right. Smurf finds this out and kicks her out of the house. And this is when we see her try heroin for the first time.

Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm wondering. How old is Julia when this is going down? I think she's probably 16. I think she can drive. Oh, this is heartbreaking.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay. Why do you think? the stealing was like the final straw for Smurf. Like I'm curious why this was the one thing.

Her taking money was like she was done with her. She said she could never come back to the house. I have some thoughts. I was, you know, for someone like Smurf, that might have been an opportunity to get rid of her daughter subconsciously. You know, I can finally get rid of you. You know, drama and betrayal without noticing as like, you know, you're teaching your children how to.

is steel, you know? Good point. You know, you're teaching to be, you know, in that way. And I think that like, these are really interesting kind of like, well, I love that you said that we're trying to like individuate and differentiate from the family, but in toxic families, we kind of do that using the same materials. Like even in the Oprah podcast to come back to that when in a strange. parent who was a TikTok influencer was sort of saying my daughter just stops talking to us.

She presented it as she's very kind of cynicy. And as I'm kind of watching that in a way like, you know, like, or the I also couched with that estranged children or adult children don't know how to do conflict. In many ways, we have to look at like, well, how was conflict done in your family? do you know what I mean because it's not I wouldn't expect an adult child to have a graceful I wouldn't expect Julia to be like you know

none of this is okay I'm going to move out I'm going to get my SATs I'm going to go into foster care I have two more years before I age out there I might be safer there best a lot do you know what I mean like those conflict skills in that kind of family

so that's really kind of what it makes me think about in terms of Smurf also looking at that is there's just also I find that parents like Smurf thrive on drama and they will use opportunities of drama for power like if it's some other family and the 16 year old gets into like a bad car accident because they're 16 and their brain is developing or whatever or make a bad choice I believe an abusive parent or toxic parent, uses that as an opportunity for leverage of their hierarchy. Yes.

Do you know what I mean? I'm never talking to your sister again. She broke my heart. I can't believe this. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Where if we were a therapist for Smurf, we'd be like, well, you told me you robbed a bank last week.

Right. Right. Do you know what I mean? Like I think she's just doing how you'd handle business and your family. Exactly. You've taught her to beg borrow and steal to get what she needs. Right. So the rules that were actually.

actually were steal from others, but never steal from Smurf. And so, you know, it's funny when you think about it to get so angry with your child for doing something that you taught them to do and that you were doing as a family constantly. Right. I think you're so right about this type of mother looking for a reason to get rid of her daughter. I think she ultimately saw her daughter as competition as something that got in the way. you know, she's looking at her daughter, her daughter's young, men are interested in her. And like, I think Smurf's only way of getting power is through her sexuality and money. And she's always got to

be like the woman in the room that is commanding that attention, it seems like. And dumb, it's like she's, she's operating like the popular girl in high school. Yes. Like in the, from the mean girls kind of click of it's a very, it's a very, um, knives out kind of experience. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you can't, you can't do that with your daughter. Like, it's wild.

I mean, I can imagine the impact that this has on Julia. And we see this scene where Julia does heroin for the first time. And she is potentially about to, like, overdose. Someone has found her on a bench on the beach. And they call Smurf and say, like, hey, I'm with Julia. I think she's taken something. And Smurf basically says, call someone who cares and hangs up the phone. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. To me in this moment, it was like she was realizing this is perfect because if she's a drug addict, I can point the finger at her. Very, yeah, good point. What you did. Right. That's also part of the drama.

Do you know what I mean? For the high school kid who bangs up a car is, you know, like, It's, well, this is a very extreme family, but for the listener, if we tone it down and make it more into like of a less of acutely abusive, this is like a blatantly abusive family. If we were doing a genogram, the person presenting the genogram in front of a group or something like that, they'd be like, I totally get why you needed to go to no contact or I totally get why your brother was a drug addict. This is just in this sanity. Sometimes it's harder when people come from more tricky families, where if they're not a crime, syndicate or there's not heroin or sex parties in the basement or something like that, that a teenager breaks up kind of a car.

