Before you argue that the narcissist you knew loved their kids, hear me out. There is a difference between love and obsession with control, between bonding and possessiveness. Narcissists do not love babies for who they are; they love what babies do for them. Babies are a goldmine of narcissistic supply. Think about it: if a baby makes you their favorite person, it’s like winning the emotional lottery. You get all their attention; they reach out to you, light up when you walk in the room, and feel terrified without you. They need you desperately. All of this makes the narcissist feel super powerful, important, and superior. It is the ultimate ego boost.
But the moment that baby stops acting like a doll—when they cry, throw a tantrum, make a face, express rage, or refuse to be held—the narcissist’s mask slips. What once made them feel adored now feels like rejection, and when that happens, the baby gets punished. This punishment isn’t always obvious, but it is there: the withdrawal of affection, the cold shoulder, the silent treatment, or worse, a sudden aggressive outburst. The devastating part is that the child does not even know what’s happening. They do not understand conditional love; they internalize it and think they are the problem. That is how lifelong complex trauma begins.
A child who was once held with pride suddenly becomes too much. They start working hard to earn love that should have been unconditional. They begin self-sacrificing, shutting down their own needs just to be accepted again. That is not parenting; that is emotional enslavement. For many of us raised by narcissists, this cycle never stopped. My mother was the textbook covert narcissist. She adored babies in public, smiling and fussing over them, calling them her angels. But underneath it was a need to be worshipped. She needed that baby to be obsessed with her. If the baby showed any preference toward someone else, it was seen as betrayal. She would sulk and find ways to reestablish dominance. Her love wasn’t love; it was smothering control. The baby was an accessory, an emotional performance.
Now take my father, an overt grandiose narcissist, the kind who walks around with pride and disgust in the same breath. He couldn’t even pretend to love babies; he saw them as weak, needy, and inconvenient. When I was born, several people told me he didn’t even bother to come see me for the first month. As a grown-up, I have seen the look on his face when handling babies—disgust, irritation, emotional constipation. It wasn’t that he didn’t care; he could not care because babies bring out something narcissists avoid at all costs: vulnerability. With babies, the mask falls. You can’t charm a baby into liking you; you can’t gaslight a baby or intimidate them into silence. You either show up with real presence, or you do not. Narcissists cannot handle that level of rawness, so they withdraw or, worse, they mock. They scowl and devalue.
Number Three: Old People
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