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There is no doubt that my mother fancied herself a martyr. Any time she got the chance, she would complain about the trials and tribulations of her children. She loved to complain about the grief that we caused her and the ways we cornered her into a life that made her miserable. Yet she brought more and more children into the world. When she couldn’t do that, she reached for the phone and attempted to become a foster. She wanted a home full of children she could complain about.

This is a story that’s common with many a parental narcissist. They love it. Positioning themselves as victims to their children, they are able to paint themselves into a corner that is filled with pity and lots of emotional control. Narcissists have a compulsive need to both hide their worst sides and control how the world perceives them.

Parental narcissists achieve this easiest when they’re playing martyr over the constant victimization of their children. They raise themselves up on an unquestionable dais, and it is the family who pays the price for their self-righteous narcissism.

All parents have to make sacrifices.

Martyrdom is easy for parents to achieve. The world is only too happy to pat parents on the back for “sacrifices,” even if those sacrifices were personal choices and the bare minimum. Some parents go above and beyond for their children, but some don’t. The praise falls equally, especially on those who use it for their aggrandizement.

Every parent is forced to make a sacrifice at some point. For the truly lucky, this may be as simple as missing out on a holiday with friends. However, it may mean missing a meal or other needs and desires for others.

That’s the true cost of having children, but it goes differently with narcissistic parents. To them, sacrifice is the gateway of martyrdom and a platform of constant supply.

The sacrifices of narcissistic parents are different than those made by healthy parents because narcissistic parents use these sacrifices to get a very public reward for it (that reward could be attention, control, etc.) What is done is not done for the love of a child. Sacrifices are made to create an illusion.

It’s a toxic way to live. Children raised by martyr parents can grow up struggling to love themselves, struggling to trust others, and struggling to see their inherent worth and value (outside of their narcissistic parent).

What does a parental martyr look like?

Parental martyrdom follows a distinct path. It’s all about creating a platform and a show for the parent. They want others to see them as “good” or “great” and they want constant external validation for the work that they do. Their intentions differ from an emotionally healthy parent. Caring for their children has nothing to do with those children and everything to do with making sure their ego is fed.

Creating a platform

First and foremost, parental martyrdom is a show. Every degree of commiseration the parent gets from their complaints is a form of attention. The pity of others helps them to build a stage show. It seeps into their very personalities. For the parent who craves an audience, becoming a martyr is often the quickest and easiest path to creating a platform for themselves.

It all starts with positioning themselves as selfless people. They brag about raising their child as a selfless act, that they are somehow “helping others” by performing the labor they created for themselves.

Some will even take their parental martyrdom further. Beyond going over the top for their children (on the outside), they may perform selfless acts in other spaces, too (again, always making sure the world is giving them attention for it).

That might include working with special needs children, volunteering at a church, rescuing animals, and participating in politics. In everything they do, the parental martyr must be the center of attention and at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts for their “altruistic” sacrifice of all their time and energy.

Always working an angle

With a platform of perception created, the parental martyr can expand their reach. Audiences won’t stick around for the same old schtick. New tactics and performances have to be created. For the parental martyr (often a covert narcissist in disguise), that can be done by switching across different angles to their “self-sacrifice”.

One day, the complaints may center around the careers they’ve had to settle for or how they’ve had to do without. I work two jobs just to keep clothes on my back. I let my boss talk down to me so you can have video games. Then, the angle changes. A more positive approach may be tapped into.

I’m so proud of you. All those long nights working were worth it. Or…Congratulations. At least I can rest knowing all those struggles to raise you were worth it.

There’s always an angle. In all moments, the parental narcissist wants the credit placed back on them for what the child has achieved or failed to achieve (despite their sacrifices). In all cases, they will use those moments of acknowledgment as an arsenal for future control.

Making complaints

Parental martyrs, more than anything else, complain, complain, complain. It’s the most common method of getting the sympathetic attention they desire. They complain about their lives, work, and how their children force them to do things they don’t want. Worse, a parental narcissist will also complain about their children themselves — their shortcomings, failures, and humiliating moments, too.

It’s the easiest avenue of getting sympathy from other people, ultimately meant to manipulate their opinion of the parent. This can also form an ideal shield for an abusive, narcissistic parent who is seeking plausible deniability against any claims their children may make against them.

Parental martyrs paint themselves as victims in stories of their own making by telling anyone who will listen about everything good they do. They will also make it sound like no one in their life is ever giving back to them. It can be energy-draining to the people around them.

Taking on much more

Despite the misery that their children supposedly put them in, the parental martyr seems to have no time to take on more and more responsibility in their lives. It’s a trademark of this pattern of behavior. While on the one hand, declaring their children suck up all their joy and time, they will then extend themselves even further at church, at work, or with their friends and family. It’s a borderline narcissistic pattern.

The parental martyr is performing again, creating a mask and putting on a show for anyone paying attention. Over-extending themselves proves all the complaints they make are true. Never mind the fact that they volunteer themselves, that no one asks them to burn themselves out. The real kicker comes at the end when they blame their children and families for said burnout.

Emotional manipulation

Ultimately, the parental martyr is a manipulator. No matter how “good’ their deeds may be, their intentions are wrong, and the delivery is damaging. They intend to shape the opinions of others. They do it to control the narrative when they complain, blame their children, and burn themselves out on purpose. All of this is done, of course, for external validation.

Parental martyrs use their work to play the victim and make people around them feel ashamed or guilty. They can act disappointed or hurt when they don’t get the attention they want for their good deeds (which are usually the bare minimum in reality).

