When Your Family Runs On Blame

[00:00:00]Hello everyone, welcome to the Calling Home podcast. I'm Whitney Goodman. I am a licensed family therapist, and this podcast is for those who are breaking the cycles of dysfunction in their family and building better relationships with loved ones.

[00:00:16]I've noticed a wave of posts about stopping blaming parents and talking badly about them. You know what I mean. There is a certain type of author who keeps coming up and saying that all we do is blame the parents. First, we'll look at the situation globally, because, frankly, we humans have been doing this forever. We always try to shift the blame. And I think responsibility is a big problem for a lot of people. Sometimes this is a problem even for me. Looking at the bigger picture will help you understand what's going on at your kitchen table. And then I want to get back into the details and talk about what would actually change the culture in the family and get everyone to stop pointing fingers at each other. This episode is not for those in power, who have done something bad, and want to abdicate responsibility.

[00:01:20]It is also not for those seeking permission to never analyze their own behavior again. This is for anyone who looks at their family and thinks, "Oh my God, we have a real problem with accountability and blame." And I do n't want to pass this on as a legacy. Before we begin, a quick note: if what we're talking about today sounds like work you're trying to do on your own or with a therapist, and you need more support and resources —you don't have to do it alone. The “ Family Cycle Breakers Club” is our community at Calling Home, where we have a wealth of resources to help you with this topic. We have a group for adult children of emotionally immature parents where we talk a lot about developing emotional maturity, like responsibility, and when blame is appropriate for yourself and others. We also looked at how to become more emotionally mature, how to take responsibility. We did all this within the framework of the " Family Cycle Breakers Club." So, if you join, you'll get access to workbooks, videos, courses—everything you need. This is a great addition to therapy. If you're working on this with a therapist, many professionals and clients tell me that they take our resources into sessions and they help a lot.

[00:02:34]The link is in the episode description. And as always, if you have a question you'd like to hear answered on Thursday, send it to Whitneyhome.co. Well, let's get started. I want to start with a scene that I think many of you will recognize. Okay.

[00:02:52]Something small is happening at home.

[00:02:55]The glass is overturned. The child forgets to do something.

[00:02:59]Someone is late.

[00:03:00]Think of one of these small, everyday situations that happen in a family. In healthy families, such incidents usually...last about 4 seconds, and everyone just moves on. But in the family we're talking about today—maybe it's your family—the glass falls, and immediately there's tension, because now the main question is: whose fault is it? And everyone at this table understands somewhere deep down : if it's you, there will be problems. So, everyone begins to play their usual role. Here is a child who says, “It’s not me, it’s not my fault. She pushed me. "I didn't do it." Or a father or mother who starts blaming the child. "If you had been more careful, you wouldn't have knocked over that glass." And then the parents argue with each other because "they shouldn't have given the child a glass cup and poured so much water." And everyone is just trying to figure out who to blame.

[00:04:07]Or someone in your family might be the one who finally throws up their hands and says, “It’s me. It's me. I'm so sorry." And he starts apologizing endlessly. If you can recognize your loved ones in this scene, be sure to write about it in the comments to this video. Or if you can relate it to your own family. But in about 90 seconds, if you've ever experienced this, you know that there's a whole trial going on over who spilled the water. Maybe no one knows who it was because they're not even sure it was them. They don't understand what happened. Maybe it was a dog.

[00:04:49]But no one says, “It’s me. My joint. "Let me clean it up." Or someone doesn't say, "Hey, people, it's okay. Whoever did this, let's just clean up the mess." And it's not that everyone in such families is necessarily cruel or doesn't love each other. Sometimes when this happens, we talk about a narcissistic family structure.

[00:05:12]Sometimes we talk about a family where one person is always at fault and becomes the " scapegoat," or a family where one person, no matter what they do, never takes the blame.

[00:05:24]But there are also families where everyone, for various reasons, simply avoids admitting guilt. And there are families where, at some point, making a mistake or admitting that you were wrong began to be associated with danger. Maybe you were hit, yelled at, not spoken to for days, laughed at, or your mistake was turned into a story to be told to others to shame you.

