I was folding laundry the other night when Ellie wandered in, dragging her favorite blanket behind her. “Mama, were you scared when you became a parent?” she asked. The question caught me off guard—the kind only a five-year-old asks at eight o’clock on a Tuesday.
The truth? Terrified. But I also had time to prepare. I’d read the books, taken the classes, worked through my own childhood patterns in therapy. Not everyone gets that chance. Some people become parents before they’ve finished growing up themselves, and their children bear the weight of that unreadiness.
Looking back at my own upbringing in that small Midwest town, I can see now what I couldn’t then—my parents did their best, but they weren’t quite ready for the emotional complexity of raising kids. My mother’s anxiety seeped into everything, and my father’s emotional distance left gaps I’m still learning to fill.
If you experienced certain things as a child, you might have been raised by people who simply weren’t prepared for parenthood. Not because they didn’t love you, but because they hadn’t done the inner work necessary to show up fully.
1) Your emotions were treated as inconvenient
Remember crying as a kid and being told to stop immediately? Or feeling scared about something and hearing “there’s nothing to be afraid of” instead of comfort?
When parents aren’t emotionally ready, children’s feelings become problems to solve rather than experiences to honor. The parent needs the child to be okay so they can be okay.
I see this sometimes at the park. A kid falls, starts crying, and the parent rushes over with “you’re fine, you’re fine!” before even checking if that’s true. The message lands clear: your feelings make me uncomfortable.
As noted by clinical psychologist Lindsay C. Gibson, “Growing up in a family with emotionally immature parents is a lonely experience. These parents may look and act perfectly normal, caring for their child’s physical health and providing meals and safety. However, if they don’t make a solid emotional connection with their child, the child will have a gaping hole where true security might have been.”
With Ellie and Milo, I practice something different. When Milo throws himself on the floor because I gave him the wrong color cup, I sit down next to him. “I hear you. You’re really upset about that cup.” I don’t need him to stop feeling big feelings. I just need him to know I’m here while he has them.
2) You became the parent to your parent
Did you find yourself comforting your mother when she was sad? Keeping secrets to protect your father’s feelings? Managing your behavior to keep the peace in the house?
Role reversal is exhausting for children. They’re constantly monitoring the emotional temperature of the home, adjusting themselves to maintain stability. That’s not childhood—that’s survival.
I learned this early. My mother would get so anxious about money, about what the neighbors thought, about everything. I’d find myself at ten years old reassuring her that things would be okay. Looking back, that wasn’t my job.
Now when I’m having a hard day, I don’t burden Ellie with it. She’ll notice I’m quieter than usual—kids always do—but I keep it age-appropriate. “Mama’s feeling a little tired today, but I’m taking care of myself. Want to help me water the plants? That always makes me feel better.”
3) Mistakes were met with shame instead of guidance
Unprepared parents often react to children’s mistakes from their own fear rather than responding with wisdom. They haven’t learned to separate a child’s behavior from their own sense of competence as a parent.
So when you spilled milk, broke something, or made a poor choice, it became about them. Their frustration, their disappointment, their worry about what it said about their parenting.
The kids who grow up this way learn to hide mistakes. They become perfectionists or people-pleasers, terrified of messing up because the emotional fallout is too much to bear.
Last week Milo dumped an entire container of flour on the kitchen floor. My first instinct was frustration—I’d just mopped. But I took a breath and got down to his level. “Wow, that made a big mess, huh? Let’s clean it up together. Next time, can you ask Mama before opening containers?”
He nodded, we cleaned together, and that was it. No shame. No lecture. Just a natural consequence and a clear boundary for next time.
4) Your needs came second to keeping up appearances
How things looked mattered more than how things felt. The house had to be perfect. You had to behave in public. Family problems stayed hidden behind closed doors.
Parents who prioritize image over authenticity are usually dealing with their own deep insecurity. They need external validation because they lack internal confidence.
I remember my mother scrubbing the house before anyone visited, her anxiety spiking if I left toys out. Dinner together every night, but we never talked about anything real. We looked like the perfect family from the outside.
With my own kids, I’m working hard to value realness over perfection. Yes, our house gets messy. Yes, sometimes we eat scrambled eggs for dinner. Yes, Ellie sometimes has a meltdown at the farmers’ market. We’re learning as we go, and that’s okay.
5) Boundaries were either nonexistent or rigid
Prepared parents understand that boundaries are about safety and respect, not control. They’re flexible enough to bend when needed while remaining firm on what truly matters.
Unprepared parents swing between extremes. Either there are no boundaries at all—chaos, inconsistency, the child constantly testing to find where the limits are—or the boundaries are ironclad and arbitrary. “Because I said so” becomes the answer to everything.
Neither approach helps children develop their own internal compass for decision-making.
My parents leaned toward rigid. There were rules for everything, and questioning them was seen as disrespect. I’ve had to consciously learn a different way—boundaries that make sense, that I can explain, that serve a real purpose.
When Ellie asks why she can’t have screen time before breakfast, I explain: “Your brain does better when it has food and connection first. After we eat and play outside, then we can watch something together.”
6) Your accomplishments were either ignored or turned into pressure
Did your parents barely notice when you did well? Or did they celebrate in ways that felt more about them than you, adding pressure to keep achieving?
Emotionally unprepared parents struggle to separate their children’s experiences from their own ego. Your success becomes proof of their parenting. Your struggle becomes their failure.
This creates kids who either stop trying (what’s the point?) or become achievement addicts, constantly seeking external validation they never got at home.
