Not my parents, but I’ve had a narcissist work colleague pester me about my partner and I not wanting to have kids, trying to convince us I guess, using her ultimate argument…
Her: But… you need to have kids so they take care of you when you’re old!
Me: So… wait. Is that the reason you had kids?
Her: Well yea! (like that’s the only logical answer, duh)
Me: … wow …
Fast forward. Her kids are all grown up now, they’ve since cut all contact and she hasn’t seen them nor her grandkids in years. I run into them once in a while and I’ve helped them out with a handful of times with things like moving or maintenance or tax reports or whatever. There’s a few things they never really got to learn growing up and anything they could ever do was never good enough for her, even though she’s terrible at most things.
Now and then, she’d still complain about them being ungrateful and I’d just ignore her… she’s never once come even close to the self-awareness that she drove them away by being a narcissist asshole.
She’s retired now, so neither of us have to deal with her now.
Great fucking plan, having kids to guilt trip them into caring for you…
They had the guts to move on and I’m proud of them.
I was probably the first to tell them so, some random passerby.
Fuck narcissists.