And the parent is just like, I can't believe what you've done to me. I can't believe how this looks as a reflection upon me. You know what I mean? It's just like where that's what I mean about that leverage, that dominance, you know? I'm just thinking about this because I'm sure you have thoughts on this. I hear a lot from estranged parents, parents who have difficulties with their adult children, kind of using this argument of like, well, my kid's a drug addict or they're mentally ill. And when it's like that, it's different. And of course, these things are very multifactorial. It's not like

parenting equals this. But I'm wondering your thoughts on like that statement. Like it's not my responsibility or there's nothing I could have done because my kid has mental illness or is a drug addict. I think about this all the time. And I think about it all the time. And I think the human experience is complicated. But how I think about it is this is I don't hear in a strange parent sort of say my, and I want to be clear in a way that there are just some factors. We have some genetic dispositions to drugs and alcohol. We have some genetic dispositions to things like bipolar one and two. We have just, it's so effective. These things just happen to human beings. but also those things that happened,

there's another truth to it is that that person was growing up in a family. And what I don't hear in those conversations is I don't talk to my eldest. They have stolen from his siblings. They have a severe drug problem. I've tried many times. So I eventually broke my heart on how to go no contact with them.

What I don't hear in the next statement is, I mean, what I don't hear that parent say next is that I'm on my third marriage and I went through two difficult divorces when my son was eight and when my son was 14 and there was some domestic violence or some difficulty. I don't hear from that parent like I feel immensely guilty, but I moved out for two months in the summer of 1987 because I couldn't deal with their father. I left them with their father. Do you know what I mean? Like in other words, there's just another, I want to hear more, I guess, from that kind of statement. I'm also not saying that someone can be a good enough healthy parent and still have your

child get into drugs and alcohol. But we're just the concept of original pain for the substance user or in that case, you know, so it's not, there's no cookie cutter way to kind of a. approach that kind of stuff, but that's what is kind of missing in my mind's eye when I hear those parents. And I don't, I have to, I don't, I'm not listening for, yeah, but what did you do? Like, I don't want to, I don't want to portray myself as just somebody that's just like, oh, yeah, your kid's a drug addict or whatever. Those things can just happen in all kinds of families. But what I'm, I'm just curious of wanting to hear more when someone is kind of saying

there was my son was financially abusive my daughter was out of control we wonder if there's some kind of mental health kind of component there that stuff yeah it's like it's about how it's said how it's described that tells me a lot i think looking for that context the empathy the understanding is so important to hear versus i think what we're talking about here with like smurf and maybe with some other parents is almost like if my child has a mental illness or they're a drug addict, it's a get out of jail free card for me because there's nothing I could have done. And it just happened to them. And they are bad so I can separate and not take responsibility for their actions.

I think that's sometimes where this comes into play. Absolutely. Right. And it's almost like, well, this is going to, hopefully I'm not going to derail the conversation. But it's almost just like in a romantic relationship that someone can just release a trap door and say, you know what, I knew it wasn't going to work from the beginning because you didn't like dogs. Do you know what I mean? And that that trap door is a lot like I don't have to look at my incredibly reactive experiences with intimacy. I don't have to look at the fact that I exist in my own bubble.

I don't have to look at the fact that when you wanted to take a vacation for the last 60 years, that we were to been together. I never had any input, but then I bitched about the whole thing with those there. You know, like, there, it's, it feels like that. And again, I want to be clear, like sometimes people can just have a child with, with difficulties and limitations, and, you know, we're all human. But I also feel that there are a lot of parents who are incredibly unconscious. and as a society, we kind of have an expectation that fuels this unconsciousness. You know what I mean? Like we had a three-bedroom house.

Your father and I worked. We had a decent regular routine in the household. You should not have an addiction to cocaine. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We took you to soccer. We took you to Boy Scouts. We helped you college prep.

It's a sad transactional way that some families get caught up and looking at it. as if it's math, as if it's just like, math isn't adding up here. You're one of three kids. My other two kids are doing fine. They didn't get into fentanyl. What the fuck? Right, right. Exactly.

