Reading quotes about selfish parents will make you understand better how not to be a bad, narcissistic parent that hurts their kids. Often, aggression is not recognized if it is verbal and not physical, but verbal aggression can be even worse than hits you can get for many kids and adults.
Selfish parents with no natural feeling of love are maybe not aware of their actions. They often know something is wrong, but they don’t care while justifying how the same thing was done to them by their parents. If your parents have hit you, it doesn’t mean hitting is alright, or if they yelled at you, it doesn’t mean you can do the same to your kid.
Kids don’t stop loving a parent, they stop loving themselves, and their life will be miserable one day. They will grow up without self-esteem, without trust in other people, and without actual boundaries. To raise healthy kids, you need to heal yourself first and be aware of your trauma and possibly selfishness.
When you know what selfishness is, you will be able to recognize it and stay away from it.
Read these selfish parents quotes to learn more about it:
1. “In the minds of my parents, they are the victims; I am the abuser.” – Christina Enevoldsen
The abusive parents will often blame their kids for all the problems in their lives. If a person has become a parent too early while they are still emotionally immature, they will not understand their own emotions or those of their kids.
Kid being blamed by the abuser that they are the abuser will make kid insecure, hurt, and emotionally unstable. You need a lot of courage to overcome that kind of trauma. Christina is aware of what was done to her, and she fights against those feelings.
2. “Parents wonder why the streams are bitter when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.” – John Locke
One day when your parent is old and expects kindness from their child that they previously abused, it takes a big heart from that child to come to the parent and show the compassion they need. If you have been an abuser, you can’t expect to get anything different from your child.
We can often see this circle in many families, a circle of abuse that goes from parent to child for generations. It is up to us to break the circle and heal ourselves if we were in this position.
3. “Some scars don’t hurt. Some scars are numb. Some scars rid you of the capacity to feel anything ever again.” – Joyce Rachelle
The worst that can happen to a person who was emotionally abused is to stop feeling any emotions. Numbness is hard to heal, and it shows that the soul is deeply wounded.
If you are carrying scars from early childhood, they will follow you your entire life. Some people seem strong on the outside, but inside they are bleeding tears that they could never show on the outside. Parents that do this to their kids probably carry the same scars within them.
4. “It’s amazing how people can change behind closed doors.” – Susan Forward.
It is well known that abusers show one face to the public and a different face in their homes. This was especially dangerous during a pandemic when people couldn’t leave homes and had to survive abusive behavior.
When something happens, you will hear from people who knew the family that “They were always a nice family” but often just a facade. You can look for other signs in kids and adults if you think they are going through a difficult time, or you can pull them on the side and ask directly.
5. “It is a violation of trust to use your kids as caulking for the cracks in you.” – Anne Lamott
Way too often, we see parents who use their children to fill their gaps in life. Some of these examples push kids into activities that kids don’t like; it is often music or sports. The other example is when parents are too dependent on their kids, expecting kids always to be home and spend time only with them.
If kids don’t have space to grow and express themselves, they will become insecure adults with many commitment problems, afraid to be alone.
6. “Fighting became a way of life and seemed perfectly normal for your family.” – Steven Farmer
If the parents are fighting all the time, kids will think that is the way you communicate with your loved ones. Children are mirroring our behavior, and if we don’t show them love and if they don’t see love in their home, it is going to be hard for them to find love in their life.
All families fight; that is the sentence we often hear. But although it is normal to sometimes be angry, the expression of that anger should not be in a way that is damaging to our kids. Talk to each other, and if there is still love, you will fix the problem without fighting.
7. “An unpredictable parent is a fearsome god in the eyes of a child.” – Susan Forward
A kid living in fear of the parent will develop a lot of issues. The mental health of children is a very important factor in their development, and a child that is abused and lives in fear will be a fearful adult with mental health issues that could have been prevented.
Kids have a lot of imagination, and this can create great confusion in their little heads. If someone that is supposed to love them makes them feel afraid, it can’t go well for them.
8. “It has been my observation that parents kill more dreams than anybody.” – Spike Lee
Parents always think they know what is best for their children, but that is a lie. Only children know what is best for them. So many lives are wasted on fulfilling parents’ dreams. If a child doesn’t want to do something, whatever it is, there is no valid reason to force them.
It starts in early childhood when parents start telling children what they are supposed to do and feel while they still can’t express themselves. And it continues until adulthood, in some cases even till the end of parents’ lives.
9. “They are not sorry for harming you. So, don’t feel guilty for cutting them off.” – John Mark Green
Toxic family members, especially parents, are hard to cut out of your life. They expect you to forgive them whatever they have done, and they usually don’t even feel remorse. They want to take and not to give.
Taking care of your own mental health is most important, even if it means stopping contact with your toxic parents or siblings. First, you put on some boundaries, but if they don’t care and keep crossing them, the next step is to save yourself and cut them off completely.
10. “Do your kids see your kindness, or are you always telling them NO?” Brenda M. McGraw
Too often, parents scream at their kids or tell them NO even before they misbehave. They are sure that kid is going to do something bad, and as prevention, they yell at them. Also, parents that do this convince themselves that kids are disobeying them on purpose all day long, giving them the right to yell or tell kids NO.
As parents, we have to put ourselves in the shoes of our kiddos and imagine what it would be like if we had someone telling us NO all day long about everything. Eventually, you would stop listening, become frustrated, or even worse, start being afraid.
11. “It is the selfish parents who are to blame. Pay attention, be involved in your children’s lives. They are your legacy, your only hope.” – Aaron B. Powell
The parent is always to blame if the kids’ behavior is changing because of their parent’s behavior. If we don’t lead by example, we can’t expect the kids to know what to do. Selfish parents will create selfish kids.
