When a mother has narcissistic traits, roles often organize around one central need: keeping the image stable and maintaining control. The family has to look “good” from the outside. Inside, the system needs predictability and compliance. That happens not only through words, but through assigning functions to the children. One child becomes the display case. Another becomes the container.
That’s how two well-known roles appear—often described as the “golden child” and the “scapegoat.” Those labels can sound like clichés until you see them in action. Then it becomes clear that this isn’t about names. It’s about the mechanics of a family system.
The “scapegoat” is often the daughter onto whom tension, dissatisfaction, and anger are projected. She becomes the reason when the system needs a reason. If the mother is stressed, the daughter “triggered” it. If the mother is disappointed, the daughter is “ungrateful.” If something in the family isn’t going well, the daughter is “the problem.” This gives the system a convenient explanation for anything that would otherwise threaten the image. Blame is concentrated into one figure. It’s extremely effective.
Sometimes these roles aren’t fixed for life. In some families they shift depending on the situation. In others, they stay stable and heavy for years. There are cases where a daughter is “golden” as long as she’s convenient and compliant, and becomes “the problem” as soon as she starts asking questions or choosing her own path. That shift is rarely discussed openly. It simply happens. One day the tone changes. Then distance appears. And the daughter realizes she’s no longer in the “right category.”
One of the strongest tools in these systems is comparison. It doesn’t look like aggression. It’s often delivered as a “realistic assessment.” “Look at your sister,” “Look what your brother does,” “Why can’t you?” Comparison is convenient because it moves the conversation away from a specific situation and into a hierarchy. The daughter isn’t discussing a fact; she’s defending her worth. That’s exhausting, and it easily becomes a constant background noise.
This is where the special difficulty of the scapegoated daughter shows up. She is often the one who notices the contradictions. She senses the gap between the public image and the private reality. She sees how topics get flipped, how conversations get cut off, how someone always needs to be at fault. And because of that, she becomes a threat. In systems with narcissistic traits, the threat isn’t the person who yells. The threat is the person who names the pattern.
When the daughter starts naming it, the system often responds by hardening the roles even further. She may hear that she’s “dramatic,” “too sensitive,” “always looking for problems.” Those phrases don’t function as ordinary criticism. They function as invalidation. If she’s “dramatic,” then what she says doesn’t deserve attention. If she’s “too sensitive,” then her reading of the situation isn’t reliable. The system protects itself without entering a real conversation.
The golden child role also has a cost that often gets overlooked. She may be allowed more, she may receive more approval, but she often pays with loyalty to the image. If she deviates, if she stops affirming the mother, if she begins to see the pattern, she can be sanctioned too. Sometimes that sanction is subtle. Sometimes it shows up as withdrawal. Sometimes it comes as sudden “disappointment.” The display case is held in place as well.
In these families, something else often happens: sibling relationships get used as a tool. Instead of being encouraged to support each other, the children are put into competition. One is lifted up, the other is put down. One “understands,” the other “doesn’t.” That keeps the mother at the center—the one who distributes approval and punishment. And between the children, there is tension that looks like a personal conflict but is actually produced by the system.
That’s what makes the roles so durable: they aren’t only between mother and daughter. They become part of the family’s entire story. Other relatives may reinforce them, sometimes without realizing what they’re doing. Someone says, “She’s always been difficult.” Another says, “You’re the smart one—don’t bother.” A third says, “That’s just how your mother is.” And the roles get cemented.
When an adult daughter begins to see the roles as a system, something important changes. Many scenes start to make sense. Blame stops feeling like proof of her character. Comparisons stop feeling like objective evaluations. Approval stops looking like a pure sign of love and begins to look like part of the mechanism. That doesn’t make the relationship easy. But it provides an orientation that was missing.
Some daughters carry blame for so long that they start behaving as if they really are at fault. They apologize in advance. They soften everything they say. They put other people’s needs ahead of their own to avoid being accused. From the outside, that can look like a personality trait. Within the role, it is often an adaptation to a system that applies pressure whenever someone steps out of their assigned place.
The most important point is this: roles are not identity. They are function. They are the system’s way of maintaining balance by distributing pressure and privilege. When roles are seen as function, space opens up for choice. Not a choice to “win” against your mother, but a choice not to automatically play a script that was written long ago—one in which the daughter is assigned blame in advance.
That space is small at first. Sometimes it begins as a single internal distinction: “This is the role being offered to me, not a fact about me.” And that distinction is often the first step toward changing the dynamic.
Author: Nick Voss
