children

"i was just wondering what you guys thought... a child is great NS. they love you unconditionally, don't question, and get you adoration and congradulations from people. mine wasn't really an attention hound, exactly." Uhm...no. I grew up with a Narc father. And yes what you wrote above is true - TILL A CERTAIN AGE. And what happens then, is the worst abuse you can imagine, he beated you, and so he will with the chidlren, the moment they question him. My father was all over me, till I got my own mind, maybe with 4 or 5...and then the abuse started, till this time I "only" had to watch the abuse he did to my 3 older sisters. As a child you are just an object to them. Period. And I seldom heard "he beated his wife but never touched his children" - did anyone of you ever heard something like this? I can hardly imagine that.

"can they be good parents?" Was he a good man to you? Is he a good upstanding person? Do you believe that after what he did to you that he is a good role model for anyone? You know the answer to this Fierflie. Do you think this is what a child would like to be raised with? Ask our members who were raised by a narcissist what their experience was like. The horror and tragedy they went through their entire lives with no hopes of escape. only one way to go...Forward (tm?)

I've never had any kids of my own. However, I did live with my xnh and his two daughters for 16 years. They were 4 and 1 years old when I first met them. They are 20 and 17 years old now. Yes, they were good supply for him (and trust me, it ONLY benefited him). Xnh has not provided them with the skills that they'll need in life to become functioning adults. They both will bear (for life) the emotional scars from having xnh for a father, and a mother that is just as screwed up and narcissistic in her own way as my xnh. I think she tried to be a good mother, but she's got her own serious emotional problems. My xnh was IMO just an atrocious parent. N just sees his kids as extensions of himself, and not as real people. His whole idea of being a parent seems to be to make them just as dependent on him for every little need as he possibly can, so that HE can continue to suck them for supply. Everything to do with his kids is always all about him. Parenting his children was never foremost in his mind. That would mean having to actually be mature and care about someone besides himself. Nxh always has vacillated wildly between being so over-indulgent with his kids that it was absolutely nauseating, and going into huge rages at them for doing something perfectly normal (like accidentally tipping over their milk at the dinner table). His children were allowed to dictate our activities EVERY weekend, because it was easier to spend money to take them to the amusement park or somewhere they could run wild than it was for xnh to actually interact with them. Xnh also allowed them to control and dominate the household constantly. It was much easier for xnh to just allow his children to stay up as late as they wished every night, and for him to be late to work in the mornings because they didn't want to get ready for school than it was enforce any rules. Xnh allowed his children to just run wild and out of control. Xnh worries about xnh. I'd have to say his kids raised themselves. Xnh wanted to be their buddy, not their parent. If I had the nerve to say (or do) anything about xnh's children or their feral behavior, I quickly became the scapegoat to nxh and was abused for trying to parent his children. Basically I was damned if I did or damned if I didn't. Now that xnh's children are older, his oldest child has been completely out of control and in trouble for years. She's only 20 now, but she's already been kicked out of college after being put in academic probation (failing grades and lack of attendance), evicted from the dorm while she was there for selling drugs, arrested and spent time in jail on felony drug charges, lived on the streets of El Paso for several months doing drugs, committed statutory rape for sleeping with a 15-year old, and she's been thrown out of her mother's house twice (for smoking pot in the living room) and once out of ours (when she went to jail for drugs and I told her she was no longer welcome in our home). She's currently living with a gang member that's been arrested for drugs and possessing illegal firearms. He beats her on a regular basis, and then gets thrown in to jail for it (she then bails him out each time). She's pregnant, unemployed (been fired SEVEN times so far) and on welfare...so another generation of sociopathy and narcissism will be emerging soon. IMO, her poor baby doesn't stand a chance in life. Xnh's OWN mother is seriously narcissistic, xnh is too, his oldest daughter is nothing short of a sociopath (she's much more cruel that even xnh), and her baby will be the fourth generation subjected to their family dysfunction. The cycle continues. Xnh has never once so much as lifted a finger to get her any therapy or drug rehab...he just buries his head into the sand and "pretends" to everyone around that his "talking to her" and taking her out to do something fun with him will make her "turn the corner". His magical thinking is absolutely mind boggling. Xnh's youngest daughter is basically a good person and has been strong enough on her own to pull herself along pretty much by her own boot straps (so far). She is what my mother calls "a survivor child" (someone that will usually persevere in SPITE of their upbringing). However, she still bears the scars of being xnh's continual supply, and being constantly kicked to the curb because both of her "parents" have always grossly favored her older sister...God knows why. She's well aware of this. To quote her, "Living with my sister and xnh have been like living with terrorists for years." I KNOW she's going have emotional scars from her childhood. So to answer your question about whether or not N's can be good parents, based on my own personal experience I'd have to say "NO". N's only care about themselves, and have no empathy towards anyone else, that includes their own children. Having an N parent is incredibly cruel for the child.

