Why Is It So Hard to Hold Parents Accountable?

Why Respect Doesn't Always "Go Both Ways"

I don’t know what’s more disturbing: the harm some parents cause, or how far society goes to excuse it.

We praise children for finding their voices, then shame them the moment that voice holds their parents accountable. We talk about activism, healing, and breaking cycles, but stop short at the family door, as if blood makes you bonded.

In a world where activism is trendy, it still baffles me that we are having conversations about teenagers becoming “entitled” just because they have started using their voice, as if that is not a normal part of development.

If more people actually listened to the feedback and struggles of teens and young adults — or what they often label as complaints — feedback that comes from lived experience and vivid memory, I think parents might be more equipped to meet their children’s needs, or at least understand them and form trust and the type of respect that builds a healthy relationship. So many parents have failed to grow with their children, still infantilizing them into adulthood, patronizing them, or giving unsolicited advice instead of listening, and then expecting they will have a TV sitcom relationship with their kids later.

I’ve always found it curious how often young people’s voices are overlooked when it comes to their family dynamics. I also wonder if some people are just bitter that the younger generation has the courage to speak up about what they went through and where they feel their parents fell short. There should be no power dynamic that is exempt from accountability or challenge. That is exactly where society has failed. It refuses to acknowledge that the parent-child relationship is a power dynamic.

If people understood this, they might have more compassion and understanding for why so many children and young adults are frustrated by their lived experiences.

The truth is, if a parent wanted to break their child’s spirit, undermine their emotional safety, and damage their ability to build healthy relationships or a stable sense of self, they absolutely could. And that matters.

It becomes especially important once children grow up. There is often this idea that respect suddenly becomes mutual. In most relationships, that is true. But in parent-child relationships, it is more complicated. Here is why:

1. It assumes an equal balance of power when in reality the child has spent years in a dynamic where they had little or none. Even after becoming adults, many still struggle to break free from that imbalance, especially when others around them fail to see the full picture.

2. It puts pressure on children to maintain peace, even when they did not disrupt it to begin with.

3. It silences or guilts survivors of abuse, making them feel responsible for keeping the relationship intact, while overlooking years of abuse and actions that caused (often warranted) reactions.

4. It ignores relational, emotional, and developmental truths.

5. It reinforces toxic patterns that allow trauma to be passed down and normalized through generations, instead of being acknowledged, disrupted, and healed.

Parents should be emotionally mature if they choose to raise children. That is part of the responsibility. But too often, people have children without fully understanding the weight of that responsibility. In many cases, the real entitlement comes from parents who believe their authority means they should never be questioned, and who make excuses for harmful behavior.

In Black and Brown communities, there is often a normalization of trauma bonding with parents and family in general. People say things like, “No matter what, that’s still your mother,” or “That’s still your father,” as if blood overrides harm. These kinds of beliefs create a moral code that is contradictory. It justifies harm while claiming virtue. That is not only hypocritical, it is a form of cognitive dissonance that allows people to justify abuse or toxicity while claiming moral high ground.

One of the most unnerving things about cross-cultural attitudes toward parents is how often toxic behavior is minimized or outright excused. People acknowledge the importance of parents, their role and influence, but they often fail to see how that same influence can be weaponized.

Perhaps it is because people with children outnumber those without, and children, especially when young, lack a voice or the power to defend themselves. Many parents carry regrets or guilt, but rarely are they held accountable for how their behaviour affects their children’s lives. Because society does not demand accountability, many parents never feel obligated to take it on themselves.

What is striking is how differently we treat narcissistic partners. Society largely agrees they are destructive. As damaging as narcissistic relationships can be, they do not compare to the lifelong consequences of growing up under toxic parenting. Those consequences often leave children without the basic tools to navigate adulthood.

Even though many of our parents came from hard places and did not have access to the tools we have today, that does not erase the very real and often life-altering impact their actions or inaction had on their children. Being imperfect is human, yet being a parent means your imperfections don’t exist in isolation; they shape someone else’s reality— that deserves accountability.

Negligence is still negligence, even if it comes from ignorance or survival mode. A lack of intentionality is still a choice. And while every situation comes with nuance, and we can acknowledge that we, as adult children, will never have the full story of our parents’ experiences, it is still fair to believe that adult children deserve the chance to pursue their lives without being crippled by anxiety, depression, self-doubt, or the constant need to catch up in the years they should be building their future.

Many young adults are trying to do in their twenties and thirties what they should have been supported in doing at fifteen. The monumental impact of toxic parenting on the ability to form and maintain relationships — which are proven to be the number one predictor of life satisfaction — must be taken into account. You cannot talk about mental health, healing, or justice without including family systems in the conversation.

People tend to view all parents through the rose-colored glasses of their own experience or their own guilt. That becomes a form of projection.

Unfortunately, while so many parents may not have had the tools, we do. Accountability doesn’t end with them, it continues with us. We now carry the responsibility of healing, of breaking generational cycles, and of taking control of our lives so that the pain we inherited does not become the pain we pass on.

“They did their best,” they say, as if effort cancels harm.

But sometimes, someone’s best just was not good enough— a reality that adult children of narcissistic or emotionally immature parents know all too well.

It does not matter if it was the best they could do. There was better to be done.

And when the outcome is damage, neglect, abuse, or trauma, intention does not undo the impact.

It was not their best if their best took life instead of gave it.