That can contribute to this idea of kind of being hands off. I don't, you know what I mean? I, you know, kind of a thing. And they're not understanding their parental moods or are a three times married parent and divorce and those kind of things, you know what would Smurf say when they find Julia? Yeah. Yeah. She was always a problem. Yep, exactly. Exactly. And I think even when we think about, you know, we don't know everything about Smurfs' childhood, but it was not good. It seems like she was abandoned from a young age. She did not have parental role models. And she struggled with things like

where was she going to sleep next? Where was she going to get food? Things like that. And so I think she even sees herself as I've provided all these children with a roof over their head. They always have the best meals. I let them have parties. I'm there for them. I'm setting them up for life with money. Look, I've even adopted this child to come live with us. And when she compares her world right now to her frame of reference, she thinks my kids have

it pretty good. And so if anything happens with them, it's not because of me. Yeah. I almost wonder if Smurf had contempt for Julia when Julia kind of crashed out because Smurf was just like, sick or swim? Yeah. I went through it. I was nearly homeless. I was around weird men. I didn't, you know what I mean? I had to fight. You know, it just like there can be a contemptuous. It's like the person's trauma creates a contempt for a level of. of parenting that is missing if that makes sense. Do you know what I mean?

Totally. And she certainly held Julia to a different standard than she held her sons, likely because I think she's holding herself to that standard. She seemed extremely hard on herself to just like push through, make money, do what she has to do. Like she's very scrappy in that regard. But I think, you know, this brings us to the next scene that I want to tell you about, which is that Julia shows up, several months later at the Cody house, visibly pregnant. She's probably seven or eight months pregnant at this point. And very much going through withdrawals from heroin. And so Smurf, like, locks her in the bathroom and has her kind of go through this detox period on her own pregnant on the bathroom floor. Like a DIY on medical detox? Yes. Yes.

And Julia comes out of the bathroom, I don't know, a couple of days later or something, and she's begging her mother to take her to rehab. And eventually the twin brother is able to convince Smurf. But I think this moment is so wild in such a depiction of how Smurf felt that they're driving to rehab in the car. And Julia and her twin brother are sitting in the back seat. and they are hugging and talking about the baby and laughing together and being very hopeful. And this is really aggravating Smurf to the point where she pulls off under like an overpass. There's a bunch of drug activity going on, people living in tents. She says she is not taking Julia to rehab, hands her a wad of cash and says, good luck.

Oh, my God. Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. And kicks her out of the car. And Julia is begging. You need to set you let me know what we're talking. I know.

I'm sorry. It's better to know that these are not real people. But Julia is begging her brother. She's going to break your heart, Patrick. I know. To stay with her. And Smurf says to the brother, just know that if you go with her, you can never come back. And so, of course, Pope chooses his mother in that moment.

he gets she's like come sit in the front seat with me baby and like rubbing his head and then they drive off and leave julia under the cross so i'm curious what you think was going on with smurf in that in that moment you know why she made that laugh i don't know if she was ever going to take her to rehab yeah i just it's there's so a bunch of angles to talk about you know where um a parent can have contempt for a child and kind of like what I mentioned earlier in a way of just kind of there it's you know there's a sexual piece over here but like we have a mother totally resetting up her child

to relapse over the pain that this mother has even sort of caused in a way like there can be like there are just some child to trauma survivors out there that were truly with an unsafe what I call just a simple monster kind of parent in archetypes of parenting. You could have a monster, you can have a tragic codependent, you can have a crazy maker, and the mom is both a

crazy maker and a monster in a try and a very enmeshed. So it's like the mother would fit into these three or five categories. But when you really kind of think about it, it's like what is it about, what does swerve project onto her daughter about her own childhood or her own sense? of self or whatever, like there is something that she is determined to kill, you know, with that daughter. And I can't really kind of explain kind of all of that, but I do find that when we have a parent with severe mental health issues and severe C PTSD, you know, like that it gets to be character logical or personality disorder underneath that, like narcissism or something like that, there is a such a hero adversarial kind of thing going on, you know.

