Toxic parents quotes
This article contains a list of 25 powerful toxic parents quotes about toxic parents. These quotes can help you gracefully and politely handle toxic parents who are frustrating your life. Not to worry, these quotes wouldn’t stir up any drama or bitter confrontations from your parents.
Before we look at some toxic parents’ quotes, let us first understand who are toxic parents and the characteristics of a toxic parent.
What is a toxic parent?
One of the people expected to lift you up in life is your parents. It becomes frustrating and heartbreaking when a parent is toxic.
A toxic parent is one who has a self-centered attitude and complete disregard for their children’s personal boundaries. Usually, toxic parents physically and psychologically abuse, manipulate or control their children. What such parents do is make their children feel like they are inadequate or guilty for something.
When people discuss toxic parents, they are just trying to describe parents who yell excessively or do potentially damaging things to their children, unintentionally. Having a toxic parent can be traumatizing and can have serious effects on a growing child.
The habits or attitudes of toxic parents are enough to negatively shape the lives of their children. Normally, when parents make mistakes or unintentionally hurt their kids, the next best thing to do is apologize and make things right. With toxic parents, the hurt and mistakes are ongoing or progressive.
Signs of a toxic parent
You may be wondering what are the signs of a toxic parent. A toxic parent is one who displays most of the signs or characteristics listed below:
- Physical and verbal abuse
- Lack of boundaries
- Self-centered attitude
- Controlling and manipulative behaviors
- Always giving harsh criticism
- Constant disrespect, anger, and fault-finding
- Always blaming you for everything- including their behavior
- Demanding attitude
- Always making toxic or embarrassing jokes about you
- Constantly making you feel insecure
- Giving you the silent treatment

25 powerful toxic parent’s quotes to end their hurtful legacy and heal you.
You can use the quotes below as a mantra for moving on. The last toxic parents quote will melt your heart and give you hope.
- Toxic parenting leaves scars. Every child deserves good parenting. It is a parental responsibility, not a privilege. – TCMD
- No child should ever have to bear the burden of parenting their own parents. To toxic parents, you existed to serve them all the time. – KIM SAEED
- Many children of toxic parents find it hard exceptionally difficult to identify who they are once they grow up. – J.R. THORPE
- You can always walk away from the trauma, the negativity, an abusive or toxic parent. Never choose to become a victim. – KINDLE HEALTH CARE
- A narcissist parent is easily frustrated by a healthy independent child that they can’t control through parental emotional manipulation. – SHANNON THOMAS
- They should love you, just as you are. Parents should love their kids right? You’d think so. – N.R. WALKER
- The hateful and stinging words of a narcissistic parent can linger in the mind of an adult child long after the adult has left home. – SHANNON THOMAS
- A child’s shoulders were not built to bear the weight of their parent’s choices. – TOBY MAC
- I have a gaping painful hole in my soul where good, loving parents and a normal, safe childhood should have been. – LILY HOPE LUCARIO
- It is of no use arguing with toxic parents who have manipulative and controlling behavior. To them, they are always right and you, are wrong. – KINDLE HEALTH CARE
- Most adult children of toxic parents grow up feeling tremendous confusion about what love means and how it’s supposed to feel. – SUSAN FORWARD
- It has been my observation that parents kill more dreams than anybody. – SPIKE LEE
- It is a violation of trust to use your kids as caulking for the cracks in you. – ANNE LAMOTT
- Some scars don’t hurt, are numb and some, rid you of the capacity to feel anything ever again. – JOYCE RACHELLE
- No one, however powerful and successful, can function as an adult if his parents are not satisfied with him. – FRANK PITMAN
- Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnation. – LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
- You must let go of the responsibility for the painful events of your childhood and put it where it belongs. – SUSAN FORWARD
- If the family you chose before your birth no longer supports your path towards fulfilling your true destiny, it is never too late to find a new tribe. – ANTHON ST. MAARTEN
- When you say “No” to the abuse from a toxic parent, you say “Yes” to loving yourself. – KINDLE HEALTH CARE
- Dysfunctional parents let their children know how burdened they have been by their children and how many sacrifices they had to make in order to raise them. – DR MARITA SIROTA
- Narcissists parents do not care about their children’s feelings at all. Only their own feelings matter. – KIM SAEED
- An unpredictable parent is a fearsome god in the eyes of a child. – SUSAN FORWARD
- Remember, you are not managing an inconvenience, you are raising a human being. – KITTIE FRANTZ
- If your parents ignored you, or if they are just not emotionally available, or if they yell a lot, that is a type of trauma. – TUCKER MAX
- Love involves more than just feelings. It is also a way of behaving. When sandy said, “my parents don’t know how to love me,” she was saying that they don’t know how to behave in loving ways. If you were to ask Sandy’s parents or almost any other toxic parents, if they love their children, most of them would answer emphatically that they do. Yet, sadly most of their children have always felt unloved. What toxic parents call ‘love’ rarely translates into nourishing, comforting behavior. – SUSAN FORWARD
Conclusion
Toxic parents quotes can heal you from the hurt and misery caused by toxic parents. But, there are other ways you could heal from or escape a toxic family. You could start by deciding what you want and setting clear boundaries.