Trying to Grow Up When Your Parents Never Did: Untangling Emotional Immaturity in Your Family

It’s a strange kind of grief: realizing you’ve outgrown your parents emotionally — and that you’ve been the one holding everything together for years.

This shows up in many ways. Maybe you feel a sense of dread before a weekly check-in call with your mother, knowing it will leave you drained. Or you notice that holidays often end in tension, not because you’ve done something wrong, but because you’re no longer playing the role you once did. That quiet and subtle shift, from child to emotional caretaker, can feel confusing, frustrating, and deeply isolating.

If you grew up with emotionally immature parents, these dynamics may feel familiar.

You might have been the “responsible one” early on - the person who knew how to stay calm, smooth things over or keep the peace. Over time, you may have found yourself attuned to a parent’s moods, trying to meet their emotional needs while quietly neglecting your own.

Psychologist Lindsay Gibson refers to this kind of parenting as emotionally immature — often displayed by reactivity, self-preoccupation, and a lack of emotional attunement (Gibson, 2015). These caregivers may have loved their children, but struggled to offer consistency, empathy, or respect for emotional boundaries. As a result, many children adapt by becoming emotionally self-sufficient long before they’re ready, and continue carrying that emotional weight into adulthood.

This dynamic, known as parentification (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Spark, 1973), isn’t always about managing logistics or caregiving tasks. Sometimes, it’s more subtle - becoming emotionally responsible for a parent’s well-being, feeling like you had to be “the strong one,” or believing that your role was to keep things calm at all costs.

As adults, this might look like:

• Apologizing frequently, even when you’re unsure why

• Feeling anxious when others are upset, assuming it must be your fault

• Struggling to say no, especially to family

• Dismissing or minimizing your own needs

• Feeling both guilt and relief after setting a boundary

We often work with clients who carry this quiet burden: being the stable one in a family that still feels emotionally unpredictable. Even when the intensity of the past has faded, the old roles linger. That pressure to keep everything balanced by managing expectations, soothing tension, and not rocking the boat can be exhausting, and even lead to resentment.

These patterns are hard to untangle, especially when they’ve been part of your identity for as long as you can remember. Emotional immaturity in a parent can leave you with the implicit message that your needs are inconvenient, or that closeness only comes when you’re accommodating. Over time, this can make healthy separation feel selfish, and boundary-setting feel like a betrayal.

So, where do you start?

Therapy can help you begin to:

• Name what’s happening.

  Emotional immaturity isn’t always obvious. It can show up as a parent who avoids accountability, becomes overwhelmed by your emotions, or expects constant reassurance. Gaining clarity on these patterns helps you stop internalizing them.

• Reclaim your role.

  You don’t have to keep being the emotional anchor. In therapy, we explore how these roles formed and help you move toward relationships where support flows both ways.

• Set boundaries with compassion and clarity.

  Boundaries aren’t rejection. They’re tools for protecting your energy and your values. Even simple shifts like “I can’t talk right now, but I’ll call you tomorrow” can begin to create healthier space.

• Grieve what wasn’t available.

  Letting yourself feel sadness or disappointment around what your parent couldn’t offer is an important part of healing. It doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful, it means you’re being honest about what you needed.

As attachment researchers Mikulincer and Shaver (2016) explain, our early relationships shape our internal templates for connection. But those templates aren’t fixed. You can unlearn the idea that love must be earned or that being needed is the same as being valued.

Untangling emotional immaturity in your family doesn’t mean cutting people out or rewriting your story. It means stepping out of old patterns, reconnecting with your own needs, and giving yourself permission to grow, even if others choose to stay the same (whether unconscious or not).

If any of this resonates with you, you’re not alone. At LA Psychotherapy Group, we work with individuals who are navigating exactly these kinds of patterns: people ready to show up differently in their relationships and care for themselves in a new way. If you're interested in exploring how therapy can help, we’d love to connect. Reach out anytime to learn more or schedule a consultation.

References:

Gibson, L. (2015). Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. New Harbinger Publications.

Boszormenyi-Nagy, I., & Spark, G. M. (1973). Invisible Loyalties: Reciprocity in Intergenerational Family Therapy. Harper & Row.

Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2016). Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change (2nd ed.). The Guilford Press.