Even in minor encounters, you can adjust how much you give so you won’t be exhausted by trying to fulfill others’ needs. I recommend using the maturity awareness mindset to observe how your parents react when you ask them to respect your boundaries. Notice whether they try to make you feel ashamed and guilty — as if they have a right to do whatever they want, regardless of how it affects you.
Gibson, Lindsay C. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. ch. 10, 18:04 – 18:31
Author: Milan
In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. Between 2005 and 2007 I completed an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. I worked for five years for the Canadian federal government, including completing the Accelerated Economist Training Program, and then completed a PhD in Political Science at the University of Toronto in 2023.
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Tolstoy wrote that every happy family is alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. In Gibson’s book, all unhappy families share the same flaw: the emotionally immature parent. They shy away – or sprint – from their feelings. It’s difficult to be vulnerable with them. They rarely introspect about the reasons behind their behaviors, and are dismissive of the emotional needs of others. Gibson proposes that when these interactions happen over the course of a childhood, an adult (or an “adult child”) will be affected in such areas as emotional processing and intimate relationships.
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“Emotional and interactional styles can be cultural, no question,” Gibson said. But she added that culture can be separated out from the emotional relationship between parent and child. “We’re all taught certain cultural practices that we carry forward unthinkingly, and for that we can all be excused. But if someone tells us our behavior is hurting or angering them, and we continue to insist that we are right and entitled to treat them that way, then to me, that is emotional immaturity full-force.”
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/apr/18/emotionally-immature-parents