What Does Childhood Have to Do with It Anyway? The Impact of Emotionally Immature Parents on Your Adult Life

Maybe you’ve always had a tough relationship with your parents but you can’t quite put your finger on why. Maybe on the surface you had a picture perfect childhood but as an adult you struggle with anxiety, depression, finding meaning/purpose in life or creating lasting, healthy relationships. If this sounds like you, you may be surprised to know that insights about how you’re doing presently can be found in your past. 

In this blog post, Anna Vargas, LCMHC, explores the question: What does childhood have to do with it anyway? 

It turns out, quite a bit. Childhood creates the building blocks for our mental wellbeing; how we relate to other people, how we relate to ourselves, how we regulate our emotions, problem solve tricky situations, and navigate the inevitable challenges that life throws at us. Having parents who are emotionally available, supportive and mature is the difference between feeling like we have a reliable safety net while we’re learning how to be humans and feeling like we’re alone in the world and it’s up to us to figure out this crazy thing called life. The latter is terribly distressing and can set us up for a myriad of challenges in adulthood. 

So what does it mean to be emotionally immature? And how do you know if you had emotionally immature parents? Here are some key signs:

1. Low Empathy and Emotionally Insensitive - Empathy is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and caring about how the other person is feeling. When you were a kid and you didn’t make the sports team, you didn’t get the part in the play, your friend stopped talking to you or you failed a test, did you feel like your parents listened, asked questions and cared about your feelings and perspective? Or did you hear things like, “it’s not a big deal,” “you should’ve studied more,” “you need to toughen up!” “you should be grateful for…” “stop moping around.” Over time, this kind of emotional invalidation and insensitivity can feel incredibly lonely and shameful and doesn’t teach us the skills we need to manage emotions like disappointment, frustration, fear, sadness, anger, and shame. Chronic invalidation teaches us that having emotions isn’t acceptable. The problem with that is every human is going to have emotions whether we want to or not. Learning how to manage them is necessary for our mental wellbeing.

2. Difficulty Regulating Emotions - It stands to reason that parents who have a hard time being with their children’s emotional experiences also have a hard time being with their own. Regulating emotions means firstly, naming and acknowledging them, determining where they’re coming from, what we’re needing and then deciding how to proceed in a values consistent way. It means making sure we don’t hurt others in the process of navigating difficult feelings. The emotionally immature parent has a hard time with this and it may look like yelling or having emotional outbursts, withdrawing and giving the silent treatment, being overly controlling, relying on their child to help them solve problems that are developmentally inappropriate, unpredictable parenting choices based on whatever mood they happen to be in, or relying on substances/external sources to tolerate their feelings. Having a parent who has difficulty regulating their emotions puts a young nervous system on edge and high alert. It’s scary to not know what mood your parents are going to be in next or how it’s going to affect you.

3. Difficulty Taking Responsibility/Accountability for their behaviors. How often did you hear “I’m sorry” growing up? Not “I’m sorry, but…” and not “Sorry I’m such a terrible mother!” but a genuine “I’m sorry I said that. I can see it really hurt your feelings. I’m working on speaking calmly even when I’m upset.” Taking responsibility for our part in a relationship is important for repair to happen. It builds trust and emotional safety. Without it we’re left with unpredictability and walking on eggshells trying to make sure the other person isn’t going to hurt us in some way. It’s unrealistic to think we’re never going to mess up in relationships. We will unintentionally say something hurtful or cross a boundary because we’re all flawed humans learning and evolving. The important part is how we take accountability for the impact we have on others.

Like most things in life, emotional maturity is a spectrum and everybody’s story is unique. This isn’t meant to blame or criticize parents as much as it is to acknowledge how these patterns affect kids who then grow up to be adults and parents of their own. It’s meant to bring awareness to generational patterns of relational trauma. Before we can break patterns we first have to acknowledge they exist and that they’re not working. 

So what do you do if you have emotionally immature parents and a challenging childhood? The bad news is we can’t go back in time, change the past or change our parents. The good news is we don’t have to. We can’t control our parents or how they treated us but we can learn how to break the cycle and care for ourselves now with more kindness and compassion than our parents did when we were kids. We are not doomed to be stuck in unworkable patterns, overwhelmed with emotion or stuck in unhealthy relationship dynamics. 

For folks interested in learning more about this topic, I like to recommend “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents” by Lindsay C Gibson, PsyD. I also recommend finding a therapist who can help you connect the past and the present, bring clarity to your experiences and guide you on your journey to break the cycle. You don’t have to figure it out alone.