The Golden Child

Carrying the Burden of the Family’s Pride

*Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that no explanation of any role in a family system is absolute. Every person and family is different and there are countless variables to consider including protective and risk factors, trauma exposure, safe adults, and temperament. It is best to imagine most things, especially family roles and symptomology on a spectrum. This essay explores the potential path from golden child to narcissistic adult.

In a narcissistic or otherwise dysfunctional family system, the golden child is often idealized, praised, or placed in a position of special importance — not for who they truly are, but for how well they reflect the ego, desires, or image of a narcissistic parent (Pressman & Pressman, 1994; Miller, 1981). This dynamic serves as a kind of unconscious role assignment: The child becomes the egoic extension of the parent, tasked with upholding the family’s idealized self-concept and maintaining the illusion of harmony or superiority that insulates the system from shame, accountability, or vulnerability (Kernberg, 1975; McBride, 2008).

While this role may appear privileged or enviable from the outside, it often conceals profound loneliness and ambiguous burden. The golden child’s “specialness” is not a celebration of their true self, but a requirement to sustain the narcissistic parent’s fragile self-esteem and maintain the family’s constructed image. Behind the praise lies an implicit threat to a golden child: Love and attachment will be withdrawn if the child fails to make their parent proud.

Conditional Love and the False Self

The golden child learns early that love, approval, and attachment are conditional — that being “good,” “gifted,” or “exceptional” is the only path to connection. This is not genuine self-worth, but conditional value shaped by a parent’s projections of grandiosity, unfulfilled dreams, or unintegrated shame (Kohut, 1977). Though these children may appear confident, capable, or high-achieving, their sense of identity is fragile — dependent on maintaining a role rather than expressing a true Self.

It is vital to understand that this dynamic, though it may appear as privilege, is in fact a form of psychological bondage. The golden child is rewarded for suppressing authenticity and punished — often subtly — for showing vulnerability or dissent. Over time, the golden child may internalize the belief that their emotions, needs, and failures are dangerous and they may begin to form a fragile ego that needs protecting with bravado and externalized (projected) shame. They learn that connection must be earned through performance and/or approval and that being ordinary or imperfect means losing love.

Maintaining the Family System

This idealization serves a powerful defensive function for the narcissistic family system. By elevating one child, the narcissistic parent reinforces their own inflated self-image and deflects attention from their trauma, emotional unavailability, volatility, and accountability (Kernberg, 1975). Meanwhile, other siblings — often covertly designated as the family scapegoat or lost child, or, most commonly named, “the problem child” — absorb the family’s disowned shame, anger, or perceived flaws (Lawson, 2000).

The golden child may unconsciously participate in maintaining this caste system — bullying or scapegoating siblings in an effort to maintain attachment and avoid being the target of the parent’s rejection, stonewalling, or rage (Bowen, 1978). Motivation to triangulate for some golden children stems from a core belief that there is not enough love for every child in the family and that in order to survive, the golden child must consume as much of the positive attention as possible. Motivation stemming from jealousy and a refusal to share in childhood, may lay the foundation of narcissism in adulthood.

Fragmentation and Adulthood

Though idealization may appear protective, it creates a distorted self-structure. The golden child internalizes perfectionistic standards and develops a false self organized around external opinion, control, and praise — often at the expense of emotional intimacy, secure attachment, and authenticity (Winnicott, 1960; Bowlby, 1988). Beneath this exterior lies a split between the “performing” self and the “forbidden” self — the parts that feel needy, wounded, or ordinary. The golden child’s achievements mask an underlying terror of being exposed as inadequate or unworthy.

In adulthood, this dynamic can manifest as dismissive-avoidant, fearful-avoidant, or anxious-preoccupied attachment styles (Ainsworth et al., 1978). When an adult golden child encounters failure, perceived or real criticism, or disapproval, they may oscillate between grandiosity and projected shame — states that aim to protect them from unbearable feelings of worthlessness to maintain the ego (Kohut, 1977). They might appear confident and admired, yet internally may feel a lack of true identity, fraudulent, or chronically unsatisfied (Ronningstam, 2005).

Like all children in narcissistic family systems, the golden child’s adaptation is ultimately a survival strategy — a way to preserve attachment in a family where authenticity was unsafe. Their nervous system internalizes the belief that love must be persuaded, earned, or performed (van der Kolk, 2014). When life inevitably challenges their idealized self-image, they may respond with defensiveness, projected shame, manipulation, or rage (Kohut, 1977). These reactions can and do harm others, but in an effort to understand this family system, it is important to remember these reactions originate in deep insecurity and fear — the panic of a child who once had to be perfect to psychologically survive and may have no other tools for regulating and relating as an adult.

The Empathetic Golden Child

The golden child who develops empathy and self- and other-awareness carries a quiet, complicated burden. In a family where love and approval are conditional, they may try to protect younger or more vulnerable siblings while still upholding the role that keeps them safe and admired — which is a bit like spinning plates. Their care-taking becomes both armor and identity — a way to stay in favor while trying to buffer others from harm. As adults, these compassionate yet fearful golden children may struggle to let go of control or hyper-responsibility, finding it difficult to trust that they can be loved outside of usefulness or perfection. Their empathy can make them deeply attuned and kind, but their fear of failure or rejection may leave them anxious, exhausted, or drawn to relationships that mirror the same imbalance of care they once managed in childhood. Healing often begins when they realize they don’t have to earn belonging — that being human, not flawless, is enough.

The Work of Healing

Healing for the golden child involves differentiation (Bowen, 1978): Learning to separate one’s true identity from the role that ensured attachment with an unreliable and conditional parent. It means grieving the loss of the “special” self — the identity that once brought proxies for love — admiration, praise, high achievement — but cost authenticity, vulnerability, and intimacy. Healing requires confronting the painful truth that parental love was conditional and self-serving (Pressman & Pressman, 1994; McBride, 2008). This realization is devastating but liberating. It allows the individual to mourn the childhood that never offered unconditional love and the redemptive opportunity to reclaim their own capacity and Self-esteem required for genuine connection.

Recovery also involves cultivating compassion — both for oneself and for the parts that adapted through perfection and control. Healing doesn’t mean rejecting your talents or confidence, but integrating them with vulnerability, humility, and emotional honesty. It means learning that your intrinsic worth is not dependent on being “the best” or “the brightest,” but on being sincere, communal, and relatable. And, of course, recovery requires accepting responsibility and taking accountability for harms done to others, and striving to repair what has been ruptured. This last step is often the hardest, and least likely to be adequately accomplished. It requires facing one’s karma and shifting from “me” to “we.”

Ultimately, healing asks the golden child to trade admiration for authenticity, control for connection, and self-criticism for self-compassion. Differentiation no longer means betraying the family — it means embracing the full spectrum of one’s humanity: The parts that are strong and capable, as well as those that are fallible, tender, and real — in other words, human and relatable.

References

Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation. Erlbaum.

Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Parent-child attachment and healthy human development. Basic Books.

Bowen, M. (1978). Family therapy in clinical practice. Jason Aronson.

Kernberg, O. F. (1975). Borderline conditions and pathological narcissism. Jason Aronson.

Kohut, H. (1977). The restoration of the self. International Universities Press.

Lawson, C. L. (2000). Understanding the borderline mother. Rowman & Littlefield.

McBride, K. (2008). Will I ever be good enough? Healing the daughters of narcissistic mothers. Free Press.

Miller, A. (1981). The drama of the gifted child. Basic Books.

Pressman, C., & Pressman, J. (1994). The narcissistic family: Diagnosis and treatment. Jossey-Bass.

van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.