Why Some Borderline, Narcissistic and Histrionic Mothers Sabotage their Children
Why does my wife seem to always find fault with our children’s school and routinely insist on changing them? Why do my kids’ teachers look at me like I’m a serial killer when I attend parent teacher conferences? Maybe it’s all in my head, but why does it seem like my ex is deliberately trying to sabotage our children’s education? Why does my girlfriend insist on treating our pre-teen kids like they’re still babies?
Why does my wife feed our kids a steady diet of junk food? Does she want them to be obese? Why does my wife seem to take pleasure in telling me when our daughter misbehaves and gloat when I punish our daughter or become angry when she doesn’t think I’m being tough enough on our daughter? My ex allows our 12-year old daughter to sleep in the same bed with her. Is this healthy?
My husband’s ex-wife still hasn’t potty trained their son and puts him in pull-up diapers. He’s 14-years old. What the hell is going on? He doesn’t soil himself when he stays with us. My ex seems to get mad when I spend time with our kids and take them places or buy them little gifts or new school clothes. She acts as if she’s jealous of them. Is this possible?
Many men and women in my practice have made the above observations and asked the above questions. The subject of maternal sabotage is also one of the many common themes on the Shrink4Men Forum. It can be difficult to wrap one’s mind around this topic. What kind of a mother would deliberately try to sabotage her child’s intellectual, emotional, psychological, physical and moral development?
A bad one.
That’s a simplistic answer, but an accurate one. Sabotaging one’s own children is frequently a common trait of abusive personality disordered women and men specifically, borderline (BPD), narcissistic (NPD), histrionic (HPD), and dependent (DPD) personality disordered parents.
The cognitive dissonance this subject creates cannot be underestimated. Most parents want the best for their children. Good parents want to provide the best education possible for their kids and will move school districts, participate in lotteries and pay high tuition rates in order to obtain it. Good parents want their kids to thrive and grow up to be successful, independent adults. Most parents work hard to help their children become as or more successful than they are.
Then, there’s another kind of parent, oftentimes a borderline and/or narcissistic parent, who seems to deliberately sabotage their children’s education and development by regularly changing schools, not providing their kids with the stability and consistency that facilitates learning and good school performance, feeding their kids a poor diet, encouraging prolonged dependence on mommy, competing with their kids for attention and a host of other supremely unhealthy behaviors. Why do many BPDs/NPDs and other personality disordered parents do this?
Common reasons BPDs/NPDs and other personality disordered parents sabotage their children’s development:
1) Exposure. If and when the BPD/NPD parent has exposed her asshattery to a teacher(s), other parents, coaches and/or school administration, she may push to change the children’s school. One could argue that the BPD/NPD is embarrassed, but many of them appear to be quite shameless — and relentless. More likely, her mask of super mom, single martyr mom or victim of my POS ex-husband mom has slipped and she has revealed which parent is the actual problem.
After the BPD/NPD parent has exposed her difficult nature, she will often concoct some reason why the “children” need to change schools and get a “fresh start.” Once the teachers et al know the true source of the conflict, the BPD/NPD can no longer conduct smear campaigns and blame shifting nor can she control the narrative. Oftentimes, this is the real reason behind frequent and/or multiple school changes.
2) “Winning.” During and after a divorce or break-up, the BPD/NPD wants to “win,” which typically means inflicting maximum pain on you for “abandoning” her (even if she initiates the break up). Oftentimes, this individual weaponizes shared children and engages in parental alienation. She may also try to impoverish you by using the courts to extort as much child and spousal support as possible. She equates “winning” to hurting you and taking or destroying anything or anyone you care about or love and that includes the children.
For example, a former client’s ex is trying to block their eldest child from attending the best school in their area, which happens to be a free public school (grades are good enough and they won the lottery). Instead, the ex wants to keep the child in an expensive private school. Why? She manufactured some very lame reasons about it not being fair to their younger child if the older sibling is able to get a better education.
In reality, it’s about the ex gouging this guy for as much money as she can. Even if she doesn’t see a penny of it, she wants him to pay and keep paying. A BPD/NPD ex often equates the amount of money, child support and assets she can extort from you with her sense of worth. Additionally, this kind of individual does not seem to have any qualms about hurting the children in order to hurt you. As you probably already know, hurting the children is often the very best way to hurt you.