[00:05:55]Whatever the case, everyone in this house—and it could be the house you live in now with your partner and children, or the house you grew up in with your parents— has learned that when something goes wrong, you have to blame someone else before it falls on you. Because when it falls, it will be very bad. Maybe your parents experienced this in their families, and you've faced it in your own. And now you're scared of responsibility because you don't want to feel those terrible emotions again. But in a family that knows how to recover, a mistake is made, someone admits it, you reconnect, and it's over. In a family that cannot recover, a mistake is made, and it cannot be acknowledged without putting oneself in danger. So the only thing left is to try to shift the blame onto someone else. And it is often shifted to the one who can least resist in this family. In many dysfunctional families, it is the child, the youngest or weakest, or often a woman—for example, the mother in that family. And now I want you to remember this example, because what happens in such a family happens every day on a much larger scale. Especially when people are scared, suffering, and the real cause of that suffering is too big, complex, or too vague to do anything about. We see this all the time in history, don't we? I'm going to get a little political, but I think there have been many instances in the last six years where there was a big, complex problem and politicians just tried to fill the void with someone or something. Of course?

[00:08:12]So it's immigrants, it's certain groups of people, it's anyone who can be blamed for this huge, complex problem even existing. And that really brings us relief, because if we can pinpoint one reason for what's happening, we can do something about it. We can get angry with them. We can channel our pain in a certain direction. And we have a very simple solution to a very complex problem that concerns us here. And I want to make sure you don't think I'm drawing a false parallel here. A society that scapegoats a group of innocent people is not the same as a person who points out the real harm done to them by a specific family member. These are completely different things. But we see how blaming becomes a kind of disease in the family, when you are no longer able to hold anyone truly accountable because you are constantly blaming everyone and everything. And this becomes a way to avoid responsibility even for those who cause harm, because accusations in the family are always used as a weapon, even if they are not directed at those who are harmed. So it is important to focus on this deep mechanism. I'm in pain, and the real reason is too complicated to digest. So let me try to find one place to pour it all out. And this process is almost identical whether it's a frightened country, a family, or an individual.

[00:10:12]And every time we do that, especially as a society, it feels like a responsibility, right? It feels like we are finally calling the problem by its proper name. We are going to hold someone accountable.

[00:10:26]But that's not responsibility, especially if the person or group of people we're blaming have n't actually done anything. And when we intentionally look the wrong way, when we say, “Hey, look here. That's the problem."

[00:10:43]Most often, we are just trying to hide something else.

[00:10:48]We do this all the time in our families. A scapegoat is a way to avoid solving a problem while creating the illusion of action.

[00:11:00]Blaming families or systems seems like a path to accountability or change, but it is often the path that gets in the way. In a family where there is a culture of blame, there is usually a scapegoat who is responsible for everything. Maybe that person is you—when parents, after a tough day, a failed marriage, or their own terrible childhood, take it all out on their child, and the family feels more stable.

[00:11:38]In fact, they achieve such homeostasis with the problem child in the family because they can point to it. And those of you who can relate know: Maybe you were that kid who was constantly going to therapists, had behavior problems, was always a problem, and your parents or even siblings used that word. You have always been difficult.

[00:11:58]You were always giving Mom and Dad trouble. Especially when you have siblings who are "golden children" or more accepting, then it's very easy—and they almost don't want you to recover or change, because you have to be the one who takes on all the pain and guilt of the family.

[00:12:21]But it never gets better, because the real problem isn't the child, right? This is a system. This is how the system affects this child. And I think that many children who are labeled in such a family learn that they are bad and that admitting guilt is dangerous. And this child was blamed her whole life. Therefore, some of these " scapegoats" become adults who are tired of paying for other people's mistakes. They can also learn—children in such a family, especially the “golden children,” who are told that nothing is ever their fault and that they can do no wrong.

[00:13:11]They can also learn that responsibility is optional. And for such a child, they constantly try to avoid accusations. So the teacher has something against them. The boss feels threatened by them. Every ex was crazy. You know, their group of friends turned away from them for no reason.

[00:13:31]As if none of this was ever their fault. And I think if you're in one of those camps —I think a lot of people who never blame themselves probably don't listen to this show, but if you do, that's a very good sign. Usually these are people who always blame themselves.

[00:13:46]But I think both of these extremes are bad, don't you? We have to find a way to say, "I can take responsibility for myself, and not everything is my fault." And you also have to see if the adults around you were responsible for themselves when you were a child. I think kids who have been labeled think, "Wow, my parents never took responsibility for their actions." "I was always the one who had to be responsible." And for that family member who was never at fault, you also look at your superior and think, "Well, they never think they're at fault for anything, or they never admit I'm right, " so they must be right. And I think that, you know, of course, there are adults who have turned their parents' accusations into their identity, or the past has become the reason that nothing in their present can be their responsibility. And I believe that such a person really exists.

[00:14:48]Perhaps you are a relative of this person. Maybe you've met them. And I won't pretend it doesn't exist. But I also notice that this type of person usually still maintains very close contact with their parents. They are not always the ones who break off relationships with their parents. This is from my experience as a clinician over the past decade.

