There’s a point at which almost every son wants to be just like his father and almost every daughter wants to be just like her mother.
It can be cute and it can be heartwarming. It can create memorable pictures from childhood, such as this photo of me as a little boy dressing up in my father’s business clothes.
But it’s dangerous, too, because a parent with narcissistic tendencies is going to jump at this pint-sized hero worship — and create serious psychological issues for the child and the family.
Since I started studying narcissistic personality disorder 10 years ago, I’ve learned that one of the most important jobs of any parent is teaching his children that each child is an individual with separate worth and personality, not an extension of the parent who must mirror and mimic whatever the parent happens to be.
My father never learned that — and his children paid the price in the decades to come. It’s not a mistake I’ll make with my own children.
We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past
Society needs storytellers to help make sense of a changing world
My bad teen poetry suggests I’ve always hungered for missing love
‘This path leads to somewhere I think I can finally say, I’m home’
When love finally dies, it’s like a fever breaks and the pain is gone