Does your narcissistic parent "golden child" random people in her life?

[Dandelion]

Its something I only considered recently, as we are NC this last 6 months. 

I am an only child.  So mostly "Ignored" or after adolescence ignored and "scapegoated".  So never experienced the "golden child" thing.   

Here are 3 examples.

1.  Her adult niece (20 years younger than me).  Gushing about her, giving her money, worrying about her "poor..." (even though her life postition was 10 X better than mine and as a single parent I was desperate for my mostly absent mother's support!).  Of course, they fell out eventually and my NM now privately calls her a F* B*.

2.  Being in a restaurant with a couple of family friends, when my son was about 2 years old.  One friend brought along their grandchild, around my son's age. My mother had not seen my son for 3 months by the way - and he was a truly delightful little boy (a much more difficult teenager it must be said, to show I am being objective here!).  She gushed and gushed over this little girl, and completely ignored my son all afternoon.  I remember thinking it was very odd and unsettling at the time!

3.  A neighbour.  This new neighbour brings her food from time to time.  Again the gushing of how incredibly "good" they are, how wonderful their little girl is etc, ad infinitum - its also probably a dig at me (the daughter who doesn't bring meals round during Covid, though it is a 6 hour round trip tbf!).  Also, the gushing words are there, but not much else.  She couldn't really relate to a child, e.g. read a book with them, play a game with them, or really put up with them for more than 10 minutes.

It seems to me a bit like "golden childing", even if they are more distant relatives, neighbours or friends.  Its a lot around young children, but also around people who "do" things for her or give her things (flowers, food), pay homage in some way!  All of it is gushing and seems rather feigned to me of course ...

Anyone else something similar?

[Call Me Cordelia]

Yes! Now that you mention it, my UNM worked in a school. One little boy the same age as my son became her "golden child." He had some problems, and my UNM is one of those who need to be needed. Every conversation with her eventually came around to how much she had helped this little boy and how grateful to her his parents were and how much this child loved her. I'm sure these stories were very much exaggerated. But she was not interested at all in my son.

[Cat of the Canals]

Oh yeah. My uPD mom treats everyone on her "good" list as a golden child. And often the "newer" they are to her, the more over-the-top she is about it.

If she meets you and you end up on her good list, you are either "brilliant" or "a genius" or "sooooo wonderful" or "bright and charming" or "the sweetest person I've ever met."

Even if you've only met once, being on the good list means that if you are ever in the tri-state area, you MUST come visit and stay for several days, and she will cook many elaborate meals for you and take you out to nice restaurants (where she never allows anyone else to pay).

[Boat Babe]

Yes, this feels familiar. I remember one deeply embarrassing moment when my son was a toddler. My mother came with me to the parent and baby/toddler centre near where I lived, which was a very multi-ethnic area of the city. When we were sat down drinking tea with other parents, while the little ones played around us, my mother noticed the one blonde, blue eyed child there. She then went into raptures about this child's beauty and fairness.  Loudly.  I was absolutely mortified, for her complete lack of tact and awful racism.  I was also upset that she had never rhapsodised about her own brown eyed grandchild as she did about this little blonde child.

I never let her come with me there again.

[square]

I had a narc boss for about ten years. He "elevated" me and another employee.

[11JB68]

Oh God yes! Ubpdm has always 'adopted' other children!
I was an only. My bff became m's 'other daughter' (????)
Now she says she has 'adopted'her two nieces (my cousins).

[LemonLime]

My uPD sib does this.   She dotes on other peoples' kids and swoons about what great parents they have in order to make me feel like crap about my own parenting, because she knows my parenting skills are a vulnerable place for me.   

[moglow]

Yep, all the above! Mine is besties with anyone who caters to her for as long as it lasts. The instant they aren't available or dare voice something with which she doesn't agree, it's over.

Side note: Mother makes a production of taking cookies, brownies etc to various businesses around town (where she used to work, the local pharmacy, her bank etc), claims they wonder about her when she doesn't. Not only was mother never a baker (she's still "add water and stir" box cook or not at all), we were expressly forbidden snacks as kids. Any cake, cookies etc were for stepfather and her, NOT us and we got into big trouble for trying to sneak one.

[looloo]

I had my own term for this: "phantom" golden children.  They were various people over the course of my Nmother's life that she would just decide were impressive, especially MORE SO, than her own kids or just me in particular.  She wasn't close to any of these people, she just liked their accomplishments and the way they presented themselves, and would talk about them as if they had some sort of relationship, but they never did.

[Andeza]

Oh yeah. Totally. Usually, any time she was in the hospital, she'd pick one of the nurses and sing their praises. Honestly, I feel sorry for the entire floor of whatever hospital my uBPDm ends up in. She's demanding as heck about her meds and very uncompliant. Especially pain meds. We suspect issues, but are not in a position to do anything.

She also chose to dote on my little cousin, a girl, and mostly ignore my son of similar age the one time we visited. However, I'm beginning to believe she just is partial to girls over boys. Not something I really want my DS around anyway.

These individuals also exist in a time bubble. Old friends, distant cousins that she was close to DECADES ago, still exist in that bubble for her and she talks about them as though they're still soooooooo close. But they haven't talked in... years. Sometimes decades.