Kindness is, though, the same as caring. And you can’t expect your children to care about you if you don’t care about them. They have the right to one day cut you out of their life if you don’t treat them well.
12. “They should love you, just as you are. Parents should love their kids, right?” “You’d think so.” – N.R. Walker, Spencer Cohen, Book Three
Kids need parents’ love and care; even when they grow up, their home and their parents should be their safe haven. But that isn’t always the case.
Egocentric and selfish parents will leave kids outside of their world, and kids will feel alone. If the kid doesn’t have a connection with you as a parent, how is it going to have a good connection with other humans? We teach our kids how to communicate and love. If they were not loved, they would be broken.
13. “Narcissist parents don’t care about their children’s feelings at all. Only their feelings matter.” – Kim Saeed.
Narcissists, by definition, care only about themselves, and having kids doesn’t change that. Not everyone has kids because they actually want them. Sometimes people have kids for different reasons, like if their partner wants kids, or they have pressure from society, or it was an accident.
However, it happens, if the kid is in a family with narcissists, only the kid will suffer. Parents will not be emotionally connected to a kid, and the kid will feel abandoned, alone, and sad.
14. “Did you have parents or just some people who thought they should own somebody?” – Catherine Lacey
There is such a huge difference between parents and “people that just want to own somebody.” As we already mentioned, there are different reasons which make some people become parents. This is a sad reality that some children have to live.
This is why adopted children can feel more loved than some biological families. Parents are those who care, and not those who are just biologically called parents.
15. “Parents. Honestly. Sometimes they really do think the world revolves around them.” – Randa Abdel-Fattah
Toxic parents think that they are the most important and they don’t take their children’s feelings into account. They will expect everything to be done as they please, with no regret. Neglect happens because they were not raised properly, and they never learned what a good relationship between parents and kids is.
Everyone deserves to set boundaries, but those who lived with egocentric and selfish parents will often become one. In some cultures, this kind of behavior is often perceived as normal, which makes it even harder to break the pattern.
16. “Don’t try to make children grow up to be like you, or they may do it.” – Russell Baker
Children learn from our behavior as parents, and they will eventually become little versions of us. This can be good, but also very bad, depending on what kind of parent you are.
It can be very damaging if the parent expects kids to follow in their footsteps when it comes to relationships or vocation. Being a family doesn’t mean you share interests and talents, and it is very toxic to force your opinions and behaviors on others. When the kid ends up with all your bad features, you will be the one to blame.
17. “A person can’t pick up the children and just squeeze them to which-a-way they want them to be.” – Carson McCullers
Sometimes parents plan their kids’ lives even before they are born. They choose their schools, universities, professions, and they basically live their own dreams through kids. Children are not clay which we can shape the way we want. They are more like water finding their own way through life.
The key is to think about what it would be like for us to be in their place. If you wouldn’t like for anyone to rule your life, then give up a little control and let your kids make their own decisions.
18. “Leave your pride, ego, and narcissism somewhere else. Reactions from those parts of you will reinforce your children’s most primitive fears.” – Henry Cloud
Installing fear into kids is dangerous for their mental health. If you want your kids to be successful, you should support them and teach that to lean on you. Kids need love and not force, so only love will help them develop.
Being aware of your ego and not letting it come between your children and you are a great talent. This has to be practiced, and it can be learned. Treat your kids the same way you wish you were treated.
19. “Everyone is selfish, everyone is heartless, everyone is unrealistic, and they play with me and my feelings. The irony is everyone thinks the same.” – Rahul Gosam
It takes great wisdom to be above the situation and think of yourself as a selfless person who acts kind and with others in their mind. Most of us are just simply selfish, and we are not even aware of it.
How can this kind of behavior influence our kids? They will become the same as us. They will not pay attention to others. So if we want them to be kind and loving, we have to be the same way.
20. “People tend to raise the child inside of them rather than the child in front of them.” – Joe Newman
To create confident and fearless humans, we have to be the same way. You are not able to raise a lion if you are the lamb, as Joe Newman says in his book “Rising lions.”
Help your inner child and work on yourself ideally before you have kids or while you are raising your kids. You can be a good parent without having good parents yourself. Believing in yourself will bring you to believe in your children, and they will feel it.
Here are some more quotes to inspire you today:
21. “You must let go of the responsibility for the painful events of your childhood and put it where it belongs.” – Susan Forward
22. “To all you parents out there, don’t make your little girls, or little boys, so thirsty for love that they will want to drink water that will poison them.” – Lisa Bedrick
23. “In troubled families, abuse and neglect are permitted. It’s talking about them that is forbidden.” – Marcia Sirota.
24. “When you grieve toxic, abusive parents, you don’t just grieve the abuse, you grieve everything you didn’t have.” – Lily Hope Lucario.
25. “The only difference between a hero and a villain is that the villain chooses to use that power in a way that is selfish and hurts other people.” – Chadwick Boseman
26. “I’m selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I’m out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” – Marilyn Monroe
27. “Sometimes in life, you have to make a selfish decision and do what’s best for you.” – Saquon Barkley
28. “Your children need your presence more than your presents.” – Jesse Jackson
29. “Parental Alienation is an emotional act of violence that is aimed at an adult but critically wounds a child.” – Steve Maraboli
30. “If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money.” – Abigail Van Buren
Conclusion
Being a great parent is not simply just putting food on a table and paying for your kids’ education. It is so much more than that. You have to be there for them, to be kind to them, to love them, and only then can you expect the same back.
Kids learn from us, and if their behavior is not great, we should look at ourselves first and see if they are mirroring us. Having toxic parents and making distance from them is necessary, but if you are the parent and a person that is considered toxic, it is never too late to change and win the love of your family back. They want to love you, and they are waiting for you.
