How To Be a Terrible Daughter 015: Burn Before Breeding
Parenting is hard enough without the baggage of a narcissistic childhood, but add that to the mix, and it’s like trying to assemble IKEA furniture with a blowtorch—messy, confusing, and likely to leave you questioning your life choices. In this episode, Elizabeth gets real about the emotional booby traps of raising kids after surviving narcissistic parenting, sharing the moments that have both wrecked and rebuilt them. Megan dives into the fine art of breaking toxic cycles, offering tools for collaboration and repair that make parenting slightly less like being a contestant on Survivor.
We unpack everything from the stark contrast between narcissistic and gentle parenting to the myth of the “good enough parent.” Plus, a reality check on why shadow work is unavoidable when you’re raising humans and why it’s okay to start small—like the size of a Goldfish cracker crushed into the carpet. If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re screwing up your kids or breaking the cycle, this episode promises dark laughs, raw truths, and the reassurance that parenting is less about perfection and more about persistence.
We’re so happy to be back here with you for a brand-new season of the podcast. If you haven’t already, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or your favorite podcast app to automatically get all of the new episodes as soon as they drop. Unlike the narcissist in your life, we'd love to hear your stories and how they affected you. Email us or DM us on Instagram, @terribledaughterpod or at H2Bterrible@gmail.com!
What We Cover In This Episode:
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How the “childless by choice” movement has been gaining steam over the last decade or so [4:02]
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What’s behind the narcissist’s desire to have children and the complicated emotions Elizabeth felt around becoming a parent [8:07]
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The key differences between narcissistic parenting and gentle parenting [15:27]
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The single most important message that Elizabeth has always held front and center for their child [21:37]
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Some of the big realizations that Elizabeth has come to during their time raising a child [23:05]
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What we mean when we say that parenting is really a way of looking at your shadow [27:15]
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Powerful tools around collaboration that Megan uses and recommends to the people she works with and how this can be applied specifically to parenthood [29:50]
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A reality of parenting and what to keep in perspective about disagreements and the ability to repair relationships [37:27]
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The problem with the concept of the “Good Enough Parent” in this week’s “Mini Crazy Mom Offs” [40:19]
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How we’ve been using movies as a tool to get through our weeks and one specific movie that Elizabeth highly recommends watching [51:18]
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Megan’s hobby that demonstrates the need to be gentle with ourselves and to start small when beginning something new [52:27]
Links & Resources:
Pilot keeps composure after his helicopter has an engine failure over the mountains (Reddit)
Good Enough Parent: A Book on Child-Rearing by Bruno Bettelheim
How ‘Velvet Goldmine’ Captured the Glam-Rock Era Like No Other (Rolling Stone)