[00:15:15]If such a person comes to my office and says: “My parents won’t give me money for this. It's their fault I couldn't get this job."

[00:15:24]They blame not just their parents, but the whole world. I often notice that such a person is in a relationship where they have never had to be responsible.

[00:15:40]They are supported by the system in the wider society, their parents, their partner. Often, you know, these are people who have gone through life getting everything because of who they are, what they look like, because of their last name, access to resources, and for them there are no boundaries or limitations. There are no consequences in the life of such a person. And we all probably know someone like that, right? It's usually not the adult who stands up and says, "I don't want anything to do with you.

[00:16:15]" This is a completely different set of behaviors. And I think often these adults have learned that the blame has to be shifted away from themselves before it falls on them, in their own families and communities—from their parents, from the media, from the way certain people may navigate the world. We learn this in childhood, observing who manages to avoid the consequences and who is forced to pay for them. And in certain families you find out that, oh, mom always avoids consequences if she cries. Dad avoids all his consequences because he earns money for the family. You know, there are all these gender and societal norms that we have that allow people to avoid certain consequences, right?

[00:17:14]I think most people think the goal here is to stop blaming your parents completely, just get over it, decide it wasn't that bad, and move on. And I don't think that's the real goal.

[00:17:29]It's not necessarily about accusations. You must first understand where you learned to build relationships with others, where you learned about consequences and responsibility, and how your environment shaped your approach to these issues.

[00:17:48]Because again, for some of you, it sounds like this: because I'm a woman and I have a certain role in the family, this is all my fault and my responsibility.

[00:17:56]Or: since I am a man, this is the only thing I have to be responsible for.

[00:18:01]Or: because I am the older child, I should bear more responsibility, because that was the way it was in my family, or because I am a " scapegoat." This is all my fault. So you have to look back at these patterns to understand how you got to this point. People who simply say, "I distanced myself from what my parents did to me when I turned 18 and moved on." These people are insincere. You know that's not true. This behavior is evident in other areas of their lives, they just don't connect it to the past. People who are truly able to move forward and take responsibility have become aware of how these patterns manifest in their lives. We can put responsibility where it belongs and take responsibility for our actions. And changing the culture of blame in the family is about refusing to place all the blame on one person or circumstance.

[00:18:57]And in learning that everyone in the family must show responsibility according to their age. So how does a family that lives with accusations become a family where there are none? What stops the blame culture is not better communication.

[00:19:13]In fact, it is the ability to correct mistakes. And this is a skill that needs to be learned.

[00:19:19]So, first, someone has to be able to admit guilt without creating panic. And I always say: elders in the family, parents of young children, you must show this by your own example.

[00:19:35]You can't expect children to learn this without teaching. This means having the ability to hear “that offended me” or “you were wrong” and not let your entire nervous system react like a fire alarm. In a family where accusations rule, being wrong is like dying. That's why people defend themselves as if they're fighting for their lives, right? And in a sense, they really are struggling, because that's how they feel.

[00:20:08]Cultural change begins with one person feeling that urge.

[00:20:13]Do you understand what I mean?

[00:20:14]Like the desire to explain, to remember what the other person did, to feel it all and not act under the influence of emotions.

[00:20:22]Just let the guilt for what you did stay with you for a while without trying to shift it onto someone else. The second thing you need to do is acknowledge your role without making a spectacle of it.

[00:20:36]True reconciliation is usually concrete and quite mundane. And it sounds something like this. I yelled at you this morning, and it was unfair. That's all. You don't have to make a big show of it every time, forcing the other person to rush and say, " No, no, it's okay." You are not a bad person." This is not reconciliation.

[00:21:00]Acknowledge the specific action, then step back and let the other person respond to it on their own.

[00:21:08]Third—do it without expecting the same in return.

[00:21:15]I think this is where many people get stuck because it feels unfair, and sometimes families where blame is the norm live with the belief, "I will only admit my guilt if you admit yours." We often see this in the comments, especially when parents who have lost contact with their children write under my posts something like: “What about that? What are they going to take responsibility for?”

[00:21:41]You know, because everyone is waiting for someone else to make the first move, no one does anything, and this standoff goes on for decades. I have to be honest with you: if you're in a family system where someone, especially someone who was a child, is used to always taking responsibility and always apologizing, they get tired of it.

[00:22:03]They want you to do it. They want you to make the first move.

[00:22:07]I know it's hard, but they've been doing it for a very long time. So now it's your turn to take some of this on yourself, and things will get better. The only way to break this cycle is for someone to take the first step without any guarantees. You admit your part of the blame and don't make their reaction a condition of your action.

