Golden Child Syndrome & The Scapegoat

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

Let’s talk about Golden Child Syndrome, a role held within a toxic family system. 

Every dysfunctional family has a Golden Child, and wherever you find a Golden Child, you’ll find Scapegoat Child as their sibling. 

The Golden Child Syndrome: What’s a Golden Child?

This Golden Child is the “chosen one” – the one the narcissistic parent favors above the others. The parent will very openly project all their dreams, hopes, and expectations onto this child, giving less than two shits about how it makes the Scapegoat and other children feel. While the Scapegoat of the family is systematically blamed, criticized, and emotionally discarded, the Golden Child, on the other hand, no matter their actions or attitude, is praised, rewarded, and even idealized by the narcissistic parent (and in turn, also by the other members of the family who want to feel accepted). Early in life, the Golden Child learns their role in the family is to please and live out their parent’s highest and unfulfilled ambitions.

It sounds like Golden Child Syndrome equates to landing the role of a lifetime within the dysfunctional family, right? Wrong. These children are left feeling the heavy pressures of accomplishing unattainable levels of talent, and even perfection, to remain in the narcissistic parent’s good graces. These children can grow up to have low self-esteem, suffer from severe anxiety disorders, and have unhealthy boundaries with insecure attachment styles in relationships. The divide the parent creates by constructing this toxic dynamic, continues into adulthood when unchecked, making healthy relationships among siblings difficult, even after the parent has passed away. 

The divide the parent creates by constructing this toxic dynamic, continues into adulthood when unchecked, making healthy relationships among siblings difficult, even after the parent has passed away.

First hearing this “Golden Child Syndrome” term recently intrigued me. I began down the rabbit hole of researching and quickly realized that of the two siblings I grew up with, my brother Tony, the closest to me in age, was “the chosen one” in my mother’s eyes. No matter how “good” I tried to be (being quiet in school, cleaning the house, being honest and helpful), I was always less-than, never good enough; and no matter how “bad” Tony behaved (acting up in school, not helping around the house, terrorizing those poor minimum wage workers at Chuck E. Cheese’s), he was her sweet little angel boy–the moon, the stars, and the sun combined.

“Ah, Tony. He’s such a BRAT!” she’d laugh, in a sweet, endearing way. 

The “Milkshake Incident” instantly came to mind when recently recalling my first memories of the Golden Child effect (it’s coming—keep going). Tony being forced into the Golden Child role became obvious to me. 

Some Background (and Intro to the Spawn From Hell)

During the early 1980s, Mum, Tony, and I moved around from sofa to sofa, floor to floor, and even into our golden Suburu station wagon for a time. Nana and Papá had invited us to stay in their living room at one point, but after Nana was done with Mum’s childish antics–they constantly fought when we stayed with her–we landed at Carl and Josie’s, a modest little one-story brown ranch style home with a terrible overgrown lawn on Hill Street.

I have no idea how my mother knew these people, but when we had nowhere else to go we temporarily stayed in a small room in their home, I suppose it was the den, just off their kitchen separated by a hollow pocket door that never seemed to close properly. Mum and I cleaned their house, washed their cars, and did yard work to earn our keep, so to speak. 

I chose to sleep on the brown shag carpet next to the door so I could bark to alert Mum and Tony if some nefarious criminal type was approaching (I so badly wished to be a Doberman Pinscher at the time. #WEIRDOCHILDHOODGOALS). Mum and brother Tony slept on the scratchy plaid sofa. 

Carl and Josie were incredibly friendly. Uncomfortably friendly, even. I’d never experienced that kind of glossy-eyed happiness from adults–they were perpetually smiling and nothing ever seemed to be a problem. “No big deal!” they’d say about absolutely everything, whether a vase was broken or the cat pissed on the loveseat cushion.

They also didn’t allow alcohol in their home (a huge plus) and were super religious, Christian, though as a child I questioned whether or not this family displayed proper “Christ-like” qualities. I mean, would Jesus allow children to place bars of soap in a fresh-water aquarium, keep a free-ranging pet chicken in the house, allow babies to eat beverage coasters?

(Side note: In my adult years I discovered these round, flat, puffy items were more properly referred to as “rice cakes”, not at all made for resting one’s drink upon. Quite an embarrassment when remembering all the times I had run to grab a half-eaten one to place under a cup of coffee around the house when doing my job of tidying up. But I digress, so sue me.)