3) CONTROL. The BPD/NPD is the decider. She believes she is entitled to unilateral control over the children. She often sees the children as her property and you are expected to pay a Golden Uterus rental fee for the rest of your life. Even if the court awards joint decision making regarding schooling and medical issues, the BPD/NPD will typically do her best to withhold information and cut you out of all major and minor decision-making — that is until it’s time to pay the bills for her unilateral decisions. You are then expected to pony up. Immediately.
Ultimately, you may be at cross-purposes with a BPD/NPD ex. If you are advocating for the children’s best interests, she will be argue and push for the opposite. Why? To show you who is in control. And if the children get hurt as a result, she will blame you.
4) Children shouldn’t raise children. A BPD/NPD is often described as a child in an adult’s body. Emotionally and psychologically speaking, this is often true. These individuals can be incredibly immature and seem to be stuck at an early age of emotional development. Many of my clients who share a child with a BPD/NPD mother watch in amazement (and relief) as their children surpass their wives in emotional maturity, empathy and problem-solving skills.
There’s a reason our society frowns upon teenage pregnancy and teenage parents. Morality and religious beliefs about premarital sex aside, the simple fact of the matter is that children have not reached the optimal emotional maturity or intellectual capacity to be parents. The same is true of parents who are children in adult bodies. Personality disordered and/or emotionally immature parents frequently parentify their children (i.e., makes the child responsible for meeting the parent’s emotional and/or physical needs), which is a form of child abuse.
5) Sibling rivalry. A BPD/NPD mother is often jealous of her own children and sees them as competition for attention, love, admiration and resources. The possibility that her child may surpass her scholastically, in attractiveness, in popularity, in physical fitness, in athletic ability, etc., can be very threatening to a BPD/NPD mom. The opposite can also be true. For example, a mom who sees her child’s success as a reflection of her worth and pushes her child to succeed to the point of abuse (think Tiger Mom).
Sibling rivalry for one’s child can manifest in several ways. For example, your BPD/NPD wife “tattles” on the child and takes pleasure in watching you mete out punishment for misbehavior, a BPD/NPD sets up the child to get him/her into trouble, feeding the child a steady diet of fast food/junk food/processed foods to make the child fat so mom can seem skinnier and prettier in comparison (this is especially common with BPD/NPD mothers and daughters), having a scapegoat child and a “golden child” and pitting them against one another, becoming jealous when the child’s father (her ex) buys them new school clothes, takes them on vacation, to concerts and other special events and making anything that happens to child, good or bad, about her.
6) Bad role modeling. A BPD/NPD parent often lacks empathy, is entitled, rejects personal responsibility for her behaviors, engages in bullying and intimidation, is dishonest, has the relative morality of a small child, has chaotic and extremely dysfunctional relationships, has no sense of fair play and is completely self-obsessed. Enough said.
7) Fear of abandonment. A BPD’s/NPD’s fear of abandonment may take the form of infantilizing their children or one of their children. This is a particularly insidious form of abuse and, in some ways, is the opposite of child parentification. A parent who engages in infantilization is unable to tolerate her child’s developmental growth toward healthy independence. Whether it is the fear of abandonment or the need to be needed, an infantilizing parent is threatened by and acts to undermine the child’s age-appropriate emerging independence (Bogolub, 1984).
Benjamin D. Garber, PhD (2011) explains:
In the context of co-parental conflict, separation, or divorce, the infantilizing parent may experience the separation associated with the child’s time in the other parent’s care as a narcissistic injury (a loss of self) prompting depression, anger, and/or anxiety. These emotions are communicated to the child no matter the (court-ordered, therapist scripted) reassuring words that are spoken, fueling the child’s resistance or refusal to return to the other parent’s care. Like the parentified child, this child may feel responsible for the parent’s well-being in absentia, but not in a care giving capacity. Instead, the infantilized child is at least implicitly aware that his or her continuing dependency fulfills the enmeshed parent’s needs.
