Ep. 133 - Arrested Development: The Generational Trauma of Emotionally Immature Parents
Are your parents bad at dealing with difficult emotions? Do they fall apart, ignore, criticize or withdraw when you need them the most? Emotional immaturity in parents causes profound ripple effects through generations, creating patterns many of us don't recognize until we're deep into adulthood. Based on Dr. Lindsay Gibson's model of emotional immaturity, we describe the four distinct types of emotionally immature parents —emotional, driven, passive, and rejecting—and how each type uniquely shapes their children's development.
We explore why this topic has exploded in popularity, tracing it back to historical contexts that shaped how each generation views parenting. When survival is the primary goal, emotional complexity takes a back seat, creating generations of parents who never developed the skills to handle their own emotions, let alone support their children's emotional growth.
When children's own personal growth is stunted by a dysfunctional family, they adopt specific roles as survival mechanisms that often persist into adulthood, limiting their full expression and causing recurring relationship challenges.
Whether you're struggling with an emotionally immature parent or recognizing these patterns in yourself as a parent, we suggest a path toward healing. This path includes awareness, grieving what you didn't receive, exploring yourself beyond your family role, and developing boundaries based on mutual respect rather than obligation.
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Dr. Kibby McMahon (00:00.142)
Ahem.
Jacqueline Trumbull (00:00.857)
Hello. So today we are going to build on our topic from last week, which was immaturity. But this time we are kicking it over to Kibby's expertise and really a huge part of KulaMind which is emotionally immature parents and the effects of that on kids and what to do if that's your situation. So I'm just going to kick it right over to Kibby. Tell us what KulaMind can do for people with emotionally immature parents.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (00:29.646)
Lots of stuff. So this has gotten so popular because it's like a mixture of narcissistic parents and emotional toxicity. It's like people are just realizing that their parents didn't give them the emotional support that they needed. And that might've been a range from like their parents were neglectful and just like didn't give them the support to like emotionally abusive. So a lot of you have reached out saying that you struggle with that and you're trying to.
make sense of that as adults, trying to navigate relationships and having your own kids, but also realizing how emotionally stunted your parents were. So in KulaMind this is exactly what we do. We're building a community for people who struggle with this, with emotionally immature parents. And also, if you need support, like if you need one-on-one direct...
coaching and help with skills with this, with navigating your relationship with emotionally immature anybody in your life, an emotionally immature loved one. It could be your parent, it could be a sibling. You might recognize it as saying you have someone in your life who's toxic and you need to set boundaries with them or you need to be able to like step away and get some space without feeling a lot of guilt or managing their emotional explosions. That is all what we do and that's all we help with.
If you just want to talk to me and see if we're a good fit for what you need, check us out on Kulamind.com, K-U-L-A-M-I-N-D.com. And also you could book a call with me for free in the link in the show notes.
Jacqueline Trumbull (02:09.935)
Perfect. Okay, so where should we start? Should we talk about what emotional maturity in parents looks like?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (02:18.35)
Yeah, think piggybacking off of what we were talking about last time, which is that emotion dysregulation, like people having trouble managing their emotions in healthy ways, it's basically emotional immaturity. I think that emotional immaturity has got a lot of attention in romantic relationships, as we talked about, and friendships, but also it's extra damaging in parents. So.
I mean, just starting there, emotional maternity and parents can be really, really damaging to the whole family.
Jacqueline Trumbull (02:52.663)
Yeah, I mean, the problem is like, when you're a little kid and you're developing and you're met with emotional immaturity, how are you even supposed to emotionally develop? Because everything that's being modeled for you is, I mean, not everything, but like a lot, you know, a lot of it is damaging or chaotic. And so I give big kudos to kids who are able to kind of overcome this.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (03:18.274)
Yeah, survive it really. I think we talked about this in the narcissistic parents episode and I think emotional immaturity is a little bit less judgmental. Hold on one second, let me like turn that, this is like so bright, isn't it?
Jacqueline Trumbull (03:18.733)
including you.
Jacqueline Trumbull (03:29.731)
Mm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (03:33.293)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (03:35.672)
that better? I feel like I'm blown out.
Jacqueline Trumbull (03:39.437)
Yeah, a little bit. That's better.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (03:42.286)
better. Okay.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (03:48.514)
Yeah, what was I saying?
Jacqueline Trumbull (03:51.321)
that emotional maturity is like less than narcissistic.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (03:56.61)
Yeah, cut.
I'm only starting to really understand this emotional immaturity in parents becoming a parent myself because now I'm really face to face with what immaturity actually is, right? It's having these intense emotions and really not knowing what to do about it. And it's awful for everyone involved. The difference is that kids actually learn and they actually grow up hopefully and learn regulation skills. So that's really the difference there, but.
Jacqueline Trumbull (04:09.655)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (04:26.191)
Well, and they don't have the same kind of power over you as a parent does. I mean, in some ways they do. In some ways they have more. You can't leave them. You have to do everything they say. Just kidding, kind of.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (04:30.134)
Yeah, well, my kid has some power over me.
That's true.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (04:40.622)
It's interesting because I was like, why is narcissistic parents or emotional immaturity so popular these days on Google searches, on social media? It's just such a popular thing to talk about. the way I'm wrapping my head around it is that there's, it's like our generation have the boomer generation as parents, right? And they had.
their parents, they were raised by their parents. And I think that the generation above the boomers, like our grandparents, were at war, you know? So they were like really traumatized. They either weren't there, dead, saw horrible things. Like it's just like a, it was like a global trauma. So survival was the main goal, right? It was just.
Jacqueline Trumbull (05:22.616)
Yeah.
Jacqueline Trumbull (05:28.899)
Well, not only that, but they grew up in the Depression. mean, like, both of, you know, all my grandparents, grew up in the Depression and then lived through World War II and fought in World War II, so, yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (05:31.68)
Yeah. my god.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (05:38.958)
We really have not much to, I mean, we do have something to complain about, if you really think about it that way, like, ooh, that's bad. Yeah, and it's just like, when you get to a place where survival is the most important thing, there's only a few emotions and a few needs that you have to attend to, right? You just get a job, you earn a living, you have kids, you protect them, you make sure there's a roof over their head. Like, that's it. And so my impression,
Jacqueline Trumbull (05:52.441)
Hmm
Dr. Kibby McMahon (06:08.366)
is that boomer generation learned what you do to be successful and happy is get a job, a good steady career, keep moving up, get a family, 2.5 kids and a picket fence, go to good school, get prestigious things, like get good marks and then that's it, right? And although that generation, a parent's generation didn't get their emotional needs met the same way.
get to be listened to and empathized with and taught to understand what they're feeling. It's like, buck up, you can do it, just work harder. Don't cry, I'll give you something to cry about. That's literally like a grandparents thing they used to say. I'll give you something to cry about. So then you just have this ripple effects of this emotional trauma coming down to us. And so now we're like, there's more to life than just
Jacqueline Trumbull (06:53.955)
Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (07:08.002)
getting into a good college and getting a high paying job. We could get those things, but we might be horribly depressed. And now what? So now we want to, now we're interested in mental health. Now we're interested in feeling heard and seen and emotionally supported, right? So there's a real big cultural shift that's not anyone else's fault. But I think that our generation is really feeling the effects of having immature parents.