Try to point out that they are the creators of their misery, and the parental martyr is likely to throw their work back in your face if any attempts are made to hold them to some sort of account.

How does parental martyrdom affect children?

These platforms and these complaints all take a serious toll on the children of this type of parental narcissist. Self-esteem is tumbled, and emotional struggles are heightened. Being used by a parent for emotional aggrandizement is painful, and it can leave the adult children of parental martyrs struggling to love themselves…and others.

Non-existent self-esteem

The biggest casualty of parental martyrdom strikes at the heart of a child’s self-esteem. There’s no avoiding the parent’s complaints. As the parent leans into the story of their struggles, the child can start to feel like a burden. They see themselves as the source of all their mother or father’s struggles.

Children internalize everything as their brains try to make sense of the world. If they hear their parents blaming them for their lack of friends, money, or miserable jobs, kids can internalize that as a sort of personal failure or a shortcoming of their own.

Children who think they are a burden can easily come to believe they are not as worthy of the same love, compassion, and respect as their peers with “happier” parents.

Emotional struggles

It’s easy to understand how emotional struggles could arise in such an environment. Parents who complain about their sacrifices for their children burden them with more than just personal responsibility. Doing this places the burden of the parent’s emotions fully on the child, too.

Children feel those emotions deeply, even more intensely than their parents do. Feeling guilty and being blamed for your parents' lack of quality of life are complex emotions. Many children struggle with strong emotions they don’t know how to regulate or understand. The result?

Rejection-sensitive dysphoria, children who are terrified of not being “enough” for the people around them — even in adulthood. What’s on the other side of that? Mental health issues later on in life can become a commonplace pattern in the child of a martyr parent.

Off-balance relationships

Parents are the first reference point for children's interpersonal relationship skills. The way we connect with our parents becomes the foundation of how we connect with others. If we are able to form secure, compassionate bonds with our parents, we are better equipped to create stable and loving relationships later down the road with our friends and partners.

It can work out a little differently when a parental martyr raises you.

Because the children of these parents think of themselves as burdens, they are more likely to settle for relationships in which similar dynamics are played out. That can look like partners who treat them like they’re not “good enough” or partners who make them perform for love and acceptance. It’s an off-balance and hurtful place to exist in.

Repeating the pattern

It comes as no surprise that the children of parental martyrs are exposed to toxic patterns. Martyrdom is rarely the only negative aspect of the environment. Parents who engage in this tactic can also commonly be emotional manipulators to the highest degree. (Even Machiavellian tendencies aren’t entirely off the table.)

Children exposed to bad patterns early on are more likely to repeat them. It’s no different with parental martyrdom.

A child raised by a parental martyr can learn those behaviors. In their lives, they become martyrs with their own children. They can grow up to form families with the same toxic dynamics. Some believe that is how attention or success is achieved in that role.

Performance-focused

That performance element is very important to pay attention to. Children who don’t feel “good enough” for their parents or who feel responsible for their parents’ lives can easily fall into a performance trap. What does this mean? In the simplest terms, it means children of martyr parents learn to overcompensate.

That can result in perfectionist children who over-strive to prove their worth and independence. It’s a matter of proving their lovability to the world. They can think, “If I just show the world how good I am, I won’t be a burden anymore.”

Children of martyrs burn themselves down and burn themselves out, trying to prove they won’t destroy anyone else’s life (like they “destroyed” the life of their parents). They do this through work, trying to create perfect families or even perfect themselves. It’s an exhausting lifelong game to play.

The best ways to protect yourself from parental martyrdom.

Did a parental martyr raise you? Does that parental martyr still guilt trip you to this day? You can take steps to protect yourself. You can break with the bad habits, learn to set new boundaries, and discover more effective ways of navigating your narcissism. Only you and you alone can do it, though. They won’t protect you from them. You must protect yourself with compassion and understanding.

1. Break with bad habits: The parental martyr gets away with damaging games because they hide behind outdated parenting concepts. To defeat the allowances that create these martyrs, it’s up to us to stop feeding the outdated traditions and ideas that give toxic or abusive people more respect than they deserve, have earned, or return to others.
2. Set better boundaries: When dealing with a parental martyr, boundaries are a must. Their pity parties have allowed them to fly under the radar for too long. If you want the guilt trips to stop, you have to draw the line and set it hard with them; that means no emotional manipulation or shaming—ever.
3. Learn all you can: Ultimately, parental martyrs are manipulators. Many are even narcissistic in their behaviors. For that reason, it’s important to learn about manipulation and emotional abuse. Those come with very real symptoms and patterns that are crucial to acknowledge lest your sense of self-esteem be attacked.

You are allowed to break the patterns of your parental martyr. You don’t have to tolerate them, and you certainly don’t have to become them. Empower yourself to break the cycle by setting boundaries and unmasking your parental manipulator through wisdom.

Once you see their game for what it is, you can’t unsee it. But you can limit the damage their complaints can have on your quality of life and your sense of self.

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No child is to blame for the quality of their parent’s life. Parents alone are responsible for themselves. No person on this planet does not understand how difficult (and expensive) it is to take on a child. It is the hardest labor to take on in the world and lasts a lifetime. Parents are responsible for considering that and their ability to provide life for themselves and their children before bringing them into the world.

There can be no other truth. Commiserating with other parents over the very real struggles of parenting is understandable. Building a platform that demeans your children for your own personal choices? That is not.

It’s time for all of us to put our foot down to parental martyrdom and see it for what it is — parental narcissism masquerading covertly in the name of pity.