Oftentimes, children who are being infantilized may develop depression, anxiety, developmental delays and may even be misdiagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. In addition to meeting a BPD/NPD mom’s emotional needs, infantilizing a child to the point of debilitation can provide a BPD/NPD/HPD mom with attention (in the extreme form this could be Munchausen by Proxy), social status, money (e.g., state benefits or prolonged child support monies) and/or maintaining a connection to the father of the child post-divorce because the child has “special needs.”
I know of cases in which diagnosed and undiagnosed BPD/NPD moms allow children to regularly sleep in their beds well beyond an age that “co-sleeping” is appropriate; a mom who continues to allow her teen-aged child (who has no urological or bowel impairment) to wear pull-up diapers because it is “easier;” moms who use baby talk with their teenaged kids; moms who sabotage their children’s peer relationships, which results in the kids spending more time at home so mom isn’t alone; and a mom who has deliberately sabotaged her special needs adult child to the point where the adult child is in a near vegetative state in order to continue to collect state benefits for her care and is enabled by medical doctors in doing so.
The above list is by no means exhaustive. There are many other ways BPD/NPD and other personality disordered parents sabotage their children’s educational, psychological, physical and moral development. The information contained in this article is just one of the reasons I cringe when I hear a client or forum member claim, “Yes, she’s abusive to me, but she’s a good mom.” It is my opinion that individuals with these personality disorders are constitutionally incapable of truly being good parents and this article provides a sampling of just how destructive these kinds of parents can be.
What ways have you observed your wife, girlfriend, ex or husband’s ex sabotage her children?
Citations:
Bogolub, E. (1984). Symbiotic mothers and infantilized only children: A subtype of single-parent family. Child and Adolescent
Social Work Journal, 1, 89–101.
Garber, B.D. (2011). Parental alienation and the dynamics of the enmeshed parent-child dyad: Adultification, parentification and infantilization. Family Court Review, Vol. 49, 2, 322-335.
Shrink4Men Coaching and Consulting Services:
Dr Tara J. Palmatier provides confidential, fee-for-service, consultation/coaching services to help both men and women work through their relationship issues via telephone and/or Skype chat. Her practice combines practical advice, support, reality testing and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Shrink4Men Services page for professional inquiries.
102 Responses to “Why Some Borderline, Narcissistic and Histrionic Mothers Sabotage their Children”
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ALL OF THE ABOVE!!!!!
Yikes. All of them?
The woman we have to deal with loves going into her MOTY (Mother Of The Year) act. Unfortunately she can only sustain it for a couple of months at a time. She will claim that she puts many hours into helping the child study. So, when the child fails a test? It’s because the child is special needs. It’s because the classes need to be made easier. It’s because there is too much information for the child to absorb. It’s certainly not because the mother is lying through her teeth. What she is doing is making the child and the teachers think that the child is incapable of learning. She will gladly destroy her child’s self esteem to keep her illusion of being MOTY.
Blame shifters rarely take responsibility. It’s not surprising that this woman is shifting the blame to her own child or the teacher or a deadbeat dad. Oh no, the fault couldn’t lie with the person who has physical custody the majority of the time. Is there a father or a father figure in the home, Shadowkitty?
Interesting you should ask about a father figure or father being in the home. The mother hasn’t come to terms with her own sexual identity yet. She was heterosexual for her 2 failed marriages. Then she decided that she was a lesbian and engaged in relationships with women for the last 10 years. These women of course lived with the mother. Mother has now swung back to being hetero and has introduced a male into her kids life. The kid is 12 years old.
Due to living 4 hours apart, father had kid 2 weekends a month. As well as 8 weeks in summer. A Family Court Judge recently decided that the 4 hour drive is not “fun” for the kid and father’s time has been reduced to 1 weekend a month.
I’m speechless, but not surprised. Wow.
This article made me want to cry…or puke…or maybe both. My husband and I sit by today and watch the effects of a crazy BPD mom has on her kids….she has destroyed all of them and is completing her job on the last one, as I type. The kids have been so conditioned over the years, they can’t even “see” it. Regardless of the direction their dad gives them, they go back to “mom’s ways” and continue to self-destruct. I’m amazed at the power “insanity” has over innocent victims.
That’s tragic, APSmom.
I don’t know, but suspect that it seems “easier” to go through life blaming others rather than taking responsibility for oneself. The “kids” seem to be following in their mother’s footsteps, refusing to grow-up.
