From the moment we’re born, we look up to our parents. They’re the ones who know everything, the ones who teach us how life works. As kids, we love them unconditionally, without question. It never even occurs to us that they might not always get it right.

We don’t think for one moment that they could be showing us the wrong way because we trust them completely. But when it comes to emotionally immature parents, just because they have you doesn’t always mean they are a mature, functioning adult. Some people stay emotionally stunted forever, and unfortunately, it’s the kids who pay the price. A Parent’s immaturity has a way of harming kids’ mental health as they grow, and it may have affected you more than you think.

Here’s what happens when the people who were supposed to guide you through life never figured it out themselves.

1. You Grew Up Parenting Your Parents—You’re Not Even Sure What Childhood Is Supposed to Feel Like

This is known as parentification, and it’s exactly as messed up as it sounds.

While other kids were playing tag, you were de-escalating your mom’s latest meltdown or figuring out why Dad disappeared for three days. Instead of being raised, you were a tiny therapist, mediator, and emotional punching bag all in one.

Now, as an adult, you may exist in two extremes: either you’re a hyper-responsible control freak who plans vacations down to the minute, or you’re desperately chasing the carefree childhood you never had by making reckless, dopamine-fueled decisions. Sometimes both, depending on the week.

2. You’re Either Terrified of or Obsessed With Your Gender 

Some kids grow up with parents who love and nurture them. Others grow up with parents who treat them like competition. Some emotionally immature parents see their kids as competition, not family. Mothers turn against daughters, fathers resent their sons. It’s primal and petty.

Psychology Today points out this is especially common with narcissistic mothers who treat their daughters like threats rather than, you know, their own children. The result? You either grow up fearing people of your own gender or constantly seeking their approval, trapped in an endless loop of trying to prove you’re “worthy.”

3. When You’ve Spent Your formative years taking care of Your Parents You Either Rushed Into Parenthood or Avoid It Like the Plague

When you’ve spent your formative years taking care of your parents, you either double down or say, “Hell no, not doing this again.”

Some people raised by emotionally immature parents become parents young, falling into familiar roles and repeating the cycle—sometimes unknowingly. Others treat parenting like it’s a haunted house—something to avoid at all costs because they know what a bad childhood feels like.

Even if you do have kids, you probably obsess over doing the exact opposite of what was done to you. Maybe too much. You don’t just break the cycle—you take a sledgehammer to it, because you know what it’s like to be the collateral damage of someone else’s emotional mess.

4. You Suffer From Self-Abandonment Without Even Realizing It

As a kid, you learned that keeping the peace meant erasing yourself. You sacrificed your mental health, your physical well-being, and your emotional safety just to make sure the adults around you didn’t completely implode. And now? That pattern sticks.

You work yourself to exhaustion, skipping meals and sleep because failure isn’t an option. Or maybe in relationships, you bend over backwards, becoming a contortionist for love, constantly proving your worth. This leads to toxic relationships and burnout, and the only way out is to start prioritizing yourself like your life depends on it—because it kind of does.

5. You Have an Unhealthy Relationship with Control

Maybe not all the fallout from emotionally stunted parents is bad. Some of it turned you into a stone-cold survivalist. Now, you compensate by keeping a white-knuckle grip on everything you can. You adapt. You problem-solve. You lead.

You don’t ask for help—because no one ever showed up for you when you needed it. You micromanage your work, your relationships, your surroundings. You feel physically uncomfortable when things are uncertain. And God help anyone who tries to take your autonomy away now, because you will fight.

On the other hand, some days you might just crash—so sick of being in control that you just want to be taken care of for once. But admitting that is harder than it should be, letting people in doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human.

6. You Have a Hard Time Managing Your Own Emotions

Your childhood was an emotional circus, and you were the unwilling ringmaster.

You grew up in a household full of screaming, silent treatments, or unpredictable mood swings. Maybe you were expected to be the peacemaker, absorbing everyone else’s emotions like a sponge.

Now you either bottle everything up like an emotional vault, afraid of turning into the people who raised you, or you experience huge emotional swings that seem to come out of nowhere. Either way, emotions feel like a foreign language—one you were never properly taught.

7. You’re always Walking on Eggshells

Some kids get childhoods full of laughter and safety. You got a live-in emotional bomb you had to diffuse daily.