Mum, Tony, and I were quickly convinced that Carl and Josie, as kind and religious as they were, had been cursed by God with a child from Hell. Dougie (A.K.A. Gooberly Goo), always had ample snot dripping down his face and a fully loaded diaper ready to discharge onto unsuspecting furniture at any moment. Gooberly Goo was also the same devil child who frequently placed fresh bars of Irish Spring soap in the aquarium that I would run to fish out. Had I performed such a deviant act, I imagine an exorcism would have been in order. 

Josie, his caring, yet overtly submissive mother, would respond the same way each time I’d tell on him (which was every single damn day, mind you), with the sad sound of surrender in her wispy voice, “Oh Dougie, please stop putting soap in the fish’s home. It makes them very sad.” 

“Sad?! You’re killing them for God’s sake, you fish-murdering little creep-o!” I’d silently scream, hoping the ticker tape I was convinced laid across my forehead was malfunctioning at the time so no one could sense my shock and rage. 

He would run and giggle, like a spawn of the death serpent himself, devising his next plan, such as opening up a bag of maxi-pads and sticking each one onto his pasty little body and crying when they were pulled off. (Yes, his ornery little ass did that and never received the kind of ass whoopin’ I’d learn to expect for much lesser offenses. Maxi-pads were not cheap, ya’ll.) 

In a moment of sympathy for the kid, hoping I might win his little demonic heart over and keep him from torturing animals (trying to fix people at 8 years of age–yay me), I once invited “Goo” into our den/room to play Pac-Man with us on the Atari. Not five minutes into our game he sneezed and a booger shot out and lodged itself in the console. Like a leper, Mum banned him from our room forever, making me the gatekeeper from that day forward. It was my fault our Atari console was ruined. (Not that she held hatred toward boogers—we all seemed to be overtaken by them now and again—but our boogers were family. Big difference, Bub.) 

At some point in witnessing Gooberly Goo’s constant tantrums, experiencing his overall smell, and seeing his mother bow before him like a humble servant, I began to strongly (yet silently) resent Josie and her powerlessness, and that she wouldn’t give this kid any discipline whatsoever no matter how dangerous he was. I was sure he was going to grow up to be a serial killer, hearing they would often start with torturing living beings smaller and more helpless than themselves, like that poor innocent plecostomas in the fish tank.

And wipe his nose and face for God’s sake! That I cannot at all remember anything whatsoever about his two siblings is proof that Gooberly Goo, in all his majesticalness, was, indeed, the family’s Golden Child. He could do no wrong, Mama’s little freak. 

He could do no wrong, Mama’s little freak. 

Looking back, I now see that putting my focus on Josie and Dougie and how bad things were with them kept my focus away from seeing the same dysfunctional dynamic within my own family. When physically and emotionally immature and trying my best to survive the chaos without a means of escaping, it was easier to point the finger outward. “We will NEVER be like THEM.” Pointing a finger inward was much too painful; acknowledging being trapped in it would be utterly devastating. The Golden Child Syndrome was in full effect in our family. 

Finally, the Milkshake Incident

One Friday night we were celebrating Carl’s new job. In attendance were all who lived in the house at the time: Carl, Josie, Gooberly Goo, his two siblings were somewhere in the background, and the three of us.

Mr. Peepers, the chicken (yes, a female, but there is no arguing with insanity), had been running around on top of the piano whilst Carl played and Josie sang religious songs, bangers such as “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Kumbaya”. Dougie ran about in his usual attire, turd-filled diaper only, complimented by crusty snot mask, whilst chasing cats, and doing God-knows-what to them if he caught them. Mum played the guitar and sang The Beatles’ “And Your Bird Can Sing” whilst my brother and I sat uncomfortably in silence: he was much too young to know the lyrics; my robotic voice was highly discouraged. 

Just as Gooberly Goo began asking for “Dinn-o, Mama,” Carl had run out to pick up McDonald’s hamburgers for us all.  

“Yay! McDonald’s for dinner, kids!” Mum exclaimed, as if this wasn’t, in fact, a weekly treat we partook in but a rare treasure cast upon us once in a blue moon. We were excited, nonetheless.

Once Carl had returned, we gleefully gathered around the table, bright-eyed, with tummies rumbling in anticipation.