And then she's got some vehicles on how to do that. She's got this brother that she can be kind of sexualized with to gain is kind of a thing. You know, it's just like in a way, it's just like, was Smurf kicking out a earlier version of herself? was Smurf having contempt for a mother who abandoned her, and the projection goes there. So there can be a lot kind of going on with it in a way that, what makes a parent crossover into this tipping point

where they do not value their child and project so severely onto the child that it is dangerous, like a mommy dearest kind of experience? Like what, what is that? And for anyone of the listener who grew up with somebody like this, like Smurface is a lifetime in therapy to overcome. Like she's in a ordeal, you know, and it's not everybody has that kind of mom or father. It can be way more kind of subtle and less extreme kind of a thing.

One thing for the listener is don't compare your child to someone like Julius. Everybody has their own path in that way. So in a way, when we really look at this family, people can go, even I can look at this family and kind of go like, I was a lot more safe than that. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. Which is true. But it doesn't mean that I don't have work to do.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No, I mean, Smurf is the kind of mother that it's like life or death, I think, living with her. And that's how her children feel to some degree is like, if I don't comply, I'm going to end up on the street or kicked out or not have any way to meet my own needs. And so I need to figure out a way to. But I think you're so spot on about Smurf projecting herself onto Julia, especially because I don't, from what I recall, I don't think Smurt, you know, she didn't get pregnant the first time on purpose, certainly.

It was not something that she was happy or excited about. I think she resented these babies before they even. arrived, but then at some point realized, oh, having children gives me someone I can fully control and used to my advantage, and then she kept having that. We're also looking at how Julia is, she's a scapegoat. She's also a mirror for Smurf. And usually the scapegoat is also a truth teller in the family. I want to take my SATs.

I want to get out of here. I want something different. And when we really kind of think about contempt is a beautiful word, not a beautiful word, but it's really the most accurate word, but this is like an extremely amped up contemptuous attitude from a mother to a child. And we really kind of have to look at that. Do you know what I mean? Because it's extremely for Julia, probably before she woke up to any of this stuff or

was 16 and wanted to get out, she probably just felt like she was just a shitty kid and didn't like being a girl and do you know what I mean always got things wrong and and boys were just better and boys are special you know yeah yeah I don't know why what you just what you just said made me think that like maybe when smurf saw in some way that julia wanted to get out like wanted to leave the system yeah that was so threatening to her that she was like I'm going to kick you out so that you can't abandon me like I'm going to to be the one to do it. Mm-hmm.

Yes. And also, you know, when we even think about, I've had a lot of clients that have a parent that is like, oh, look at Mr. College education. Yes. Yeah. Look at Mr. You think you're better than us.

Look at Mr. fucking H-back and you got certified. Johnny me, look at Mr. you think, you know, there's a, that's another version of that content is, you know, I think truly toxic and abusive families have cohesion around misery. They want you to be miserable. You know what I mean?

So unless to Smurf, unless Julia is a go-getter who can agree with the internal misogyny and is a go-getter and could just take a level of abuse from her mother that's the only way that she's going to be able to sustain in that system, which she's probably aware of.

So that is so, I think that's one of the most heartbreaking kind of things, like, where we have a lot of toxic parents with a wounded inner child who are in competition with their children. You think you're better than me? You want to get out of here? You're never going to leave. You know, I'm, you know, I've created this wonderful thing or whatever. Yep, 100%. And I think that in that moment, to me, it became clear that, like, the only way Julia was going to escape that family was probably through death in some ways.

Yeah. She, it's terrible. It's terrible. But she goes on to use heroin for many years. I think it's probably, like, I don't know, 13 years before we see her again in the show. And the way that Smurf kind of reconnects with what has happened to Julia is that she does die. She's been living down the street from the family for all these years using. Everyone knows that.

