If you were from a family with a golden child and scapegoat, how did they turn out as adults?

[Anonymous]

Golden child, still golden. Has a nice husband both have engineering degrees and make decent money, 2 kids, private schools, nice house. Took years off when children were small, but, never really struggled financially. Children are not yet adults.
Scapegoat, LMC, career social worker, 2nd marriage, spouse works for local government, so about equal salary. House needs repair, and is in neighborhood of mostly rental properties. 5 combined children, public schools, all self-sufficient adults at this point. Will not be able to afford retirement.

[Anonymous]

Golden child is very, very successful in a profession, and still desperately trying to prove herself. To virtually everyone.

Scapegoat is very, very successful in a different profession, and still desperately trying to prove herself. To virtually everyone.

[Anonymous]

Most people think of golden child as the foe while all golden child tries to do is to do things they figure would make parents happy and avoid thing which would cause conflict in family. Burden of bring golden child is as heavy as of the "escape goat".

[Anonymous]

Basically they observe your interaction with the parents, feel fear of repeating it and try to do the opposite or whatever they can to lessen the conflict.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Scapegoat: internalized the dynamic. Low self esteem. People pleasing

Golden child - survivor’s guilt

Do golden children have the capacity to have guilt? It seems like they lack empathy and tend to be narcissists.

No I've never met a golden child that was able to feel any guilt or empathy, not one and yes they're narcissists and perpetuate the entire situation again if they have a family and children.

My golden child sib scapegoated one of his kids. Sad.

[Anonymous]

I have seen extreme favoritism in our family. I no longer talk to my sister who cut me off when I called certain elements that hurt me out, as I am apparently toxic. I am also the step-child from a previous marriage where the original parent had been deceased and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by her father (she cut me off when I relayed this).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have seen extreme favoritism in our family. I no longer talk to my sister who cut me off when I called certain elements that hurt me out, as I am apparently toxic. I am also the step-child from a previous marriage where the original parent had been deceased and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by her father (she cut me off when I relayed this).

Oh, sorry- and by external measures, I think I would be called the golden kid, although I never felt that way. (Went to HYPS for both grad and undergrad; successful career, etc. She is financially dependent on our parents and a stay-at-home parent who has been fired from other roles. And yes, I am bitter.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Scapegoat: internalized the dynamic. Low self esteem. People pleasing

Golden child - survivor’s guilt

Do golden children have the capacity to have guilt? It seems like they lack empathy and tend to be narcissists.

Nope! My sister is a little version of my sick mother, the same lack of empathy the same "what can YOU do for ME" thinking. They both would step over dead bodies on the street. They expect help 24/7 but you won't see a drop of water in the desert or a ear or a shoulder to cry on, EVER.

I relate to this. My sister and mother are completely about "what can YOU do for ME" and they every do some unwanted and inappropriate gesture for someone they decided was kind, it has strings and the beans are being counted. I remember back when I still put my mother on a pedestal there were so many instances of cognitive dissonance where I couldn't believe how easily she took advantage of the kindness of others with little appreciation. They both are extremely entitled and are so rarely capable of being content. If a random toddler greets me or a random dog wags it's tail and wants me to pet it it puts a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

I seen "cognitive dissonance" used on this site a lot I've looked it up and still don't understand what it means can someone please explain to me like I've 5 what this mean? Thank you.

Cognitive dissonance is when you think something is one way, like you have decided someone is kind-kindhearted and has empathy and yet you keep getting evidence that shows the opposite and your brains struggles to process. Yes, people are complex. In my case, though I got so much evidence over the years my mother was selfish and manipulative, but my brain needed to stick to the idea she was a good person and if she insulted me and raged at me she was right and I was bad. In the outside world I saw so much bad behavior from her, but rather than incorporate it into my schema of who she was, I was determined to hold onto the idea she was a decent person and those were just aberrations and not accumulating evidence of who she was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most people think of golden child as the foe while all golden child tries to do is to do things they figure would make parents happy and avoid thing which would cause conflict in family. Burden of bring golden child is as heavy as of the "escape goat".

This, and I am not the golden child in my family (middle) but see how it has affected my oldest sister. It made her grieve my father especially hard since she was closer to him than mom.

[Anonymous]

I think you meant golden child and black sheep.

Not scapegoat

[Anonymous]

Meh. We had a golden child and the scapegoat. I think a lot of scapegoats don’t realize that sometimes it really is something they’re doing. My sibling was an incredibly hard child to raise- wild, didn’t follow rules, they slept little, never did chores. It actually made me into the golden child. It was no fun being the golden child. I have a lot of anxiety and never felt like I could let me parents down. I was always performing and had to be perfect. My parents often cried about my sibling and I had to pickup the slack. I didn’t get much attention. Oh and I had to do all their chores which I’m still bitter about.

I wonder sometimes if my sibling had been more easy going if my life would have been easier too. As it stands I’m still picking up their slack- now just with elder care for our parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Meh. We had a golden child and the scapegoat. I think a lot of scapegoats don’t realize that sometimes it really is something they’re doing. My sibling was an incredibly hard child to raise- wild, didn’t follow rules, they slept little, never did chores. It actually made me into the golden child. It was no fun being the golden child. I have a lot of anxiety and never felt like I could let me parents down. I was always performing and had to be perfect. My parents often cried about my sibling and I had to pickup the slack. I didn’t get much attention. Oh and I had to do all their chores which I’m still bitter about.

I wonder sometimes if my sibling had been more easy going if my life would have been easier too. As it stands I’m still picking up their slack- now just with elder care for our parents.

Boo hoo

[Anonymous]

Another so-called golden child here, and I have to agree that it's not all it's cracked up to be. I was the de facto caregiver to my toxic, narc mother from the age of 11, when my parents divorced. It's taken me into my 50s--and a lot of therapy--to break free of the perfectionism, people pleasing, and inability to set boundaries in relationships that came from endlessly trying to please a parent who has zero tolerance for distress and for whom nothing is ever good enough. My scapegoat brother had a hellish childhood that included physical abuse, but he walked out at age 16 and never looked back. Both roles suck, just in different ways.

[Anonymous]

I'm the scapegoat or "truth teller." I am the youngest.

The golden child (middle child) has a lot of anxiety. Emotionally unloads on everyone else constantly. Had had a habit of constantly picking me apart for my flaws, but always as a projection of her own life and issues.

Don't get me wrong, I'm far from perfect and have my flaws, but they're mine to handle. I'm private precisely because I'm tired of the golden child trying to dissect me apart as a distraction from her own stuff. She is a gossiper, and always trying to meddle in people's lives. She will publicly say how happy she is for others, but criticizes them in close circles.

For me, I just live my life. As long as I'm not hurting others, I try to do things that I want, when I want, if they make me happy.

[Anonymous]

My brother, 2 years older than me, was the namesake of my grandfather and of the infant child who died earlier. Golden Boy suffered from mental illness, as did my father. Golden Boy sodomized me when I was 11, both parents knew, did not care. Haven’t spoke with Golden Boy since 1989, Father died in 1995, spoke to my mother briefly twice between 1989 and her death in 2020. I did not attend her services. P