[doglady]

OMG, yes!!

My uPDm has always elevated and sung the praises of anyone who is some combination of the following: male, wealthy, either elderly or a child, famous, handsome, religious, conservative, high status, enmeshed with their parents and in agreement with her views (if female, it’s much the same, although she also adds acquiescent, demure and feminine to the list of approved traits).

In other words, all the complete opposite of me. 
And haven’t I always been made to know it.

As far as collecting GCs, recently she has apparently seconded my first cousins to be her surrogate children as she is ‘so disappointed’ in me and one of my sisters, mainly because because we can see through her crap and have NC/VVVVVLC with her - although she reframed this as us just being ‘very nasty’ to a poor old woman, and she certainly appears to have fooled many with her martyrdom. She still sends my sister emails raving about how wonderful these relatives are because (so she says anyway) they sometimes visit her (unlike her horrible daughters).

It’s all a vomit worthy-combination of baiting and relentless gushing, intended to make her real subjects, I mean daughters, feel less than, for not obeying their queen.

I privately call her TrollyAnna.

[Dandelion]

These individuals also exist in a time bubble. Old friends, distant cousins that she was close to DECADES ago, still exist in that bubble for her and she talks about them as though they're still soooooooo close. But they haven't talked in... years. Sometimes decades.

Interesting.  My N mother, who has never shared anything about her childhood or past has more recently occasionally mentioned odd people (e.g. a distant cousin or the girl she was great friends with at school that she never sees or hears from as far as I'm aware).  Maybe its to "buttress" themselves and their identity/popularity up in their minds and her sharing it with me does that too.  Though I am completely bemused as I have never heard of them before.

All these strange behaviours.  As mentioned already, seeing my mum "gush" at other people.  Never done that with me.   Is it all an act?  I just can't get my head round them really.  I've read about their "unstable object relations" that leads to suseptibility to "narcissistic injury" and so on and so forth. But it has so many permutations, it all seems so vague and unreal.  Now I think about it, from a distance, its sometimes so vague and unstable etc. (I can't even find the words) it affects you; even if you are only slightly aware of it on the periphery its something you don't want to get too close with.  There is a strange "fog" around it, in the usual sense of the word ...

[Hazy111]

All Pds "split"  people into  good or bad, this can be reversed in a moment and then reversed again and then back again and so on. 

[Andeza]

@Dandelion I jokingly call it "PDland" like the TV channel where they play the old black and white TV show reruns, but there's really a lot of truth to using it as an analogy. They live within their own version of reality where everything is black and white. And yes, in that place object constancy is really, really screwed up. Also in that place everything is set to reruns. They replay their past over and over without looking at the real technicolor world around them as it naturally shifts and changes. Therefore, everything outside "PDland" is a fad that will fade away with time. Just as a small example, my uBPDm would comment every year upon visiting that I MUST have died my hair. Um, no. But she never believed me because it looked "too dark." In her mind, my hair was still the same color it was in my teens, when I had a little it of sun-bleaching taking it to a lighter brown than it's natural shade. To her, I will forever will be stuck at that age, in that time period, just as she holds me in her mind. It's a convenient time for her because I still lived at home and was under her authority, and so that is exactly the time she wanted to hold on to. Statements like "You'll always be my baby girl," are not words of endearment, but rather her blatantly stating her truth. To her, I will always be a child. Heck, I'm 30! I have a kid of my own and another on the way, but that will never change the way she sees me.

Deviations from her expectations are unacceptable. Therefore my hair must have been died. My memory of something must be wrong. I can't possibly be capable of having a complication free pregnancy and delivery because she can't. Something must be wrong. Therefore, I am ousted from the ever changing pedestal of GC/SG that I held as an only child Instead, she would insert random people in her life, including people she hadn't seen in decades because they were convenient, and they still live in that lovely, PDland time bubble...

Every part of the disorder is connected to, and affects, every other part in some grand tapestry of chaos.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Wow, Andeza. I'm floored by the similarities. Right down to not believing I'm capable of having a normal, healthy pregnancy and birth. ("The women in our family ALWAYS have trouble.") And having a major major issue when I in fact did dye my hair because it's "so out of character!" Even though I'd talked about doing it since I was a teen. And "You'll always be my little girl," being a statement of fact in her mind.

I wasn't conforming to her version of me.  So it was the actual me that was rejected. The surrogate GC/idealized people were always very one-dimensional. Getting to know people in any more than the most superficial way will reveal a hole in your preconceived notions of them. So the PD can either stay very much on the surface, have pretend relationships with people fm they don't actually talk to, or bully people into conforming. This is usually only possible with one's own children.

[Hazy111]

Every part of the disorder is connected to, and affects, every other part in some grand tapestry of chaos.

Eloquent.

[OWIU (Only Way Is Up)]

Looking back, my uPDM has always wanted to prove she's not 'predictable' - so she has "GC" the strangest people AND also taken the strongest dislike to people who really don't deserve such venom.
An old university friend of mine is the nicest, most genuine, person you'd every want to meet - but my uPDM used to say she was "suspicious" of her, because nobody could be "that nice" and so there had to be something hidden/wrong with my friend.