“I want cheese! I wanted a cheeseburger!” Tony yelled, angry brows becoming one, as I shrunk to about an inch and a half tall in shame.

“It’s just the same, Tony, only better!” Josie said, as she carefully unwrapped it, handing it to him with wide eyes and big teeth (an attempt to convince Tony of the complete opposite truth by using a sort of Orwellian game. (Again, I asked myself, “Would Christ find himself manipulating the truth about a hamburger?”)

As Josie bent down, picking up some fries that had fallen onto the floor, Tony lifted his strawberry milkshake, pulled the plastic lid off, and poured the pink sludge directly over the top of Josie’s head. Just. Like. That.

She stood up slowly, pink slime dripping—plop, plop, plop–onto the linoleum floor below. The rest of the house was silent. Even Mr. Peepers didn’t make a peep.

This would be the end of my little brother, I thought. He was clearly a rascal, but I still adored him and vowed my undying protection of him, like the Doberman I so badly wanted to be.

Mum knew better than to discipline Tony in front of Carl and Josie, as it was against their household policy (obviously), and after all, we were living under their roof for free and sadly, they purchased the food and drinks with their own hard-earned money. Seeing the tension in my mother’s jaw muscles, the first place I learned to look when curious of her reactions to things, made me think she wanted nothing more than to give the little monkey a quick smack on the rear and throw him in bed (err, sofa) for the night. But she didn’t.

She just softly exclaimed, “Tony!” then grabbed a dish towel to help Josie clean the cold dairy delight out of her frazzled locks.

Wiping up milkshake remnants from the floor became priority number one for me so no one could see my face as I held in my giggles and shock considering Tony might actually get away with this. 

Josie insisted Mum not worry about it. “It’s OK,” she said, haphazardly wiping small bits of dripping pink milkshake away from her face. “No, really, I’m fine.” She smiled.

She soon escaped to the back of the house where her bathroom and bedroom were located. We’d assumed we’d be hearing the shower turn on, but she came out not five minutes later with just as much sticky pink drink in her hair as she had when she left the room. She didn’t wash her hair. I repeat: guys, she did not wash her hair. We never heard the shower go on that night. We waited. We listened. Nope. Unbelievable.

Party over, vibe destroyed, we quietly finished up dinner and cleaned up the kitchen before retreating to our rooms. 

Mum made us promise we’d never tell, but she laughed like hell into her pillow when we retreated to our den/room for the night. Turns out I mistook her clenched jaw; she was simply stowing away a hefty guffaw. Tony wasn’t in trouble after all. He aced it—he made Mum laugh, which was, apparently, far better than getting all A’s on a report card, receiving the “Student of the Month” award, or winning a ribbon at a school track meet. (And likely the planting of the seed I needed to become a stand-up comic as an adult– “Maybe she’ll love me now if I make her laugh.”) 

The Golden Child Syndrome: Findings & Realizations

We reminisced for years about the fact that Josie never washed her hair after the milkshake incident. Was she cursing in her room? Crying? Mixing cyanide? We’d never know. But that became our focus, the milkshake in the hair not being washed. Not the disrespect. Not the lack of discipline. Not the fact that had I done the same I’d be on the street begging for scraps. 

We’d move on and never speak to Carl and Josie again but I would think of them ever so often, wondering how the old gal, Mr. Peepers, had fared, and whether or not Gooberly Goo grew up to be a sociopath.

Tony thankfully didn’t, he’s a super-sensitive talented human being, and being the Scapegoat myself (more about that here) I cannot speak for his feelings on growing up the Golden Child. We continue to work on and heal our relationship that was doomed to fail from the get-go (being an over-protective big sister constantly trying to prove my goodness is not a good foundation for a healthy siblingship, turns out). And as his observant sibling, I can say he is an absolute perfectionist when it comes to his art, music, and studying multiple subjects: just like what Mum wished she could have done if given a chance–or really, let’s be honest, had she made better choices and wasn’t struggling with an undiagnosed mental illness with little to no support. 

Interested in learning more about Golden Child Syndrome? As a start, I highly recommend reading the following in-depth article by Suzanne Degges-White, PhD, LCPC, LPC, LMHC, NCC titled: Golden Child Syndrome: 8 Characteristics and How to Overcome It. Good stuff.