And she had a son. So this son is Smurf's grandchild that she knows about. She doesn't do anything to help this kid during his life. But the second that Julia dies and she finds out about that, she moves the son. she moves the son in with her. And so I'm curious what you think about that move. It's a lot like for these families and for the listener, like then we're kind of getting into,

and I think you'll know what I mean by this, is when a toxic or abusive parent has their identity wrapped up in altruism. And they use fake altruism for leverage. You know what I mean? Like let's just say if she wasn't a criminal mind and this was an extremely affluent family, you know what I mean? Like she can just kind of say like, well, I've donated millions of dollars to nonprofits. I've taken in an adopted child.

I've started an agency that helps domestic violence victims. But I will fucking ruin one of my children because I don't like them. Do you know what I mean? Like there's it's really, we really have to look at like where is that generosity kind of coming from? Now Smurf can take in her grandchild and just kind of say, man, your mom really abandoned you, but I'm, I'm, you know what I mean? Or even say to the neighbor, it's just like, you know, my daughter broke my fucking heart and now I'm stuck with her kid.

And somebody like that is constantly in their mindset, I find, to elicit sympathy. You know, like they need the neighbor to be like, oh, my God, you took in your grandchild. because part of them is also just kind of like, oh my God, you have all this money without a job. That's kind of sketchy. You know what I mean? It's just like there's just like always kind of competition and battling. Do you know what I mean?

Like this, I think there's a, this is going to sound brutal, but I think somebody like Smurf subconsciously knows that she's kind of a piece of shit and then does things to compensate for that. Yeah. Yeah. Also, as you were talking about this, it made me think about Jenny from Forrest Kump. Okay. Like Julia could be that Jenny from, you know, she's, it's kind of a, someone recently kind of said that it was kind of bizarre that Forest is, is kind of so limited that he just kind of says, I don't know why Jenny wanted to spend all her time. You know what I mean? Like our house when she had her own house down the road. You know what I mean? And like there's like Jenny is rudely. abused, sexually abused in this, like a very powerful part of that movie is when she's looking

at this dilapidated home and like throwing rocks at it or something like that. But Jenny is profoundly abused. She goes through a life in a similar way of drugs and alcohol and pain. And she also has a son that forest adopts, you know? And it was just, yeah, I don't know why that kind of popped in there, but I don't know if I mentioned a question. I understand what you're saying, I think, with like the limitations of being able to, it's like Smurf cannot see why her children do anything that they do. Like she cannot, she wants to have, and this is something I run up against with parents, right, is like when you ask them, do you want to be like an important influence in your child's life? Do you think that you are influential? They'll say yes, right? But then when you say,

do you think you could have led to some of these outcomes or influenced them in these ways? Absolutely not. You know, if it's negative. And so there's this over emphasis on I created all the good. I did all these wonderful things. But I have absolutely no culpability in why my daughter has been living on the street and is using heroin. You know, couldn't have been me that cost any of that. Right.

And it also makes me think, Whitney, that like Julia starts using heroin because her mother truly doesn't know her. And I think that that is like where, you know, someone like Smurf is she doesn't see the adopted child, the three boys and the daughter as individuals. Oh, 100%. Who put that idea in your head that you should go no contact? That doesn't sound like you. getting your SATs? What do you got to you know what I mean? What are you going to fucking do with your SATs? Do you

know what I mean? Like we have do, do they teach how to do a pyramid scheme? What the fuck you're talking about? You know, like so there's this other piece to it that I think a lot of this stuff is like when we feel so alone and isolated and on top of also struggling

with not having a sense of self is that's such a common thing with folks who have gone no contact or families like this is parents kind of cherry pick what their influence was but they truly do not know their children do you know what I mean

someone like Smurf isn't capable of understanding that maybe Julia wanted to be an artist or simply wanted to get out or simply was feeling the effects of Smurf you know what I mean like you don't Julia doesn't exist Julia is a role She's almost like a soldier in a mafioso family

who is low on the totem pole because she's a girl. Because of that. And she doesn't comply to the degree that her brothers do. I think all of her brothers in their own way, you know, we see moments of each of them rebelling, but a lot of them have too many problems or weaknesses that make them easier to manipulate. Smurf had so much trouble manipulating Julia that I actually think the only way she got her to be