Jacqueline Trumbull (07:32.739)
Yeah, I mean, I just think at like any previous point in history, life was loads harder than it is today. this is the, was it a Benjamin, my God, how am I phrasing the name of our founding father, Benjamin Franklin?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (07:50.67)
Right there.
Jacqueline Trumbull (07:51.791)
It was either a Benjamin Franklin quote or a John Adams quote or just a quote from the John Adams mini-series, but he was basically like, you know, I am a statesman so that my son can be a doctor and then his son can be an artist. Just, you know, something like that. And so there's this sense that we're moving towards our self-actualization state. Of course, the interesting thing is that it's unclear if...
Dr. Kibby McMahon (08:10.19)
haha
Jacqueline Trumbull (08:20.171)
if we are moving towards that state or if moving into like kind of a coddled state which sort of passes self-actualization by and veers into like other dangerous territory but the point is like it feels like parenting is supposed to be kind of reaching this actualized state like parents have the well not all parents but
A lot of parents have much easier lives than they did in the past just because of technology and having more money and lower child mortality and lower everybody mortality, higher literacy, more skills. But that has happened at such an astronomically fast rate that the parenting styles of our parents are going to be so different from the parenting styles of us and so different from their parents.
I do think that we are in this interesting part where there's a lot that we just can't understand or recognize about the way that our parents, hold on a second.
Jacqueline Trumbull (09:28.793)
Okay, sorry. I left to work early and I thought somebody was saying that we had a meeting. I just think there's a lot that we can't understand about where our parents were coming from and vice versa.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (09:38.028)
Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it seems a little bit more clear that our generation and lower, like Gen Z, we care a little bit more about the emotional health, right? Mental health is getting more popular and there's just more awareness around happiness, like, and being happy, whatever that means. You can kind of see it with our choices in romantic relationships. We're a little bit more interested, at least vocally.
Jacqueline Trumbull (09:48.76)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (10:05.182)
looking for a partner who respects you and cares about you and makes you feel loved and everything like that. And it's a little bit less like, I don't care, I just want to find a guy with good job. I don't care if he emotionally abuses me, right? That's a little, at least we don't say that out loud anymore.
Jacqueline Trumbull (10:11.373)
Hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (10:24.847)
shoot you keep freezing up
Dr. Kibby McMahon (10:27.47)
My camera is still fine, so I think what it does is it keeps uploading, but it records on our computer and then uploads, so when it uploads it kind of looks weird, but it's fine, it's smooth.
Jacqueline Trumbull (10:33.041)
OK.
Jacqueline Trumbull (10:41.805)
So you're talking about four stages?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (10:46.088)
there, to really understand emotional immaturity, without just, you know, like just pure judgment. I really liked Dr. Lindsay Gibson's Emotional Immaturity Book. let me look at the actual title of the name. Okay. So the book is called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, and it's gotten, it used to be really popular, and then it's gotten way more popular now as like a resurgence.
And the model is really nice, it's really clean. I think the book is really easy to read, relatable. It feels like it has some like evidence base without getting too in the weeds of like either pop psychology. Anyway, it's a very good book. But the model breaks down four different types of emotionally immature parents.
Pause for planning. Do we want to, do you me go through all four and then we could go through each one individually or do you want to just comment?
Jacqueline Trumbull (11:51.907)
Yeah, let's do all four and then each one individually.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (11:54.414)
Okay. So the four are the emotional parent, the driven parent, the passive, and the rejecting. All right? The emotional parent is kind of what you, what it sounds like, almost kind of a BPD flair, completely dominated by emotions, self-absorbed that they need to be coddled, they're kind of dependent on other people.
Jacqueline Trumbull (12:05.166)
Mm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (12:23.982)
are childlike and unstable. And then if someone doesn't parent them or rescue them, then they feel like they're being abandoned. So that seems like pretty BPD to me.
Jacqueline Trumbull (12:37.293)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, this feels like the kind of construct we've been talking a lot about on this podcast. And yeah, it certainly takes its toll because then the had to always defer to the parents' emotions instead of having like a... Instead of having their parent be like a container for them and, you know, being kind of solid and dependable.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (12:55.714)
Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (13:05.922)
Yeah, yeah. I think this one is interesting. We've gotten a couple people reaching out to Coola Mind with this emotional type of parent. people feel so torn about it because the emotional parent has this childlike quality. They're the fun parent. They're the one that plays games and is silly and is unfiltered. A lot of people say, my mom has no filter, my dad has no filter.
Jacqueline Trumbull (13:14.615)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (13:35.422)
to describe the emotional parent. So they're like fun and charming in that like childlike way. But then it's like that chaos, that kind of emotional chaos of a toddler, right? It's just like suddenly they snap and suddenly they fall off the handle and...
You see the kids of these kind of parents becoming really parentified. They're really responsible. They really almost have to take the disciplinarian role, right? They have to keep things in control. I remember having to escort my parent out of concerts and public con... my God. I was just thinking about there was this one horrible time when we went to an Elton John concert.
This is probably the most embarrassing, it just popped in my head. We went to an Elton John concert and this person, my parents stood up and screamed at Elton John while he was giving a speech about his AIDS charity. And I basically had to grab them and pull them down to the seat so we wouldn't get kicked out. It was just like, it's like a...
It's what I would do with a toddler, It's just like, sit down, shh, know, stop it. Get yourself under control, right? And yeah, as you're saying, like the power dynamic of this childlike figure, having the power over you is especially terrifying.