I lost my baby too, the night after I found out he cheated. I went to his house screaming, crying, punching, kicking. I went home and started bleeding several hours later. He wouldn't answer the phone or answer my texts. He wouldn't even answer the door. He was sleeping in bed with his foster child. The three-month pregnancy was horrifying. We had planned to get pregnant, but when I did he denied that I was. I told him we had to talk about it. "Are you going to let your own baby sleep in a crib in my kitchen while a stranger's child has his own bathroom in your seven-bedroom house?" I asked. He refused to answer. I told him I wouldn't have it, and he said, "Do what you want; you will anyway." I told him I don't believe in abortion. He went freaking crazy. I believe that having a baby with a woman is, for him, an intolerable suggestion. To be connected to another person forever because of a child? No freaking way. Everyone tells me now: thank God you miscarried. He would have taken the baby away and made sure you had no custody rights. And in Chicago, it would have worked. I would have committed suicide.

i also had a similar experience, and lost my baby. its interesting, because at a glance it seemed he was always really good with his dog and his two nieces. But then i realized it was just a lot of fake hype meaning yes he acted like he liked kids, and for the first day would be all charming and play with them and spoil them. However, by the third day he would be lying to his sister about how much work he had because he couldnt really take care of the kids and their demands. With me, when he was a jerk all throughout my short pregnancy saying how it will ruin his life, and then the minute it was no longer there, he kept texting me how sad he is over our loss. I cannot be certain, but it seems what everyone saying sounds about right...they probably are loving until they can control them and when kids have their own demands and dont unconditionally mirror the love back, then they get tossed aside. Everyday, I miss what could have been but I am also grateful I am no longer linked to him for a lifetime.

Not sure what kind of Lawyer your N is, but the profession itself provides a lot of direct supply. And your N has made many offhanded comments about why he might like children... Ns don't make good parents. Here's a quote I wrote down from somewhere. "Narcissists are famous for being very jealous of their children and doing things to harm them physically and emotionally. They don't seem to have much parental instinct and like to terrorize their children." If you want to see how much carnage they leave behind vist www.voicelessness.com, a site more geared to adults venting and trying to hurdle all the crap dumped on them by their N parents. I've spent the better part of the last decade attempting to help my children fill the voids. Another woman I know married and had children with an N who had four kids with his first wife. Both woman have buried sons who killed themselves. I'm very sorry you lost your baby, Fierflie. It must have been devastating. Hang in there, love. Good things will be on the horizon for you if you're patient and deal with your issues prior to having children.

Girl, did it make me insane to see the affection he showed his foster child, his eyes shining at him, his whole face lighting up in his presence. "That used to be me!" I would cry. When that kid came, he absolutely took all of the affection and "love" for me and gave it to him. It was the most bizarre thing, and you could never imagine that someone could not have enough love or affection for two people, but he doesn't. Now I realize that the child is the dream come true for the narc. He totally depends on narc, totallly worships him, makes him look like Jesus Christ to the outside world. The child walks around saying, "I love you Papa. I love you Papa" like a robot. They go everywhere hand in hand. And yep, he is the "Mini Me"-- Our neighbors make fun of how he dresses him the same and drags him around with all the other old men politicians. A big part of why he is the "apple of his eye," is that the child is totally controllable and unquestioning. The narc tells him to stay in the basement and not touch the freshly painted walls, tells him to watch tv while he sits outside and texts and smokes for hours, takes him to the babysitter's anytime he wants to go out, go away for the weekend, or just doesn't want him around. The child loves him so much he is just happy when he IS around and doesn't complain--YET. What happens when he gets older and the narc goes on vacation for a week without him--and then comes home and the child is MAD at him for leaving again? What happens when the child won't kiss him anymore? What happens when he doesn't want to hold his hand anymore? What happens when the child questions why this old man couldn't be unselfish enough to find a partner so he could could have a mother? What happens when he questions why his multi millionaire, uber-connected father didn't help his mother get clean or his real father get a job? What happens when, god forbid, the child wants to have a friend over to the house? When he asks why he has no brothers and sisters? When he realizes his papa and his uncles are freaks who can't have a relationship with a woman or father a child?

They don't love anyone, not even their children. Children are supply, plain and simple. I think they like the idea of children because they are someone they can mold into the perfect little "mini me". But the minute that child gets a mind of his or her own, watch out! They are then D&D just like anyone else who isn't obeying or giving them supply.

They can't love anyone. My father was a Narc. So was yours, it sounds like :( Did he love you? Did he parent you lovingly and patiently? Or did he treat you like supply? Did he only notice you when you were cute and sweet and helpless and perfectly obedient? Why would someone so destructive and damaging to you be worth considering as a good parent? Even more than wives, children are "belongings" and "property" to Narcs. Which implies they will be MORE abused than anyone else they know.