totally malleable was by getting her addicted to drugs. It's almost like when you when you were smoking weed with your kid every day, handing them alcohol, having parties, exposing them to cocaine. And you notice that they start doing it more and more. Like we see Julia every day coming home from high school and popping open a vodka bottle. What did you expect? was going to happen. You know, it's almost like they don't look at anything that led up. It's just like, oh, well, now she's using heroin. But there was a clear path that led us here. Two interesting

ideas is, why does maybe Julia have a spark about her that wants something different, it's one idea? And can you tell me about the four boys in the way that they, I would probably say they're limited to get under get out of the influence of their mother so i think that we see with with pope with the twin brother he definitely has from a young age a propensity for mental illness that becomes visible when he's young like he deals with a lot of anxiety depression serious anger that Smurf sees that and she fuels it because it's almost like she's training him to be her like little assassin. She sees that she can utilize that part of him to help her kill, Rob, Steele. Like it becomes very useful for her to make him be antisocial.

And she instills that to some degree. And then her other sons, the middle one is extremely hedonistic. Like he is always seeking out pleasure. So she's always putting him. him in situations where there's parties and drugs. And his drug use is very different from, from Julia's, more of like this, oh, I do it at parties type of escapism. And then the younger one has so many failed attempts at getting out of the family where he gets drawn back in. He starts businesses. She sabotages them, mainly through like psychological warfare with him. But she's also so sexual and so physically affectionate with these boys. that I actually think they are so confused about how they're supposed to feel about their mother

because of how she's been acting with them from a young age. Like it's very incestual. Wow. But I think like with our families when we grow up in abuse and toxicity, there's the stuff that doesn't happen. There's the stuff that doesn't happen for those boys or even Julia. structure, a healthy expression. Do you know what I mean? Like, in other words, like for that youngest who gets sucked back in

and starts business, do you mean like that there was never any modeling or protection around, you know, like getting out from the kind of influence? You know, like in other words, it's just like it's not that far from brainwashing. Oh, absolutely. But like, you know, but there's just also these are the things that I learned in kind of kind of therapy to go to bed on time, you know, to go get a college degree to, it's okay, you're not going to die if you say no to somebody. You can have your own ideas. Do you know what in a way? Because I'm just kind of thinking about like what is really sad is in the kind of work that I do is I will be working with someone from a family and they are 50 years old and they will have a sibling still living

at home with incredibly shot self-esteem. The parent has contempt for them, but the parent refuses to look at like, I've never set my child up for success. My 48-year-old daughter does not know how to write a rent check or put a resume together or get a job or say no or date inappropriate or even date. You know what I mean? So it makes me kind of think about that. You know what I mean? It's like a really awful kind of a thing. And then we have somebody like Julia who doesn't have those skills either, but wants out. Yeah. Yeah. In these families, though, I think you're so right. And these kids are very much both incentivized to remain in the system like that. And, you know, they cut them off off their knees. But then they're also punished for it. And there's contempt. It's really kind of a

fascinating thing. Like, it's like the family might want you to be miserable. And I don't mean to say that they consciously want you to be miserable, but they just, you know, that have seen many families like that. And there's just weird enabling infantilizing kind of thing. When we really look at infantilizing is just kind of, there's really, parenting is hard, but like I want my child to be functional to make his own decisions and to be able to navigate this complex.

world from a place of love and capability and that kind of a thing. When you're describing Smurr, you're really describing like a system of dominance and power and control. It really has nothing to do with a healthy mother child or father child relationship. Like that's kind of one of these situations is just off the charts. But again, you know, for one of those brothers, if they're husband, over or they're or they're destitute and they're dating a girlfriend and the girlfriend's just like bro your mom's kind of fucked up i don't know if i want that's my mom yeah i mean like yeah a loyalty to

that that is done on purpose which we don't have time to get into this but it's funny that you bring up like girlfriends and wives because smurf has gone as far as to have like the girlfriend of one of her sons and the mother of her granddaughter be killed um because that's why i think gender is like such a big part of this show. It's like any woman that comes in and slightly threatens her power over these sons has to be eliminated. Like there's no other option for her. She cannot take the chance that one of them might be like stolen from her. Yep. Pathology. It's a lot for sure. Well, I want to thank you for discussing this.