[00:22:29]And remember that it takes two to reconcile. So you may become the person who goes to reconciliation and find that your relatives cannot do it with you. You take the first step with no guarantees, it doesn't come back to you, and they double down and tell the rest of the family that there's something wrong with you, and this happens.

[00:22:54]If this is your situation, taking the first step doesn't mean you'll have to keep doing it forever, like you're banging your head against a wall.

[00:23:04]Sometimes you do all of these things, but the healthiest way to repair a relationship available to you is distance.

[00:23:13]The culture of blame is the reason some families can never mend their relationship.

[00:23:20]I just mentioned my parents, but I want to talk to them specifically because I hope you're here. And I see that there are more of you, and that's actually great.

[00:23:32]If you grew up in a family where you were constantly looking for someone to blame, you didn't acquire the skills of reconciliation. You've probably learned a lot about evasion and how to protect yourself by avoiding liability.

[00:23:51]So now, when your child, at any age, comes to you and says that something you did hurt them, and you feel that old urge to defend yourself, to point out all the good things you did, or to bring up their mistakes—know that this feeling does not mean that you are a bad person or a bad parent. You will get through this moment. And when that feeling arises, I ask you to hold on, because it will improve your relationship. The next time your child comes up to you and says it's your fault, don't dismiss it right away.

[00:24:28]Just let it be there for a second. You don't need to justify it, explain the context, or weigh it against other things. Just say: you're right. I really did it. I know you might feel like you're missing out on something by doing this, but you're not. You become the person in the family who is able to admit guilt and see a mistake without turning it into a war. And I promise you, many of your children have waited their whole lives to find out that you are capable of this. And you are capable of it. They're not asking you to be perfect at this.

[00:25:12]They simply ask you to be able to admit that you were wrong. This is what it means to be human.

[00:25:18]You know, I often hear you say, "I'm only human." And you are right. You are a human. These are completely different things. To be imperfect, to allow yourself to be human—it means having flaws, acknowledging them, and taking responsibility for your actions. And it's still quite possible to do this today.

[00:25:45]And if you grew up in a family where blame-finding reigned supreme, the ability to look at what happened and honestly admit it is a very difficult skill. And since this is a show about responsibility, I want to leave you with a question. OK? Is there anything in your life right now where you are doing things the way you learned at home? Where is the blame always shifted to someone else: in marriage, with children, at work, with friends? And what happens when you constantly avoid that responsibility? I think most people who are working on themselves should ask themselves this, right? Being able to say, "Is there something in my life where I could maybe take more responsibility?" And again, some of you are taking on too much responsibility for things that don't concern you at all. And that's when it's important to realize: my childhood is over.

[00:27:01]Not everything can be my fault. This even applies to parents—deciding what you are responsible for and what you are not. But at least you can admit, "Hey, I did n't notice that." "I didn't see that." "I didn't know it was a problem." It 's important to simply acknowledge that you may evoke feelings in people, your children, that you may not have intended to evoke in them.

[00:27:31]Blame is something that is used in families to try to avoid pain. But nothing changes when we only blame each other.

[00:27:44]Responsibility is uncomfortable, and it means someone has to change.

[00:27:52]And often it is the one who least wants to take responsibility who needs it the most. You didn't choose the family that created these patterns, but you can choose whether to pass them on. And the way to stop this transmission is to become the kind of person in your family who can admit their mistake even in the simplest things. And I think that's what it means to be the one who breaks the circle, right? This means: I can be responsible. I can be mature. I can recognize when I have contributed to a certain dynamic, and I can also recognize when I have been the one who has been forever blamed. OK. If you want to continue working on this, I highly recommend checking out our emotional maturity content on the Calling Home website and joining our group for adult children of emotionally immature parents.

[00:29:00]We also have materials on raising children after childhood trauma, which can be very helpful for those who want to reduce the blame culture in their own family. You can join any of our groups. As a member, you get unlimited access and can join at callinghome.co.

[00:29:20]Thank you very much for being with us. Please like, subscribe, leave feedback, and comment on this episode. This helps me keep the podcast free and release it weekly, twice a week for you.

[00:29:32]See you again on Thursday for the Q&A episode. Thank you very much for listening and I hope you have a wonderful day. The podcast "Calling Home" does not provide therapeutic services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for the advice of a qualified medical professional and does not create any therapeutic, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and “Calling Home” or Whitney Goodman. For more information, please review the “Calling Home” Terms of Service linked in the episode notes below.