I watch this play out at Ellie’s preschool sometimes. One mother barely glanced at her daughter’s painting. Another went overboard, already planning how it would look framed in the living room, talking about getting it professionally photographed. The little girl’s face went from proud to anxious in seconds.
When Ellie shows me her creations—usually involving way too much glitter and tape—I focus on her process, not my judgment. “Tell me about this part. What were you thinking when you made this?” Her joy in creating matters more than whether it belongs in a museum.
7) They couldn’t apologize or admit mistakes
This one’s huge. Parents who aren’t ready for the responsibility refuse to acknowledge when they’ve messed up. They see apology as weakness, admission of error as loss of authority.
But children need to see adults model accountability. How else will they learn it?
I grew up in a house where apologies from parents simply didn’t happen. If my dad overreacted, we just moved on like nothing occurred. If my mother said something hurtful, I was supposed to understand she was “just stressed.”
With my own kids, I’ve had to practice something I never witnessed. Last week I snapped at Ellie because I was overwhelmed, and it had nothing to do with what she’d asked me. Later, after I’d calmed down, I apologized. “I’m sorry I used that tone with you. I was feeling stressed about something else, but that’s not your fault. You didn’t deserve that.”
Her little face softened. “It’s okay, Mama. Sometimes I get grumpy too.”
8) Love felt conditional on your behavior
The most damaging pattern—when children sense that parental love depends on being “good enough.”
Unprepared parents often replicate the conditional love they received. They withdraw affection when children misbehave, use love as leverage to control behavior, or praise only accomplishments while ignoring the child’s inherent worth.
This creates adults who struggle to believe they’re lovable just as they are. They become chameleons, constantly adjusting themselves to earn love and approval from others.
Every night at bedtime, I tell both my kids the same thing: “Nothing you do will make me love you less.” Some nights I add details—”Even when I get frustrated with your choices, I still love you completely. Even when you make mistakes. Even when you’re having a hard time.”
I want them to know, bone-deep, that my love isn’t something they have to earn or maintain. It just is.
9) Your physical needs were met but emotional ones weren’t
This one’s subtle but profound. You had food, shelter, clothing—all the basics. But you felt emotionally alone.
Parents who aren’t ready often focus entirely on tangible needs because emotional ones require self-awareness they haven’t developed. They can’t attune to feelings they’ve never processed in themselves.
You might have had everything you needed materially while starving emotionally. And because it looked fine from the outside, you might have felt guilty for feeling empty.
I think about this when I’m tempted to give the kids another toy or treat instead of what they’re really asking for—connection. Milo doesn’t need a new truck. He needs me to sit on the floor and build a tower with him. Ellie doesn’t need more craft supplies. She needs me to listen while she tells me her elaborate stories about the fairy kingdom in our backyard.
Stuff is easy. Presence is hard. But presence is what they’ll remember.
10) They couldn’t handle your growing independence
As you got older and started developing your own opinions, interests, and identity, did your parents react with fear, control, or rejection?
Unprepared parents often see their children’s individuation as abandonment or betrayal. They need their kids to remain dependent because it serves some emotional need of their own.
This shows up as dismissing your interests, mocking your opinions, making you feel guilty for spending time away from family, or punishing normal developmental steps toward independence.
Healthy parents celebrate growth, even when it’s bittersweet. They know their job is to raise adults, not keep children small forever.
I’m practicing this already, even though mine are still little. When Ellie asserts her preferences—wants to pick her own clothes, chooses different games than I’d choose, has ideas about how to arrange her room—I step back. This is good. This is her becoming her own person. My job is to support that, not squash it.
Healing and moving forward
If you recognized your childhood in these patterns, I want you to know something: it wasn’t your fault. Children cannot create these dynamics. They can only respond to them.
The work now is figuring out who you are underneath all those survival strategies you developed. What do you actually think, feel, want? What patterns are you unconsciously repeating?
I’ve been reading Rudá Iandê’s Laughing in the Face of Chaos, and his insights about inherited programming really struck me. He writes that “being human means inevitably disappointing and hurting others, and the sooner you accept this reality, the easier it becomes to navigate life’s challenges.”
That’s been huge for me in parenting—accepting that I will mess up, and that’s okay. What matters is repair. What matters is continuing to grow. What matters is breaking the patterns that don’t serve my kids.
Some days I get it right. Some days I sound exactly like my mother and have to consciously course-correct. That’s the work. Noticing. Pausing. Choosing something different.
Conclusion
Matt came home yesterday and found me sitting at the kitchen table staring into space, Milo playing at my feet. “You okay?” he asked.
I was thinking about all of this—about the ways my parents weren’t ready, about the ways I’m working to be different, about the inevitable ways I’ll still mess up despite my best efforts.
“Yeah,” I told him. “Just thinking about how hard this is. And how worth it.”
Because here’s what I’ve learned: parenting reveals everything about you that’s unhealed. It surfaces all your childhood wounds, all your learned patterns, everything you’ve been avoiding. It’s uncomfortable and confronting and exhausting.
But it’s also the most powerful opportunity for growth I’ve ever had. Every time I choose to respond differently than my parents did, I’m healing something in myself while preventing that wound in my children. That’s generational change. That’s evolution.
If you were raised by unprepared parents, you get to decide what happens next. You can stay stuck in those patterns, or you can do the uncomfortable work of examining them, feeling them, and choosing something new.
Your children—or your future children, or the children in your life—deserve parents who’ve done that work. And you deserved it too.