this riveting show with me. Sorry to hit you with the worst to the worst this time in the morning, but we got through it. And the last thing that I like to ask everyone that does these TV episodes with me is to rate the family on our dinner table scale. So this is basically me asking you is, would you like to sit down with the Cody family at dinner? And one is absolutely not. They're very toxic, harmful, and safe. Three mixed-back. and five is like, I'm going to pull up a chair. I would love to sit down with this healthy family. I'm going to be like a little bit provocative here.

I would love to sit down and do this with the kids. Yes, yes. You know what I mean? Just kind of just to kind of say, you know, just like just to even sort of say to them, if there's any part of you that feels that this is not normal, that part of you is there for a good reason. and you don't have to keep minimizing or something like that. But absolutely, if the mother's there, absolutely not.

I completely agree. I don't want to end up with a horsehead in my, in my bed. Exactly. Exactly. Like she's going to find one of your business cards in the kids' rooms and have you taken out by a hitman. Yes. Yeah.

Well, but really, just like a really interesting kind of thing. And it's so, isn't it interesting that it's so loud? and egregious and almost ridiculous to a level of, you know what I mean, that that. But I've had clients that have shades of all of that in their, you know what I mean, in their family. And whether it's, whether it's not loud and kind of crazy, like, you don't need a pathological parent to have some, well, maybe take that back is you don't have to have a criminal mastermind of a mom who sexualizes children and then feeds drugs to them or whatever, you can simply have a parent who doesn't do any all that and still

have content for you. And have that be incredibly confusing and incredibly damaging and whatever, you know. Totally. And I think, you know, the last thing I'll say about this family, like for anyone that hears this and is like, wow, this is so bad. It's so egregious, like you said, look at how hard it still is for these people to leave, how hard it is for them to look at their mother and say, this is not a good situation. I mean, we have, you can check off every single thing on the list here. And it's still very difficult to look at this mother and say, you're a bad mom. Like, these, these sons are still all very conflicted about how they feel. And Smurfs got some good qualities. She can be helpful and endearing and bail them out of jail and do, you know, it's,

it's complicated. Yeah. That on balance, she's terrible. Right. But if you take out the sexualized energy, if you take out the criminality, if you take out like the control, it's not that different than clients that I've worked with are clients who watch from the YouTube channel away. They may have a parent that's just kind of like, I really don't like the person that you're dating and I don't want you to move out of this town. And I put a deposit down on the house. It's just five blocks away. Do you know what I mean? Like there's this not all that different than weed in the basement and teenage girls and you know what I mean, a car. 100%. Like it just happens on a different, more subtle level. And lastly is it's harder for childhood trauma survivors who don't have a mom like Smurf to look at their stuff when it's more subtle.

If it's more tricky in that kind of a thing, if I'm in a group, someone who was raised by Smurf, they actually have an easier time doing childhood trauma work. because they don't have to wrestle with themselves so much. Well, they get so much more external validation. People are like, of course, this is bad. You know, societally, we look at this and say, I wouldn't fault anyone for getting out of here. Right.

That's the point. I'm glad you said that. Because someone who didn't have a mom like Smurf, what has the elements is just like, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. If you go no contact, maybe your grandchild will go no contact with you one day. Yeah.

You know? Maybe. Maybe. If I'm not bad, I hope they do. You're right. Please leave me at the nursing home. Gosh. Well, Patrick, I want to thank you so much for doing this with me.

It was great as always. Lots of fun. People learned a lot from your commentary. So thank you again for being here. Yeah. And like a really interesting, it's a great thing you're doing because it's just like we are able to draw out so much of just regular family stuff. sounds bananas, but this stuff is more common than people think.

I totally agree. 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.