Jacqueline Trumbull (14:53.847)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (15:05.528)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean, not knowing if you can rely on your parent to keep you safe is really scary. Having to forfeit your own childhood in many ways in order to keep both you and your parents safe is, that's a huge sacrifice. And then I think on top of this, like, I know one thing I experience just in people with this personality type is like, you have
the anger and the frustration, but you also have a lot of guilt because you are put in the caretaker role. And when you are the caretaker of somebody else who is childlike, then it's hard not to feel a mothering kind of relationship with them. And then it's so hard to pull away or to set boundaries or limits, because you're like, how can I just like hurt this little kid?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (16:04.482)
Yeah, yeah, it's like, they're really destructive and they actually have hurt me or I'm embarrassed or whatever, but like, they mean well or they didn't mean it or they don't know what they're doing. They can't control it. They can't help it, right? It is this like, this helplessness in them that really pulls at your heartstrings and makes that, yeah, that torn feeling of like, feeling like you really wanna set boundaries and just like,
Jacqueline Trumbull (16:15.385)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (16:33.886)
know, step away, but also feeling really, really bad about it. So yeah, this is a hard presentation. It's really, really tricky. And it's interesting too. I feel like the emotional parents that I've heard of do really well with their own kids at younger ages. So they might really enjoy having a baby or a young kid because they're actually like well matched. But when the kid starts to individuate, grow up,
become their own person, then that emotional parent really struggles because not only is the emotional development outstripping theirs, but they feel less and less like they can relate to their child.
Jacqueline Trumbull (17:11.193)
Yeah.
Jacqueline Trumbull (17:15.735)
Yeah, I I would think that raising a child, if that's your emotional development, would be difficult because I mean, I can see the argument for like, we're more similar in some ways when we're two, when the baby's two, but...
A two year old does not give a shit about your feelings. So it's interesting thinking about like how they would handle that. Maybe they would have the wherewithal to say, well, that's because they're two. And maybe that's why as they get older, it's like, oh, you actually have kind of a brain and personality that has moral reasoning. And that therefore I'm more capable of being hurt by. yeah, I mean.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (17:58.444)
Yeah.
Jacqueline Trumbull (18:00.091)
I don't know how you can handle a kid saying, hate you mommy, when you don't have... Uh-huh.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (18:06.702)
They cannot, yep. No, you're really actually like, you're making me realize something. That it's like the blind leading the blind. I, when Jackson, my son loses it, I go to a place that's like hyper-regulated. Like even a little bit too much. Like both Alex and I will just get really calm and be like, it's okay, it's okay, we're here, calm down. Like we're really like.
We're gonna, but I didn't remember that when I was a kid. Maybe like my memories probably start around five or six. So it's hard to remember what happens when I was a baby. But I remember getting upset or tantruming and then my parent would also tantrum. Like I have memories of us cotantruming together, right? Like, oh fine, you're gonna do this then no, no, no, I'm leaving, right? And Dr. Becky.
Jacqueline Trumbull (18:55.779)
to hear.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (19:03.886)
child psychologist who's like, you know, an influencer psychologist. She had a really nice metaphor for this. It's kind of like if you're on an airplane and you don't know how to fly airplanes or how they work and you trust the pilot to be that person and then you feel turbulence and you go, my God, we're like, we're gonna fall. Usually the pilot gets on the, it's like, it's okay, it's north wind that's coming from the blah, blah.
Jacqueline Trumbull (19:22.489)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (19:33.442)
But if they go, my God, we're gonna die, right? Then everyone gets upset, right? So it's like you want that parent to be the one who is at least, I don't wanna say regulated, like not have emotions, but regulated in the sense that they're not scared and they're still in control. They're still like wise mind or the prefrontal cortex online that everyone could be upset. But like as a parent,
Jacqueline Trumbull (19:35.213)
Yes.
Jacqueline Trumbull (19:42.007)
Uh-huh.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (20:01.984)
I got this, I got you, you're not in danger. This is a feeling, it will pass, we're gonna be okay. And the emotional parent can't do that.
Jacqueline Trumbull (20:08.889)
Right. Yeah, that is such a metaphor. Okay, who's next? Driven?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (20:13.25)
Yeah, right. All right. Yes. Yes, the driven parent. So this the driven parent's interesting. It's like it's kind of what you imagine. Really goal oriented. This feels a little bit like the critical, almost like the the classic narcissistic parent. Their success and prestige reflects on them. Right. So you're controlling very like almost like be perfect in society. That's what I'm interpreting it. But
it's very much like achieve, achieve things. And what I find interesting is that we talk, a lot of people have talked about, I think my parent is narcissistic. But if you really look into the different kinds of narcissistic parents, there's that like emotional parent who's self-absorbed, right? Like my needs are more important, my God. But then there's the other kind of parent, narcissistic parent who's self-absorbed but is like,
Jacqueline Trumbull (21:03.471)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (21:12.896)
I care about meeting standards, right? And I feel like those get mixed up a lot because they are, but there's actually these different subtypes that is interesting.
Jacqueline Trumbull (21:22.199)
Why is this considered emotional immaturity for the parent to be really achievement oriented?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (21:30.264)
That's really an interesting question. think that it's to the exclusion of the other parts of the healthy emotional behaviors, right? Like it's okay. All of these are okay to be, right? To be like passive and you know, like to be emotional is not a bad thing, but if it's like a dominant, if it's a dominant parenting quality, that that is what
Jacqueline Trumbull (21:52.441)
Cough
Dr. Kibby McMahon (21:58.06)
all you have instead of actually seeing the kid and responding to their needs and emotions and all that matters is goal, getting a goal, then that's the immature part.
Jacqueline Trumbull (22:09.689)
Yeah, I mean I certainly see how it's a problem. think I'm trying to understand it as like emotionally immature. I mean I suppose if you are, if everything is sort of sacrificed to meet, everything is sacrificed at the altar of achievement, then there's a kind of like undeveloped or like.
Yeah, like an undeveloped sense of...
Jacqueline Trumbull (22:43.467)
life, success, components of happiness, like what... I mean, it's kind of like using achievement as a proxy for happiness or connection or anything else without seeing the pitfalls of that and the limitations of that, I guess.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (22:46.958)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
hmm. Happiness.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (23:02.412)
Yeah, going back on what we said last time in our last episode, emotionally immaturity, emotional immaturity is a lot about
one thing. It's a lot about not ignoring complexity and nuance and being really simplistic and being like, this is all good and this is all bad. You're an enemy, this is the victim, I'm good, I'm right? So there's a lot of, in making these simple judgment, emotional judgments, it's wiping out a lot of the humanity and the personhood of the kid, right?
