Toxic Parent Quotes for Awareness & Healing
These quotes about toxic parents are eye-opening and emotional.
People often think of their parents as being the most important people in their lives. They are the ones who we rely on for support, love, and guidance throughout our lives. So what happens when our parents are anything but supportive? What happens when they are toxic?
Well, toxic parents can be incredibly damaging to their children. They often use emotional manipulation and abuse in order to control their children. This can leave children feeling insecure, unsupported, and alone.
What are the signs of toxic parents?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the signs of toxic parents can vary from person to person. However, some common signs of toxic parents may include:
- Feeling like you are never good enough for them,
- Feeling unsupported or alone,
- Being emotionally manipulated or abused,
- Having a strained relationship with your parents,
- Experiencing physical or mental health problems as a result of your relationship with your parents,
- Having their beliefs forced on to you,
- Not being able to speak up for yourself.
A common sign is when parents are overly selfish and narcissistic.
If you are experiencing any of these signs, it is important to reach out for help. Talk to someone you trust about what is going on, and find resources to help you deal with your situation. You are not alone, and there is help out there.
The following quotes about toxic parents may help to put into words how you are feeling or help to increase awareness on what might be going on.
Toxic Parent Quotes
“Dysfunctional parents let their children know how burdened they have been by their children and how many sacrifices they had to make in order to raise them.” Dr Marita Sirota
“It has been my observation that parents kill more dreams than anybody.” Spike Lee
“What lingers from the parent’s individual past, unresolved or incomplete, often becomes part of her or his irrational parenting.” Virginia Satir
“People tend to raise the child inside of them rather than the child in front of them.” Joe Newman
“It is a violation of trust to use your kids as caulking for the cracks in you.” Anne Lamott
“The toxic parent sees the child as a threat to their own ego and having the child overshadow the parent is not an option in their mind.” Shannon Thomas
“Many toxic parents compare one sibling unfavorably with another to make the target child feel that he’s not doing enough to gain parental affection.” Dr. Susan Forward
“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
“If your parents ignored you, or if they are just not emotionally available, or if they yell a lot, that is a type of trauma.” Tucker Max
“When you grieve toxic, abusive parents, you don’t just grieve the abuse, you grieve everything you didn’t have.” Lily Hope Lucario
Quotes About Toxic Parents
“No child should ever have to bear the burden of parenting their own parents. To toxic parents, you existed to serve them all the time.” Kim Saeed
“The hateful and stinging words of a narcissistic parent can linger in the mind of an adult child long after the adult has left home.” Shannon Thomas
“The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are, a subtle kind of murder.” Jim Morrison
“Wherever there is a major deficit in parental love, the child will—in all likelihood—respond to the deficit by assuming itself to be the cause of the deficit, thereby developing an unrealistically negative self-image.” Sherrie Campbell
“Getting angry when something about their behaviour is challenged in the nicest way, is a typical reaction of a narcissistic parent.” Diana Macey
“Parental alienation is an emotional act of violence that is aimed at an adult, but critically wounds a child.” Steve Maraboli
Letting Go of Toxic Parent Quotes
“In order for parents to be present to and suffer with their children, their children need three simple things from them: time, love, and attention. Toxic parents provide none of these things, certainly not in any healthy ways.” Sherrie Campbell
“The ones that love us least, are the ones we’ll die to please.” Paul Westerberg
“Many children of toxic parents find it exceptionally difficult to identify who they are once they grow up.” JR Thorpe
“Narcissist parents don’t care about their children’s feelings at all. Only their feelings matter.” Kim Saeed
“A lot of parents will do anything for their kids except let them be themselves.” Banksy
“A child’s shoulders were not built to bear the weight of their parent’s choices.” Toby Mac
“Too bad for any parent who has become accustomed to ruling by force, because at some point the kids just get too big to slap around.” Barbara Ehrenreich
“In some sense every parent does love their children. But some parents are too broken to love them well.” Paul Young
“Enmeshment creates almost total dependence on approval and validation from outside yourself. Lovers, bosses, friends, even strangers become the stand-in for parents. Adults like Kim who were raised in families where there was no permission to be an individual frequently become approval junkies, constantly seeking their next fix.” Susan Forward
“I was worthy of her love whether she gave it to me or not. Every child is worthy of love.” Richard Paul Evans
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