MEMOIR

I Was My Narcissistic Father’s Golden Child

In a dysfunctional family, everyone has their roles

Photo by on

I was a young teen when I found one of my father’s old journals hidden in the unfinished ceiling of our basement laundry room. It was slightly water-damaged but totally readable, if you consider reading someone else’s private thoughts readable.

He’d marked each entry with a date, naturally, and I was excited to see that these were old entries from the early eighties, starting a year or so before my birth and concluding a few years afterwards. I flipped through until I reached the date closest after my birth.

Anna Eliza — I don’t know how I could ever love any other person as much as I love her.

I beamed at the words. My father had written pages about his love for me, his newborn baby. The entries that followed said more of the same. Even after the birth of my brother and sister, the entries alluded to that same sentiment.

It seems that from the time of my birth, for no particular reason other than that I was the first, my father had decided that I would be his golden child.

I write about my mother a lot. After all, it’s her critical voice that I can’t seem to shake from my head. She was the parent who was always around…