Jacqueline Trumbull (23:16.781)
Mm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (23:37.399)
Yeah, I suppose it also puts the... It's like, it's sort of an external locus of control. Like, if I achieve or if my kid achieves, then we'll be safe. We'll have the status we need to survive. Like, there's not much of an internal sense of like, I can accept. It's, it's... We must achieve in order to be respected, admired, and then like safe in the social world. And there's...
There's not much of like, no, we can be safe because we can regulate and understand each other and understand ourselves and kind of navigate through this world. Because we have the internal tools.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (24:16.234)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think also, this is more of a psychodynamic term, but I think there's like this narcissistic extension of yourself. I think that's really the problem, right? Wanting your kid to be successful or whatever, you know, that's one thing. But to be like, your success reflects on me and I'm gonna make you successful and I'm gonna expect you to be successful in this very particular way.
Jacqueline Trumbull (24:27.599)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (24:37.709)
Right.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (24:44.302)
It's just another version of ignoring that kid's emotional life, right? Whether I'm freaking out and very emotional, or if I'm like, you must do well on this one thing, you must get into the college that I went to, right? It's still like me, me, me, me, me, and here's like the simple way that I see it. I'm just completely ignore you as a whole human being with different needs, right?
Jacqueline Trumbull (25:08.407)
Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (25:12.3)
Yeah, so that's a driven parent. Then there's the passive parent. I feel like this is really interesting. This is one that's more avoidant of conflict, almost gonna look like the nice parent, but, and I feel like this is the kind of parent who tends to enable another more abusive parent, right? The one who's just like,
Jacqueline Trumbull (25:14.415)
Ahem.
Jacqueline Trumbull (25:24.015)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (25:41.314)
doesn't see problems, let's just be happy, not there, maybe physically not there, right? It's just like ignores the kid's emotional life by ignoring it. And sometimes even like pleasantly so.
Jacqueline Trumbull (25:51.023)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (25:57.507)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's interesting. I was thinking about the Menendez brothers when you were talking about this and how people are always like, why did they shoot Kitty Menendez? But sometimes that passivity can do almost as much damage as abuse because you're looking to this person to protect you.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (26:06.865)
yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (26:16.622)
Jacqueline Trumbull (26:24.213)
and care enough to protect you and they're just not there and they're like allowing, you know, allowing things to happen. I mean, I think in a way less extreme version, this might be the parent who doesn't regulate bedtime.
you know, who doesn't discipline, who just sort of like lets things unfold so that the kid will not be mad at them or not object. And the problem is then the kid grows up without structure. And I remember once I had a friend who had a daughter, but the daughter lived like mostly with her mom.
And the daughter was 13 at the time, and I had this conversation with her, because my friend, who was her father, was very fun. He was very permissive. And she said to me, she's like, I wish he were less permissive. Like, I wish he... I don't remember what the example exactly was, but I had never heard a kid, and especially a teen, want more structure from their parents, like want discipline.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (27:22.711)
Interesting.
Jacqueline Trumbull (27:25.903)
But yeah, she had picked up on that. Because you know that your cares and is trying when they contain you.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (27:40.898)
What did that person say? What kind of active parenting do they want?
Jacqueline Trumbull (27:48.663)
I think she wanted regulated meal times and bedtime and like rules where it wasn't just like, hey, you're at dad's house, time to party, like, let's have fun. And, you know, like maybe homework help. Just some sort of structure to her day. Like come home from school, do homework, help from dad. Like he gets food ready.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (27:57.613)
Right.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (28:02.722)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (28:11.702)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Kind of reminds me of, like, there's just, a string of 90s movies that featured, like, this kind of parent, like, liar, liar, like Jim Carrey and Mrs. Doubtfire. Like, all, you know, all these characters were like, aw, they're, good, well-meaning dads, and the mom is, this, you know, like, ball and chain, like, disciplinarian. But when I watch those movies now, I'm like...
Jacqueline Trumbull (28:14.543)
We'll be back on time.
Jacqueline Trumbull (28:27.3)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (28:41.262)
Dude, you can't have like a zoo come to your house for the birthday party and have a, there's like, there's one scene in that, in Miss Doubtfire where like this symbol of that things have gone awry and there's not good parenting is like there's one kid at that party. There's like animals everywhere in the house and there's a kid on the table like dancing and that's a sign of like, whoa. Like, like.
Jacqueline Trumbull (29:02.991)
you
It must be enormously frustrating for the other parent, too, to have to be the unfun one.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (29:14.092)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jacqueline Trumbull (29:15.075)
I mean, who wants to be the disciplinarian,
Dr. Kibby McMahon (29:19.308)
Yeah, I know. It's just so much easier to walk away. Like this is just like pure avoidance. Or just like, be happy. That's also just as emotionally damaging. So just be happy. It's fine. your dad means well.
Jacqueline Trumbull (29:25.859)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (29:34.127)
Well, right. mean, having a kid isn't about just having some creature in your house that just likes you all the time and is fun to play with. You have to invest in the work to help that child grow up effectively. My child is not being effective with me right now. She's scratching me. Ow! Fuck. So.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (29:49.762)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (29:56.206)
You
Jacqueline Trumbull (30:01.999)
Do we know how these kinds of kids from these kinds of parents grow up?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (30:02.712)
And the last one.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (30:06.966)
Wait, there's one more.
Jacqueline Trumbull (30:09.346)
okay.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (30:10.318)
Cause one more, the last one is the rejecting parent. This one is just, you know what? I guess I'm a little confused because this feels like the passive parent, but it's a little bit like, it feels a little bit more bitter. Like the rejecting parents, like I don't wanna be close to anyone. I wanna be alone.
Ugh, everyone's getting in my way. Everyone's like too chaotic, messy. And you have to listen to me, right? It's just kind of like, ugh, family. That's kind of how I picture the rejecting parent, but it does kind of feel like a passive parent. But I guess a passive parent has a little bit more room to be pleasant.
Jacqueline Trumbull (30:47.587)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (31:01.529)
Yeah, I the passive parent can be fun, right? I mean... But the rejecting parent is... The rejecting parent is rejecting the child, in some way?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (31:05.345)
Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (31:10.838)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's almost just like push away. It's like not only just avoidance, but it's like pushing away. No, thank you. And the example in the training that I did on this, the example of the rejecting parent is Nancy, who is Tony Soprano's mom and the Sopranos, who's just like this old lady who's just like grumpy, who's just like, meh.
Jacqueline Trumbull (31:18.221)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (31:35.359)
yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (31:41.07)
Like grumpy, like the grumpy parent.
