You Can't Buy a Scapegoat Daughter's Love

For narcissistic parents, money is a way to buy love and respect instead of showing real love. Gifts and money are used to control the child and make it look like the parents are being kind. No amount of money can make up for the fact that every child doesn't get the real emotional care they need.

Children want their parents' love, care, and approval all the time. When a child is raised by a narcissistic parent, this longing is met with emotional neglect and love that depends on what the parent wants instead of what the child needs. Narcissistic parents often use money as a hollow substitute for love because they can't give their kids the real attention they deserve.

The narcissist uses buying love as a way to make it look like they are a kind and caring parent. People give their children expensive gifts, trips, cars, or even an allowance to get them to see them as providers and benefactors who deserve love and thanks. When a narcissist has a child, they use material things to get them to be loyal, stop them from complaining, and control their behaviour by threatening to take away their money.

The spending gives the narcissist an "audit trail" that they can use to show how dedicated and sacrificed they are as a parent. When the child's emotional needs aren't met, the narcissistic parent will often say, "After all I've done and paid for you, how can you be so ungrateful?" It was never really love that the gifts and money were given; they were meant to boost the narcissist's ego and keep the child in debt to them.

Children who grow up with narcissists learn early on that expensive toys, trips, and other material things come with the unspoken price of not being able to criticise or go against what their parent wants. When you object, you put at risk the money that the narcissist has built up as a way of showing love. This way of controlling others with money is strongly ingrained from a very young age.

Sadly, money nor gifts can't make up for a child not getting the emotional support and safe attachment they need to grow and thrive. When a narcissistic parent tries to buy their children love and obedience, the kids feel mentally empty underneath all the material things that come with being wealthy. Money will never be a real substitute for the love every child deserves until the narcissist learns to really understand their child and put their needs ahead of their own ego.