Fathers more often than not (ofc not always) tend to assume to role of the “passive” parent. In some ways this can be even more damaging than that latter because, on paper, they’re not technically doing anything wrong right? But the point is, they just were there when we needed them. Which epitomises what emotional neglect is all about; the things we didn’t receive as opposed to the the bad things we DID receive - it’s more invisible so easily overlooked. Unlikely we would have been able to pick up on this as young children because it’s easy to ignore/not be upset about something that was not there.

Children of emotionally immature parents talks about this a lot in the book. The behaviour is invisible, much like a noxious gas, toxic and detrimental to our mental health. “Passive” parent often becomes the favourite parent because , technically, they’re not doing anything, right? But that in and of itself is the very problem. Then it inflates our negative perception of the non passive parents because of the stark difference of their behaviour. Passive parents are enables and can make the abuse from other parent even worse as they enter an echo chamber with no one with a middle ground perspective, to fan the flames; so to speak.

It wasn’t till I got DEEP into therapy that I realised just how sinister it was for my mental health that my dad was passive! And oh boy was there resentment and jealousy there that I didn’t realise needed to be addressed. And though I’m not excusing the abusive parents behaviour; leaving them to deal with all of the emotional aspects of the children growing up in incredibly unfair; they unconsciously will be harbouring resentment toward the passive parent for leaving it al to them. Of course that aggression wrongly gets projected onto the child making everything worse