You learned to read every micro-expression, anticipate every outburst, and calm every storm before it hit. Now, you can sense tension before it even starts, and you instinctively mold yourself into whatever keeps the peace.

The upside? You’re probably excellent at conflict resolution. The downside? You’re also exhausted from managing everyone else’s emotions all the time.

8. You Have a Love-Hate Relationship with Boundaries

If you grew up in a house where boundaries didn’t exist, you might struggle with saying no. You let people push you around, take advantage, and walk all over you because that’s just how it’s always been.

Emotionally immature parents treat boundaries like a personal insult. If you tried to enforce one, they guilt-tripped you, shamed you, or threw a full-blown tantrum. Maybe they snooped through your things, expected unlimited access to your emotions, or punished you for having privacy. Now, you let people walk all over you because you never learned how to say no. Or you’re on the other extreme—so walled off, so distrustful, that nobody gets close. Because letting people in means risk, and you’re not about to get emotionally bulldozed again.

Either way, finding balance is hard. But learning that not everyone is out to exploit you is real challenge.

9. You Feel Trapped by Their Neediness

Parents are supposed to take care of their kids, not the other way around. But if your parent was emotionally immature, you were probably their emotional crutch, unpaid therapist, personal assistant, and emotional support human.

Even now, they expect you to drop everything to cater to their needs. Maybe they call you daily with drama you didn’t ask for, cue the guilt-laden meltdown about “how much they’ve sacrificed for you,” to guilt-trip you into taking care of them, even though they’re perfectly capable. Either way, it feels suffocating.

10. You’re Always Waiting for Something to be Wrong 

Good things make you anxious because happiness feels like a setup.

Growing up, peace was temporary. If things were calm, it meant a storm was coming. And now that mindset sticks. When life is objectively good, you’re scanning for disaster. You expect betrayal, failure, or chaos because that’s how it always went. But you’re still learning not everything is a trap. Sometimes, good things just happen. And sometimes, you deserve them.

11. You Put Yourself Last in Every Situation

You learned early that your feelings were inconvenient, your wants were selfish, and your problems were not as important as theirs.

Now, you instinctively put yourself last in every situation. You overextend yourself at work, bend over backward in relationships, and feel guilty for the mere thought of prioritizing your own well-being.

You might not even realize you’re doing it half the time. It’s just how you operate.

12. Your Self-Esteem Is Basically Nonexistent

Healthy parents build their kids up. Emotionally immature parents tear them down.

If you grew up with constant criticism, gaslighting, or emotional neglect, you probably struggle to trust yourself. You probably overthink every decision, afraid of messing up, assuming you’re inherently unlovable, or can’t take a compliment without cringing.

Whatever the case, your default setting is self-doubt. And it’s not because you’re actually bad at things, it’s because you were raised to believe you were.

13. You Attract Emotionally Unavailable People (and Hate It)

There’s a cruel irony in this: growing up with emotionally immature parents somehow makes you a magnet for emotionally stunted partners, friends, and colleagues.

You swear you won’t repeat the cycle, but you subconsciously seek out what’s familiar. You’re drawn to people who keep you guessing, people who need to be “fixed,” people who treat love like a game of emotional hide-and-seek. And if someone actually offers stability? Boring. Too easy. You might even self-sabotage because it feels unnatural.

Breaking this pattern takes time and serious work, but recognizing it is the first step. If you’re always the one chasing, fixing, or proving your worth, take a step back. See what happens when you only pursue mutual effort. Spoiler: you deserve better.

14. You’re Determined to Break the Cycle

If there’s one silver lining to having an emotionally immature parent, it’s this: You see the damage. And you refuse to pass it on or let it consume you.

You’re hyper-aware of your own emotional baggage. You’re in therapy, undoing the damage. You’re setting hard boundaries, or consciously building healthier relationships.

Whatever the case, you are determined, you’re taking active steps towards healing. Most people raised by emotionally immature parents make one of two choices—they either double down on dysfunction or they decide, with iron-clad certainty, that it ends with them, whether you’re going to therapy, setting boundaries—it’s all part of the process. it’s possible to overcome the aftereffects of life with an emotionally immature parent. Now you have control over what you do and how you handle things.