Jacqueline Trumbull (31:44.025)
That would suck to grow up with. I'd take passive and driven any day over someone who seems like they have no interest in me.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (31:46.594)
Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (31:54.526)
Yeah, yeah, but at least, at least with a rejecting parent, you could kind of do what you want, right? Like if they don't care about you, you could kind of do whatever you want. Whereas the driven parent wants to control you. They really care about what you do. They want to know who you're dating. They want to know where, like what job did you get? You know, like they, they're more, they're more meddlesome than the rejecting and passive parent.
Jacqueline Trumbull (32:15.554)
Yeah.
I'm trying to figure out what my dad had. He was pretty neglected by his parents and kind of hated his mother growing up. And his mom would do things like sunbathe nude in the backyard and have sex with other men in the house. And my dad would like see it. Yeah, not so.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (32:39.444)
What?
Jacqueline Trumbull (32:42.679)
Yeah, so my dad was just, my dad grew up in Bermuda and he was just always like outside playing, doing his own thing. And now he's not in touch at all with his, in any of his emotions. So he wasn't helped to emotionally or socially develop at all. But I don't know if there was a quality to his parents that was just like, you know, get away, go away, or if they just didn't give a fuck.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (33:09.164)
Yeah, maybe just like passive or neglectful. I mean, I guess it's hard to tell what people are unless you see what these parents do when the child has a need. When the child is crying or needs some support, what does a parent do? Do they walk away? Do they say, it's OK, be happy? Or do they freak out? Or do they say, it's OK, you just just got to you just got to work harder and get you know, like what do they do in response to that emotion besides for validating and being there?
Jacqueline Trumbull (33:29.283)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (33:37.166)
me.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (33:38.798)
that emotion.
Jacqueline Trumbull (33:40.791)
Right. Yeah. I just don't think they were there for him.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (33:42.627)
Yeah.
Jacqueline Trumbull (33:48.035)
I don't get a sense that they ever helped him through an emotional experience. mean, maybe that's not true, but he came home from boarding school one day and his father drove him to a different house and said, hey, this is your stepmom and your three-year-old sister.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (33:48.398)
That's so sad.
Jacqueline Trumbull (34:06.671)
Just hadn't told him for three years.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (34:09.666)
my God. my God, what, what? I've heard of this story, but it is so crazy when you say it. How did he react in that moment?
Jacqueline Trumbull (34:14.009)
Yeah.
Jacqueline Trumbull (34:19.391)
Yeah, he's like, yeah, I divorced your mom. We're done. My dad doesn't remember minding. I mean, this is the thing, like there's something, there's a disconnect between my dad and emotions.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (34:32.738)
He doesn't remember, he said, I don't mind, or he didn't mention how he responded.
Jacqueline Trumbull (34:38.483)
no, I've asked, was like, were you upset? And he's like, no, I don't think so. Like how the hell could you? Because he didn't like his mother. So I guess he was just like, cool. I would do this too. Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (34:48.098)
I see. Who's like an improvement. Yeah. That's so funny. Yeah. poor guy. Your dad's lovely too. It's like, sometimes when you talk about like, are you and parts of your family like, you know, most stoical, but actually like I find you guys really warm. It's just like you don't like collapse into distress. So you just like, you know.
Jacqueline Trumbull (35:12.416)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (35:16.104)
non-emotional in the negative way.
Jacqueline Trumbull (35:18.893)
My mom's emotional. I mean, I am emotional. It's just usually in response to personal distress versus watching movies and crying. But I did cry in drinking. But yeah, my dad is emotional in a way. just can't. I don't think he has any idea what to do with other people's emotions. Probably nobody had any idea what to do with his. So he was just like, I guess I'll just go to the beach and.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (35:33.006)
for you.
Jacqueline Trumbull (35:49.109)
hunt crabs or whatever if I'm feeling sad.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (35:52.898)
Hey, I mean, that's really what we would tell our clients too. Like if you can go to the beach and hunt for crabs, do it. That sounds great. But I get what you mean. How do you respond when you were upset or when your siblings were upset?
Jacqueline Trumbull (36:09.635)
I mean, I remember him when I was really young, holding me and crying, holding me and, patting my back a couple times. But I don't think he would know what to say. I would always go to my mom. Like, I don't feel like anything was missing from my childhood or emotional development because I had my mom. And she was quite validating. But yeah. And my brother's probably just made fun of me.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (36:31.448)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (36:40.705)
Yeah, that's what brothers do.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (36:43.566)
How do you work through your emotions these days?
Jacqueline Trumbull (36:49.135)
Well, I mean, I often vent to friends. I mean, I'll certainly cry it out if there's something to cry out, but I do a lot of ruminating at friends. I mean, I try to keep that curtailed enough so that my friends won't be driven insane. But I don't know. mean, I feel like for most...
Dr. Kibby McMahon (37:01.806)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (37:09.326)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (37:17.067)
like low level normal stuff. I mean, I use like pretty healthy coping skills. I mean, I'm a huge cognitive restructure. Like I'm refra- I reframe shit constantly in my head. I think about like every single angle. Like is this personal? Is this not personal? It's probably not. I try to not catastrophize or things like that. So I guess that's kind of like my first...
response. But I am, I mean, it's just like a lot of things I'm able to just kind of say, you know what, I'm not going to think about that right now. It's not going to be helpful. But obviously, like the more intense the thing is, the more I'm likely to be like, Kimmy, listen to me talk about the same thing 800 times. And you're very good at being like, how do you feel about that again? What other feelings do you have? the same ones? Okay, tell me the same ones. Like, okay, I will.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (37:51.288)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (37:55.042)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (38:00.718)
I find that interesting. Yeah.
No, they don't. No, you evolve. I think that's why I ask periodically, because when you feel something, I could see that you're working through it. Because I'll ask you the next day, how are you doing with that? And you'll be like, same, but then you'll have another insight into it. So you do use your brain a lot when it comes to emotions. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's really interesting how
Jacqueline Trumbull (38:09.315)
I'm so-
Jacqueline Trumbull (38:26.381)
for sure. yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (38:33.182)
So thinking about like what, does it impact kids? Like what happens to kids with emotionally immature parents? And I'm sure there's not just four ways that these parents are immature, but I think it's like the, the idea is like, they can't handle emotional distress, uncomfortable emotions, and they avoid it in different ways. And they ignore the full range of emotions or just like, I'm going to shut off and just like not even engage in certain ones. And so,
Jacqueline Trumbull (38:55.567)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (39:01.368)
Right.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (39:03.71)
Often in the book about the emotionally immature parents, it talks a lot about how kids do whatever they can to survive this, right? And so naturally they fall into different roles, and they call it the role self. They fall into different roles that maintain.
the family dynamic, whether it's to satisfy their own needs or to make their parents happy. They like adopt a certain role in the family. And that ranges too, but there's these, it could be like the golden child who's parentified, right? The one who gets all the A's and is so responsible, takes care of the whole house. Like I even, you know, if I'm thinking about a lot of families that...