Apsmom
Sorry apsmom,,I’ll start again,I am in that same tragic boat.What you have said is right on the spot.All your feelings are the same as mine and it is just so sad that we are rendered so helpless.I have looked into that so called mother’s eyes..it is not insanity it is pure evil..what mother will force her 3 year old little girl to say that she is a liar.She told her daddy that the mother was hitting and spitting at the new boyfriend,the daddy then just asked the mother to refrain from fighting in front of his daughter.That is when she made the little one sit in front of a video cam and screamed at her to tell her daddy that she is a liar and that it wasn’t true.
not insanity but pure evil.
How did you know about “fresh start”?? My X CB falsely accused the owner of my DD’s Montessori of having a DUI. I asked the owner about that and they in turn almost sued the X CB for it. I encouraged them to do so, even telling them that I would gladly send them the email I had of the accusation.
After this happened, wouldn’t you know the X CB wants to take our DD out of one of the top schools in the city so she and our DD can have a “fresh start”. I kid you not those are the exact words and excuse she used.
How you get into the heads of these crazy people I’ll never know Dr. T, but you sure know your stuff!
How did I know about fresh start (sounds like a laundry detergent)? Several of my clients, several friends and several online acquaintances have experienced this.
Individuals like this don’t just do this with school. After they expose their ugly sides, they flee the scene, shake their Etch-a-Sketch brains and presto! They left the school, etc., for some contrived reason and not because people were getting wise to them.
“What ways have you observed your wife, girlfriend, ex or husband’s ex sabotage her children?”
All of the above!
Tomorrow, when I have the time, I’ll elaborate. This article couldn’t have come at a more propitious time for me, and it confirms to minute detail what I have already speculated to be the reason(s) for all of my CBx’s bizarre and horribly destructive treatment of our children.
Hi Swan Song,
I can only imagine what else your ex has done. If I recall, the ex has successfully alienated your adult daughter. How are things with your son?
Whoa, just a clarification. I am the dad and doing the nuturing. It’s the mom that keeps my daughter from soccer and other school activities.
Wrong reply
Postedin the wrong place sorry Wrong reply
I fought two years for a separation agreement that included the right for me to pick my daughter up from school one day a week.
Clearly mom didn’t want me ‘interfering’ in our child’s education. Not only did she start our daughter in Catholic school against my wishes (the woman hasn’t set foot in a church for 25 years) mom has also definitely done her best to make sure I do not know about meet the teacher days, see report cards, or miss out on participating in other school goings on.
The weekly contact with teachers has been invaluable as I can explain/work with them to help them understand that not only is my daughter’s ‘behaviour’ issues directly related to not eating properly and staying up too late on school nights I can also impress upon them to demand/expect more from my daughter as she is capable of so much more.
Now In Grade 2 I am the only parent who goes to school – mom doesn’t even show up for meet the teacher night. It is a small school so the message is getting through loud and clear to all the staff about mom.
I would say to any father out there find the time and make the effort to be involved in your child’s education as much as possible – it will make a difference how your children do and most importantly how the teachers perceive your child.
Excellent advice, Lebrocq. The more involved you are with your kids’ educations the better. It takes real commitment and effort, which is something many of these perpetual children can only feign for so long.
Build your own relationships with teachers, coaches and other parents. First, this mitigates any gamesmanship the ex may try to engage in (withholding information about education) and second, it really is in the best interests of the kids.
Think about it. How many of you reading this have exes who have college degrees yet refuse to work, refuse to advance themselves and refuse to support themselves, and instead sit at home and/or act as a glorified taxi driver for the kids shuttling them from activity to activity (that they have over-enrolled them in) whilst pitching entitlement tantrums? These are not “adults” who should be stewarding the children’s education.
What are they going to teach them? How to grow up to be an entitled do nothing brat just like mommy who lives off the money she extorts from her exes? Why judges give this type of mother decision making power over their kids’ schooling is beyond me.
Great article Dr T and nice reply Lebrocq. I’ve gone back and read the 2009 articles on this subject especially this one: http://shrink4men.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/is-being-a-stay-at-home-mom-fair-to-your-husband/
This blog post is very near and dear to my heart as I see the sabotaging behaviors emerging.
