Fully Grown Adults Who Deeply Resent Their Parents Usually Experienced 11 Truly Difficult Things As Kids
Cavan-Images | Shutterstock Watching kids grow up can be bittersweet for parents. It's hard to let go of the time when they were small, but healthy parents know it's what's best for their growing kids.
Unfortunately, some parents continue unhealthy and controlling behaviors even when their kids are grown. These adult children often find themselves deeply resentful, and they usually have a few very good reasons why.
Adults who resent their parents usually experienced these difficult things when they were kids
1. They didn't feel emotionally safe
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For children, emotional safety means knowing they can share their feelings and find support in their parents. Will the parents always do this perfectly? No. But the parents who create emotional safety and security are willing to apologize and work hard to create safety int eh future.
Rather than finding safety and security with their parents, both emotionally and physically, these kids feel the need to protect themselves against anger, emotional outbursts, and criticism. In adulthood, these tendencies can sabotage their ability to make and maintain healthy connections with others, from their professional life to their intimate personal one.
Even when expressing adult struggles and asking for advice from their parents later in life, kids who don't feel emotionally safe will never find the fulfillment they're yearning for from a family dynamic. Instead, they feel resentment, frustration, and consistent disappointment.
2. Their parents had unreliable or unhealthy boundaries
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While healthy parents take the time to acknowledge and uphold their adult children's boundaries, emotionally manipulative parents tend to sabotage them. This is usually part of a life-long pattern dating back to to the child's youth.
Not only did these parents actively overstep, they often actively tried to gaslight their own kids into thinking the behavior was normal. As the kids grow up, they realize how dysfunctional it really was and can become deeply resentful.
Once they are able to, these adult kids often set very strong boundaries with their parents that cause further problems until the parents become willing to take responsibility for their past choices.
3. They were pressured into spending all their time with their parents
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Adults who resent their parents may have been forced to appear like a perfect family or spend a lot of intensive, quality time together. While family time is important and can actually help kids thrive, when parents force their kids to give up normal, healthy social activities and developmentally appropriate dating and friendships, resentment is bound to grow.
This often translates into controlling behavior from the parents even when their kids grow up. They guilt-trip and pressure their children into spending time with them using guilt trips and other manipulative tactics that only cause more problems.
Of course, every parent wants to spend time with their grown kids, but a healthier way to do it is to plan out time together and compromise so everyone's needs are met.
4. Their parents talked negatively behind their back
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A great deal of the resentment that adult children harbor towards their parents starts early in life, when their parents consistently dismiss their needs or fail to be emotionally supportive. It's even more damaging when a parent talks badly about their kid or makes fun of them in front of others.
Not only do these kids tend to learn anxious and avoidant behaviors in response to true vulnerability, they learn to safeguard their own emotions and struggle to trust others. Their parents weren't a safe place to land, and sometimes became the people they needed safety and protection from, instead.
Gossip can quickly sabotage trust in a relationship, urging adult kids to fall back into the "fight or flight" responses they were forced to adopt as kids. Even if it's with other family members or friends, a parent's tendency to spread rumors and criticize their kids is just as toxic in conversations together as it is behind their back.
5. Their parents wanted them to be little clones of themselves
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Too many parents expect their kids to become exactly like them, and are then shocked and horrified to discover their kids are actually their own, unique human beings. Often, when these kids develop differing political or social beliefs, their parents are cruel and try to shame them for it.
Not only is this generational gap in societal opinions and values causing more disconnect between family members, it's also keeping families from making peace and healing resentment from the past.
That's just one reason why adult kids who resent their parents once often feel disconnected from them. They no longer are willing to feel guilty for expressing their opinions and feelings.
6. They never felt safe talking about past experiences
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According to a study published in Development and Psychopathology, many children learn to internalize their uncomfortable emotions and experiences from a young age. Often this is done to keep the peace in the home or simply to protect themselves from their parents' scorn.
When they enter adulthood, with resources to heal and learn from their childhood experiences and trauma, these repressed feelings to come to the surface. Healthy parents, while they may not agree with or share the same experiences as their kids, take the time to support and acknowledge these feelings, rather than shame them away.