Jacqueline Trumbull (39:43.416)
Yeah
Jacqueline Trumbull (39:48.729)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (39:56.172)
I've worked with who are patients I've worked with who have like really like abusive parents or really emotional parents. There's something about a sibling or or them themselves taking on the the parent role like they they they're ones who took them to school to the other siblings of school or they are the ones who calm down the parents so that you know they wouldn't blow things up right. So there's there's sometimes like the fixers or there's a scapegoat.
Jacqueline Trumbull (40:18.713)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (40:25.646)
where the scapegoat is the one who takes all the blame. Right? And I feel like there's different scapegoats. There's a scapegoat of like, they're the bad child that basically is like blame for all the bad stuff. But there's also the scapegoat of like, this is the identified patient. It's interesting with family therapy, I've learned that when there is one kid in the family, that's the sick one.
We're here to fix this kid. It's usually not just the kid, it's usually the system that they're just pointing to this one as the one to blame. So that's so sad, isn't it?
Jacqueline Trumbull (40:56.93)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (41:03.887)
Well, yeah, mean, that's why I like, mean...
That's why, when you, like, my god, what am I trying to say? Child psychology is usually working with parents or, family therapy so that it's not just, okay, this kid is, like, uniquely fucked. It's, what is happening in this system that is... But that's not always to say that, the family is to blame for a kid being, having mental health problems.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (41:39.126)
No, but it happens a lot with dysfunctional families, right? Where one figure is gonna hold all the blame. In making sense of my own childhood, I was talking to my therapist a lot and talking to some of my childhood friends about this. I see this coming up, mean, this is kind of the tricky part of this generational trauma of emotional immaturity is that I am...
Jacqueline Trumbull (41:40.963)
Yeah.
Jacqueline Trumbull (41:55.759)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (42:07.722)
getting more in contact with the things that I'm working through through my parenting. And I'm terrified of my kid being the bad child. And I didn't understand it at first, but like I got a call from this like our preschool teacher and my immediate, would just, every time I got to get a call from the school, I'm terrified. And I'm terrified because I'm scared of them saying, you know,
Jackson did this and this and this. He's a bad kid. Like, you know, you have to fix it. He's acting out. And I was just like obsessed with that. Like every time I get a call and Alex is always like, what are you talking about? Like, it's gonna be fine. He's a great kid. What's wrong? And I'm like, why am I so scared of that? I'm like, think I really did adopt a scapegoat in some ways, like a scapegoat role.
There's a little golden childish, because I also like navigated through things by being academically focused, but I do see myself as like the bad one, the rebellious one. And actually sometimes when I get validation and like approval from systems or something, I feel like uncomfortable. And yeah, just realized, and my childhood friend,
Jacqueline Trumbull (43:11.407)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (43:34.68)
told me that I was constantly trying to do the right thing, but I was always seen as the bad kid by my parents. Like they said, I'll show you the text message. She was like, you you were always called like disobedient, too stubborn, too forceful, too much in some way. And I kept trying to be better. I kept trying to be like a good kid and doing all the right things. I still got yelled at.
Jacqueline Trumbull (44:01.581)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (44:04.172)
And I think I carried that until now. Like, I'm worried that I'm gonna pass it to my kid.
Jacqueline Trumbull (44:10.947)
Was that from both parents?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (44:15.158)
I think I passively felt that from my dad because he got this new family and this family in comparison seems so good. Like they would just sit and read together. There's no conflict. Those kids are great. They're like lovely. There's a lovely family. And I'm like this storm, right? Coming in, fighting with my mom.
and having, and like literally getting kicked out of my mom's house and having to live there, right? So I was like, I was like the black sheep by proxy. I don't think that, actually a couple of times my dad told me I was a bad kid, but I think later on he still respected my rebelliousness. So he actually like didn't see those qualities as bad, but.
Jacqueline Trumbull (44:39.726)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (44:58.191)
Okay.
Jacqueline Trumbull (45:02.531)
God, you were so set up. I mean, how, like, how are you supposed to be in your dad's family when you're dealing with so much chaos at home?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (45:05.527)
I know.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (45:16.108)
I don't know, I felt really bad because I felt like I was bringing the black cloud, which I was told many times that I was, and I was. I would have a fight with my mom and I would go over to my dad's house and my mom would call and there'd be screaming. I would just bring this emotional chaos over there. And so there was this feeling of like, know, Kibbe and her mom, this is going on now. So I definitely felt like I'm the bad, I bring badness.
Jacqueline Trumbull (45:17.807)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (45:33.871)
That's rocks.
Jacqueline Trumbull (45:39.33)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (45:48.215)
It's just so obvious in listening to the story that you don't bring the badness. It was the person who was then pursuing you, kicking you out and then pursuing you.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (45:59.202)
Yeah, now I know that. As a 39 year old, having my own kids and getting a PhD in clinical psychology, now I know that maybe I wasn't all bad. Maybe I contributed to the badness, but I didn't make it.
Jacqueline Trumbull (46:13.967)
It's such a bummer. mean, feel like most people, they at least saw how you turned out, I haven't known you for your whole life, would be like, yeah, dream daughter.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (46:21.838)
I was a nightmare. really was. I really was like, I tantrummed. When I was a teen, my boyfriend and I would have screaming fights on the street where I'd run sobbing. Somehow, we'll see that we all, things that I thought were abnormal. But yeah, I I think I held that for a while being the scapegoat. And I think that that's what helped.
Jacqueline Trumbull (46:36.481)
I did that at the age of 23, so.
Hehehehe. Hehehehe.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (46:52.012)
me sometimes when it comes to like doing DBT or being screamed at or something like that. I'm like, deserve this. It's fine. Like I'm used to this. I'm used to being yelled at. It's all right. I know. feel like this podcast has become like, Kimmy realizes levels of emotional abuse, but yeah.
Jacqueline Trumbull (47:05.613)
This is a status that you've never heard.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (47:18.094)
Mm-hmm, yep. It's weird why I'm so drawn to this topic of...
Jacqueline Trumbull (47:22.551)
Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (47:29.326)
But the thing is that...
