The Lost Child In A Narcissistic Family
Uniqueness, spontaneity and agency hold no value in a narcissistic family. Instead, everyone is reduced solely to a role that serves the narcissistic parent’s grandiose false self.
The spouse acts as a central pillar to legitimise the narcissist’s grandiosity. The spouse also stands in as an emotional sponge which protects the narcissist from having to be vulnerable with the children. The spouse generally puts out fires and plays the peacekeeper in the home.
The golden child becomes an expression of the ‘light’ side of the narcissist’s grandiosity. They are the narcissist’s protégé; the one who the narcissist pins their hopes and dreams on.
As for the ‘dark’ side of the narcissist’s grandiosity, frustration and negative emotions need to be syphoned off to maintain the integrity of the false self. After all, a ‘superior’ and ‘special’ person cannot have flaws. For this, the scapegoat of the family acts as an outlet. The narcissist shames the scapegoat, humiliates them, rages at them and blames them for everything that goes wrong. Where the golden child can do no wrong, the scapegoat can do no right.
Finally, the divine child is the narcissist’s mascot, playing a ceremonial role to give the family a positive brand in public.
The only person who lacks a defined role, is the lost child. Their sole task is to keep quiet, and never rock the boat.
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The lost child is usually a middle sibling, or in some cases, can be the youngest. Once the narcissist has separated two of the children into ‘perfect’ and ‘disgusting’, i.e., into ‘good’ and ‘bad’, then they stop caring about the rest.
This is the simplest way to look at it. There are exceptions, of course.
Some families have two narcissistic parents, and the children can be split into two camps, depending on birth order and gender. The divine child can also be an exception. Much like the golden child, the divine child can do no wrong. Yet what separates them is that, unlike the golden child, nothing is expected of the divine child. The golden child is supposed to live up to the narcissistic parent’s demands — to become competent, special and powerful according to their parent’s vision. The divine child, on the other hand, is ‘the baby’, and adored simply for being the baby. You can think of the golden child as the narcissist’s ideal version of themselves, and the divine child as the child the parent could have ideally been before their narcissistic wound emerged. Both are projections.
In some narcissistic families, a child is designated as a surrogate parent and told to look after their younger siblings. In this case, the surrogate parent is given a position of importance that has nothing to do with the narcissist’s grandiosity. They simply play a functional role which frees the narcissist from the pressures of their parenting role.
