Dismissing Parents and the Rejected Adult Child

Nothing can feel more heart-sickening than being invalidated, pushed away, or rejected by your parent. For our not-too-distant ancestors, parental rejection in childhood was a death sentence. Even when we grow up, this connection to the parent, be it real or fantasy, remains extremely powerful. The need to maintain this connection is coded into our human DNA and emotional systems. Your age is irrelevant. Some of you reading this will be in your early 20s and some will be in your 80s. This material applies to all of us just the same.

I was 14 when my father left. He and my mother had divorced when I was 5. I idolized my dad until one day on the way to school he told me that he was getting married (I didn’t know he had a girlfriend) and we were moving. I struggled with this new set of circumstances and moved in with my mother across town while I figured out what I wanted to do. But it didn’t take long. He simply told me that he was tired of raising kids and wanted a life of his own. Shortly after that, he and his new wife moved away, adopted two infants, and he never called me or had any contact again.

I wish my story was special, but such events are fairly common. Robert is in his mid-30s. His mother died several years ago. His mother and father had been close, and his father had been devastated by her death. Robert had hoped that he and his father could continue to have a strong relationship, but his father seems uninterested. He says he wants to get together and that he will call back later. But he never does. It’s always “I’ll call you soon.”

Jennifer’s mom rarely acknowledges any of Jennifer’s accomplishments. And, Jennifer is a high performer at work and has achieved some truly amazing milestones for her age. But, her mother only notices shortcomings and criticizes inconsequential aspects of Jennifer’s life (like the color of the dishtowels). At the same time, Jennifer’s mother showers accolades and affection on the girlfriend of Jennifer’s younger brother who is not nearly as accomplished.

I have so many similar examples that I cannot do them all justice. But, they all have something in common … a parent with a dismissing attachment style who cannot tolerate his or her own pain. And guess who reminds them of that pain? You do. And so, you must go.

In many ways, the child in these examples is very similar to the proverbial “scapegoat.” As the scapegoat, your purpose is to carry the sins (or pain) of the parent out into the wilderness where you will shoulder the burden. In so doing, the parent is allowed to turn away from, and deny their pain … and of course, turn away from and deny you. To make matters worse, both the scapegoat child and the sacrificing parent are unlikely to be aware that they have enacted this pattern. The unaware child may then accept the pain and shortcomings as her own and adopt them as part of her identity.

Take the case of Aisha. Her mother always accuses her of being overly emotional and reactive. Aisha’s mother is extremely hostile and attacking. She cannot tolerate any suggestion that she is anything other than perfect, has no insecurities, and is sure to tell anyone who crosses her how wrong they are. Aisha learned from a young age that the only way she could escape her mother’s wrath and rejection was to acquiesce and appease her mother by apologizing and showing her understanding of how wrong she (Aisha) was. Her mother then shamed her for being acquiescent and apologetic. “You’re so weak,” Aisha’s mother would tell her.

The truth is that there never was anything wrong with Aisha or any of the adult children in the previous examples. Aisha was simply trying to cope with her mother’s hostility. It was her mother who felt insecure and full of shame, but she couldn’t tolerate these feelings, so she projected them onto Aisha.

In Jennifer’s case, her mother had dropped out of college when she got pregnant with Jennifer. She never finished her degree and her marriage failed. Jennifer’s success and her healthy marriage reminded her mother of her own lost aspirations and dream of a happy home. Again, there is nothing wrong with Jennifer.

Nor is there anything wrong with Robert whose father cannot cope with the pain of his lost wife and wants to move on with as few reminders as possible. It is the parent’s difficulty tolerating pain, their own perceived shortcomings, and their insecurities that are the problem.

I am not saying that all of us who have suffered parental rejection are blameless. Most of us have engaged in behaviors that hurt people or that we are embarrassed about. But, you should at least question the balance between what parts of this are yours and what parts are your parent’s unresolved issues.

Here are two questions that can help you determine the balance of your own issue vs. unresolved issues in your parent.

1. Can you talk to your parent openly about how you feel about your relationship?
2. Can you tolerate the idea that there is nothing inherently wrong with you?

I am always amazed at people’s reticence to have either of these conversations. I hear things like, “she is old and there is no sense in hurting her now.” “I couldn’t do that to her.” “He wouldn’t understand anyway, and it would just upset him.”

Think about this; the primary way that dismissing people tend to see themselves as is strong and confident. After all, that is what they did when many of you were little … they kept looking strong and confident and it was everyone else who was anxious and insecure. But now, in adulthood, we all of a sudden view them as so fragile that they cannot tolerate a direct honest conversation. And so, you can see that they really could never tolerate that conversation and were not as secure as might appear.

The key thing to realize is that the direct honest conversation is not for your parent. It would be rare (but it does happen) for the dismissing parent to tell you that they were sorry and that they understand how you felt about their impact on you. So, you probably are not going to get that. The conversation is really for you … for you to break the pattern of splitting the good and bad parts of the self and putting them in different places (like one person keeps all the good and the other all the bad) … So that you can say, I am not carrying the shameful bad parts for you anymore and I am going to see you as a whole person. And I am going to be a whole person with all of my good parts and bad parts rolled into one.

And, if you can get to this point (which, by the way, is the best thing you can do for your own children), you should be able to tolerate the idea that nothing is really wrong with you.

One reason that people hold onto the idea that something is really wrong with them is to preserve the belief that their parent really does love them. After all, if my parent is rejecting me because I am bad, then I can believe that they really love me. But, if my parent is rejecting me and there is nothing wrong with me, then they must not really love me.

Obviously, this belief is intolerable to a child. It is slightly easier for an adult to grapple with but still a significant challenge. The likelihood is that your parent did love you and that they were simply enacting subconscious patterns that were passed onto them from their own parents. Ask them and you will probably find out that this is true. It would be a very rare parent who would say to themselves, “I think I will not love my child and reject them so that they grow up feeling bad about themselves and struggle in relationships.” Most people try to do their best even if that best occurs in the context of being unaware or blind to the patterns they are enacting.

So, shed some light on those patterns that have been lurking in the shadows and have that difficult conversation.