Jacqueline Trumbull (47:29.517)
I was like, Jacqueline, was your childhood like? And I was like, well, they wanted me to be thin, but otherwise it's pretty good. Kimmy, how was your childhood?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (47:40.226)
I mean, you had some stuff too. mean, like we didn't even get to the pranks that people played on you. We'll do that in another episode.
Jacqueline Trumbull (47:45.999)
love those boys though. Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (47:49.718)
Anyway, let's all downplay what we went through, but back to the role self of Scapegoat. The problem with these role selves, I mean, I think we all kind of have to do something. I think at any family, the kids, everyone has a role, right? It's like this kid's the artist and this kid's the quiet one, right? But the dysfunction is...
if the kids are locked into it, right? If you, like I do, almost seek out situations where you become that scapegoat again or that caretaker again or the fixer, right? The golden child. If you're constantly like, I gotta be this because that's what people want from me and that's what will keep my mom and dad happy and my siblings safe and me safe. This is, you know, I gotta, whatever.
Jacqueline Trumbull (48:44.814)
Hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (48:47.87)
not being able to be like, you know what, that was what I had to do to survive that family and to appease my parents who weren't able to handle complexity and me becoming not the golden child or not that whatever. But yeah, that healing looked like exploring the different parts of yourself than that role self.
Jacqueline Trumbull (49:02.776)
Yeah.
Jacqueline Trumbull (49:12.995)
Yeah. I...
would just think that like, if this resonates with you, it would be such an eye-opener to be like, holy shit, like I have been playing out this role based on like a family dynamic and have been either like blaming myself for things or seeing myself in a particular way just because of like someone in my family couldn't give me the...
Yeah, the stability I needed and the warmth that I needed. So we've got Golden Childs, Scapegoat, and who else?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (49:49.144)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
I mean, I think there are different ones. There are...
There's actually, and there's different actually, there's different subtypes of like, let's say the golden chat, like there's the beautiful one, right? You know something about that, Ms. Bachelor.
Jacqueline Trumbull (50:08.661)
Mmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (50:12.399)
My entire, all of my siblings were trying to be that though.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (50:20.398)
Okay, so you all had that role. No, I mean, like, I think, didn't you mention that some of your siblings had a little bit more emphasis on their career or like work competency?
Jacqueline Trumbull (50:20.897)
I'm expected to be that.
Jacqueline Trumbull (50:32.975)
only because my two oldest siblings were the most academically successful, but I think Andrew and I were pretty equally obsessed with the idea that, I mean, my brother Andrew, I think, some damage that he wasn't academically oriented. And he calls himself the black sheep of the family.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (50:50.254)
Mm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (50:55.34)
He happens to be very good looking, so like, he gets to be the beautiful one, but I don't think that was his emphasis necessarily.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (51:03.692)
Mm-hmm, interesting. Yeah, I think it's probably less of what roles come out and more the rigidity with these roles. do the kids feel allowed to become different types of people? The other roles that pop up are the invisible child, which is also, I think, is called the lost child, like the one who's just...
absent, who tries to disappear in the background, who tries to quote, like, not draw attention to myself. That's why I hear my invisible child clients say, like, I just tried to be good and quiet and just not draw attention to myself, right? And there's also like peacekeepers or mediators, the ones who are stuck sometimes in between mom and dad, tell your father this and this and this, or the one who, like, I had a patient who like would literally
Jacqueline Trumbull (51:42.797)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (52:00.76)
throw herself in between her parents to get them to stop fighting. Like would grab, like they would threaten to like, you know, call, you know, what was it? They were doing all sorts of threats to call the police, to call like their company and break it all down so they have nothing, right? And she would actually had to launch herself in front of them and grab their phones or hold them down or something. And this poor girl was like,
I feel so much anxiety around relationships and work and I don't really know why. I had a pretty good upbringing.
Jacqueline Trumbull (52:37.359)
We can normalize anything when it happened to us.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (52:39.758)
Yeah, yeah, it literally was normal for her. She was like, this is what parents do. Like they were just, they just fought a lot.
Jacqueline Trumbull (52:49.209)
Yeah, well then no shit she doesn't want to married. I mean, or have a relationship, subconsciously. I wouldn't be signing up for that shit either.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (52:58.304)
I know, yeah. feels like, and I imagine how hard it must be to imagine a relationship like that without that mediator role, right? When it's just like you two and all the blueprint you have is like two people fighting. You know, you're like, God, like.
Jacqueline Trumbull (53:08.419)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (53:12.683)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that would be a ton of work. If you know that you're the mediator, so you have to be both that and probably going to be in fights, like, let's, yeah. Or just not get rescued by any mediator.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (53:28.62)
Yeah, it's interesting. feel like when our patients or clients come up against their role self, the kind of the person they have to be around their parents, what's interesting is like they talk about how that stresses them out. Like they come into therapy being like, I'm really anxious about, you know, getting successful at work, getting this promotion, right? And they're like so driven to do it.
And then when they start to feel like, wait, this is a coping mechanism. And there's more to me than just this coping mechanism. Then I think when they do a little healing, it's interesting to watch them go back into their families for like Thanksgiving or Christmas, and then adopt that role and then feel like that anxiety or that like almost kind of like disappointment in themselves that they're like, yeah.
Jacqueline Trumbull (54:13.337)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (54:24.362)
I had to do that. I had to put on that mask around them. So it's interesting.
Jacqueline Trumbull (54:27.981)
Yeah. Yeah.
Woof.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (54:36.844)
Wuff indeed.
Jacqueline Trumbull (54:39.033)
Sorry, I know it's a little stilted because it keeps freezing you. can't pick up on like nonverbal cues as well. So then I'm like waiting for you to say something because I don't know what's happening. Well, no, it's not your fault. But I'm just like, if you're wondering why I'm like pausing more, like right now I can't see.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (54:45.73)
Hmm
sorry.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (55:00.44)
You can't see?
Jacqueline Trumbull (55:01.487)
I can see it'll like freeze like every three seconds. So then I don't know what your face is doing. So then I don't know whether you're like reading or about to say something or waiting for me to say something. And so then I'm stalling a little bit.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (55:10.414)
Dr. Kibby McMahon (55:14.51)
I say, okay, well that could be edited, that could be cut. And it's also like fine if we have a pause.
Jacqueline Trumbull (55:17.199)
Yeah. I know you have to go very soon. Anything else we should cover?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (55:22.53)
Mm-hmm.
Like tips maybe?
