When you’re the child of an emotionally immature or narcissistic mother, adulthood doesn’t arrive on your eighteenth birthday, not in her eyes. You might build a career, pay your own bills, raise your own family and set your own boundaries, but to her, you’re still “the child,” someone over whom she feels ownership and control. Your achievements and independence don’t register as proof you’ve grown, they simply become new resources she feels entitled to access.

In her mind, the roles never shift. She still assumes the right to make demands of your time, money, emotions and loyalty, as though the price of having raised you is a lifelong debt you can never repay. Gratitude, in her terms, means unquestioning compliance. Autonomy is treated as rebellion. Any attempt to assert your own life is framed as selfishness, disrespect, or abandonment.

For survivors of narcissistic mothers, this refusal to see you as an autonomous adult serves a purpose, it keeps you in the role where she has all the power. If you’re always “the child,” then she’s always the authority. You’re not allowed to have insights she doesn’t approve of, make decisions she disagrees with or create boundaries she doesn’t control. You exist in a permanent hierarchy where she is owed and you are in deficit.

This dynamic is corrosive because it distorts the truth about parent–adult child relationships. Healthy mothers recognise and respect their children’s adulthood, taking joy in seeing them flourish independently. They may offer support and advice, but they also step back, allowing space for their children to make their own choices, shape their own lives and define their own boundaries. A narcissistic mother often does the opposite, tightening her grip the more you grow.

Breaking free from this dynamic can feel like breaking a family law. It means refusing to perpetuate the unspoken contract that your existence requires endless acts of repayment. It means accepting that you can love your mother and still refuse to live in lifelong servitude. It means letting go of the fantasy that one day she will suddenly see you as an equal.

You do not owe a narcissistic mother your adulthood. The years she provided care or met basic needs were not a loan, they were the minimum a child is entitled to. Respect is reciprocal, and your independence is not an insult; it’s the natural, healthy outcome of growing up.

She may always see you as a child in her debt, but you have the power to see yourself as a free adult, equal in worth, and no longer beholden to her control. 

#NarcissisticMotherSurvivors #EmotionallyImmatureParents #BreakingFree #AdultChildrenMatter #YouOweHerNothing #EqualWorth