Those who resent their parents are often met with resistence and devensiveness. They feel blamed and guilted by their parents with phrases like, "Oh, I did the best I could," or, "You didn't seem that unhappy at the time" instead of simply accepting how their kids feel.
7. Their accomplishments went unnoticed
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When parents refuse to acknowledge or even simply gloss over their kids' accomplishments and success, it can cause lasting damage to the relationship. Often this is amplified by the parents focusing on mistakes and problems, instead.
Emotionally immature and manipulative parents may even actively try to sabotage their kids' success, hoping to boost their own self-esteem. Not only does this spark further disconnect and resentment, it's one of the reasons why kids who can't stand their parents once they grow up tend to cut off contact completely.
Yes, parents of young kids need to hold them accountable for mistakes and guide them to make better choices, but if they don't balance corrections and criticism with a lot of support and positive feedback, their relationship will likely suffer long into the future.
8. They never felt safe communicating with their parents
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Many adult children may struggle to form healthy relationships founded on open communication in their adult lives, largely due to their childhood experiences. If their parents didn't model healthy communication, it can be hard to learn it later.
According to a study published in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, kids who were forced to compensate for an emotionally immature parent enter into adulthood with less healthy communication skills.
Not only were they not awarded the opportunity to learn the foundational social skills required for healthy, fulfilling relationships later in life, they were forced to put their needs aside for the benefit of their parent's ego, happiness, or comfort.
Not being able to adequately communicate can lead to a lot of unproductive conflict and resentment that fuels kids to take space or remain in conflict with their parents once they become adults.
9. Their parents never took accountability
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According to research from Smith College, many toxic parents with narcissistic tendencies sabotage their relationships with their adult children by failing to take accountability for their hurtful language and actions. Sadly, that's just part of a pattern going back to childhood where their parents never apologized, no matter how badly they screwed up.
Even if it's simply acknowledging a child's struggle from childhood and supporting them with their emotions, toxic parents would prefer to play the victim and blame-shift than apologize and focus on growth.
Many of the adult kids who resent their parents simply get tired of having to parent their own elder family members. They get tired of always being the one to take the blame. And can you blame them?
10. Their parents were jealous of them
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While it might be hard to address or acknowledge, parental jealousy towards adult children isn't entirely uncommon, at least according to experts like licensed psychotherapist Barton Goldsmith. Even worse, these parents use their children to seek solace in their own uncomfortable feelings, manipulating them and keeping them miserable, too.
Just like any other insecure and externally validated person, they want to share their hurt with others, even at the expense of a healthy relationship. Once their kids are older, they may try to sabotage their relationships or even prevent them from heading off to college or into a career that might earn their kids accolades.
Once these kids grow up and realize what their parents were doing, they're often so resentful, they need space to finally start healing.
11. Their parents tracked them obsessively
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It's normal for parents to want to know where their young kids are at all times. That's part of keeping them safe. But as kids get older, they earn more autonomy and freedom. This freedom helps them grow into competent and confident young adults.
But parents who obsessively monitored their kids while doing age-appropriate independent activities or who obsessively tracked and followed their teens often do the opposite of what they hoped. Often, they push their kids further away.
Worse, this behavior often continues into adulthood. Whether it's unannounced visits or a constant stream of phone calls, kids who grow into resentful adults are often overwhelmed by the guilt and shame while also knowing that it's not healthy and aching for more appropriate levels of separation.
12. Their parents refused to express gratitude
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Not only are overbearing and overprotective parents often unapologetic, they often refused to say "thank you" to their kids or show any gratitude whatsoever for the things that went right.
Often, these kids developed people-pleasing behaviors around their parents early in life, seeking validation and praise when attention was scarce. As they grow up, they notice how odd this behavior by their parents really was, and may even ask their parents to make a change.
Unfortunately, many parents simply don't feel grateful and don't understand the value showing gratitude, even when their adult kids explain how much resentment this causes.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.