If the ex has NPD this article would give me the clearest indication she has, could identify with all of the above … My children because of age difference attend two different schools, both schools know to call me if they are sick, in five years she has never once picked them up, she tells the school admin to phone “him” … or if they are having difficulties with school programmes I get the call, for all with suspected disordered ex partners their veil of normality comes unhinged fairly quickly if you are persistent, so if needed, force your way into your childrens education, it has paid of for my four and myself.
It really is a cornerstone article Dr T thank you for taking care and your time to put it together for all who suffer …
She continues to deny me as having relevance in the childrens lives, she constantly tells the children that my parents should not be referred to as Grand ma and Grand dad, she never once celebrated my birthday with the children or fathers day during the marriage, but my persistence has paid off there also, I would always celebrate these dates and my children have lovely memories …
So please Ladies or Gents don’t give in to “the crazy” …
Hi John,
Thank you. You’re very kind. Good job re: insisting to be involved in your children’s education. It really is so very important. Studies show kids do better academically (and in just about every other life facet) when their fathers are involved.
“A BPD/NPD parent often lacks empathy, is entitled, rejects personal responsibility for her behaviors, engages in bullying and intimidation, is dishonest, has the relative morality of a small child, has chaotic and extremely dysfunctional relationships, has no sense of fair play and is completely self-obsessed. Enough said.”
That sums it up very well for me although I might take issue with “has the relative morality of a small child”. I see few children (well, maybe my one cousin) Hell bent on scorched-earth revenge for perceived minor slights, consumed by hate, and taking action purely intended to hurt.
My ex does all of the above. My daughter starts her third season of soccer where she will not be attending games on the weekends when my ex has her. I once asked my daughter what he did over the weekend. She said, “Nothing. I got to wear my pajamas all day”. Well yippee!
Good point, playmisty. I’m sorry your daughter has a father who is not nurturing her abilities and talents. Keep offering her an alternative. She needs it.
I’ll add one more that I suspect for the Mom who doesn’t want to or won’t work.
One way to justify not working is that the kids have so many special needs that keeping up with all of them is a full-time job — making appointments, shuttling to appointments, arguing with insurance companies, making sure the schools are responding appropriately, etc. If mom is working, who will do all this? You mean, you, the slacker husband and dad who is a slacker because you didn’t unload the dishwasher exactly as I would have you do it?
Mine also has a bit of a hero complex that she likes seeing herself as the sole person who can recognize the depth of and severity of a problem in a world of people who would prefer to keep their heads in the sand and deny anything is wrong. So seeing every misbehavior as a sign of some deeper problem requiring vast professional attention feeds right into that.
Then, if something is found, she can tell the story of herself as the lone warrior mama willing to take on the system and people who thought she was crazy (including me) to get to the bottom of it. Never mind that it’s my job and insurance that enables her to get all these tests and appointments done…
It never ceases to amaze me how many of these posts seem like a page out of my own diary. Sometimes I think I should check for cameras in my house!
My wife does the same “Lone hero” routine. Battling to get our daughter help from all the teachers that don’t care. Never seems to occur to her that lack of sleep from letting an 8 year old stay up until 1:00AM on school nights might have something to do with it! This has been going on for years with me being the bad guy when I fight with her to fix the issue. She also does the same “can’t work because who will help our struggling daughter with her studies routine…
I could just go on and on with examples that would curl your hair…but I suspect you guys have probably heard it all before or worse….i am starting to get to the end of my rope.
Agree. Its a Munchausen-by-Proxy Syndrome on the emotional and psychological levels. I’ll post about what I’ve lived through in a moment, but you’re definitely right on with your comments AnonDad.
My wife’s mother is the super-responsible “sufferer” who treated my wife’s father terribly…He drank the whole time and the children picked up on the habit which she encouraged every way she could so she could play the “victim” of children with “problems”….One of the “children” will probably never grow out of it.
I never IMAGINED anything like this before being witness to it.
…and she also turned the adult children against each other every chance she got….making up lies, withholding information, or anything she could to do so.
All so none would get together and “catch on” I’m sure…Also a MOTY player.
I was trying to get motivated to do a blog on this general subject after reading the archives from 2009 on this subject! Dr. T did an oh so much better job than I would have.