Jacqueline Trumbull (55:27.777)
Okay. Do you have any?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (55:35.086)
Yeah, think that, so talking about like what do you do when you have an emotionally immature parent?
Jacqueline Trumbull (55:43.267)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (55:46.378)
you know, reaching out to Koolamai and getting us to help you.
Jacqueline Trumbull (55:49.525)
Yeah, because it's such a broad thing, right? It's hard to be like, here's a tip when it's like, well, what kind of emotionally immature parent and what role did you play? And how has that affected you today? is this parent somebody you need to set boundaries with? Or is this parent somebody that's not causing massive problems in your adulthood? So it's hard. But I do think learning to talk about these things and these elements
in your own development can really help you be in relation to other people because if you notice some of your patterns coming up or if you notice this role coming up for you, then it is going to be enormously helpful to be able to communicate that.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (56:34.648)
Yeah, yeah, I think that even just listening to these different types and identifying what resonates and being like, you know, sometimes it could come with either direction, either like more anger towards that parent or more compassion. Like, there's this driven critical parent and I just thought there was a bad person who hated me, but actually it's like an immature person who's like scared.
Jacqueline Trumbull (56:54.978)
Right.
Jacqueline Trumbull (56:59.172)
Cough
Jacqueline Trumbull (57:04.527)
Yeah. I did just want to make a note about the driven parent. It seems to me that there could be a cultural element here. I mean, for instance, we talk about tiger moms that is like Asia. That's referring to a specific, not a super specific ethnicity. I just wonder if sometimes,
Dr. Kibby McMahon (57:04.626)
of emotional complexity or, yeah, no.
Jacqueline Trumbull (57:29.601)
what we're encountering isn't necessarily emotional immaturity, but a needed adaptation to an environment. I mean, if you think about Beijing and how many people are there, if you don't accomplish things and achieve, then you could have a pretty poor standard of living. so some of this might be like, this is how I've learned to survive. And in this...
In a flourishing society, you don't need rigidity to the same degree, we might not be, you know, your parent may not have grown up in a flourishing society. They might have grown up in a place where if you don't achieve, you're fucked. And so they're going to pass that on.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (58:13.091)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that.
I think a big takeaway from this conversation is that these may not be necessarily bad people. mean, some emotionally immature parents can be very abusive and malignant, they kind of enjoy and have no empathy and actually enjoy hurting people. But a lot of them can just be like little kids inside and they've adapted and did what they can to survive. And whatever society dictated,
Jacqueline Trumbull (58:36.324)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (58:45.954)
what that meant, right? Like a driven parent, okay, you just needed to get a good job to survive. In war times, you can't be afraid or sad or, you know, wondering about your inner life. Like you've just got to like literally survive, right? So it just means that there was something that was emphasized more heavily, which led to a stunting.
Jacqueline Trumbull (58:50.116)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (59:13.334)
and less development and less attention on another part of them. If they're so focused to getting married and have a kid, they might not be like, right? a lot of moms in the boomer generation are just like, just wear makeup all the time. I do my hair and I marry a guy with a good stable career and who could provide and have two kids and make sure that they're fed and they go to school, right?
Jacqueline Trumbull (59:16.751)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (59:42.361)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (59:43.47)
You know, that's what they've learned to survive and there's other parts of them like the anger and sadness and conflict about all that. It's just like, no, no, no, no, we're not gonna deal with that.
Jacqueline Trumbull (59:55.427)
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, there was a lot of compassion we had for these parents because they were, I mean...
They grew up in their own stew, right? Like they got this way from their own set of circumstances and development. you know, mean, understanding that can be helpful, but there is a lot of pain here too. And there's, I think, understandable resentment in many circumstances. And it's really something to work on. Because when we're talking about how your parents raised you, man, that has implications all over the place.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:00:33.198)
Hmm.
Yeah, for sure. And I think there's a lot of grieving when it comes to like, my parent was like emotionally immature and just didn't give me what I needed. Didn't give me those boundaries. Like it was too passive. Couldn't regulate. Like there's, there could be some sadness of maybe for them, like that's sad for them to have to be that sunted, but also for you because you were looking for someone to guide you and teach you how to deal with these difficult emotions that they just didn't know how to fly the plane.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:00:42.468)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:00:54.873)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:01:05.239)
Yeah, yeah. Well, Kibbe, where can our listeners find out more about the roles, for instance, of these types of parents?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:01:14.862)
Yeah, think that, just check out this book. I really do love this book. I'll say it again. I don't link it to the show notes, but it is Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Dr. Lindsay Gibson. And yeah, they just give a really nice breakdown of the different kinds of emotionally immature parents, what they look like and what it does to the adult kids. I think it's, you know, the healing process of this.
is possible. And I think the first step that we talk about is awareness and the grieving. And then also just exploring for yourself the different sides of you beyond the role self. Like where if you were the fixer all the time, like maybe there's a time and place to not be the fixer, but be the one who's cared for or did not be perfect all the time. Right. A tip.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:02:12.655)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:02:15.192)
for loved ones to not do is do not do the common thing that people tend to do, which is, but they mean well, they're your parents, they love you. I've gotten that over the years so much, and I know where it's come, I know where it comes from because they're like, they can see the love in the parent, and usually it really does look like a mismatch, right? Like these parents who are emotionally immature wanted,
like love and want to do well, they're trying their best, but they just don't have the capacity. But there is sometimes like this emphasis on the roles and the expectations of the roles, right? I'm your parent, you should listen to me. Even though I'm acting like a child, you should listen to me. And I know that there was a little bit more emphasized in the generations before, respect your elders, do this if you're the parent, never talk back to. But I think we're
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:02:45.263)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:02:58.329)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:03:10.894)
Especially when you have an immature parent that feels weird. It's like, well you didn't, you weren't like the parent that I was looking for. So why are you looking to me to fulfill my child role? But it also, what it does is wipe out the emotional complexity of the personhood, right? It's your parent, it's your father, forgive him, he means well, he's your dad, you should talk to him. It's like, if he's abusive, right, then.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:03:23.503)
Mm-hmm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:03:37.987)
Mm-hmm
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:03:39.946)
What you're telling is that person is obligated to be abused. And I think that at this, the way that our society's values have evolved to be more about mutual respect and earned respect, that whole role obligation doesn't have a place anymore.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:04:00.877)
Yeah. Well, I think that's a beautiful place to end. So, check out that book and check out KulaMind if this is something you are struggling with. Kibby's program is like designed for, you know, these kinds of issues. And we'll see you next week. Good.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:04:19.31)
Yeah.
