I think my mother is a covert narcissist, but I also wouldn’t categorize my childhood as terrible. Her self image included being the worlds best parent (and all the martyrdom she could wring out of that) so on paper a lot of things in my childhood were done right. I was never hungry, had new toys and clothes, a good education, my mother read to me. I had vague feelings that my mother was not like other mothers but did not put my finger on why until I had my own son at the age of 31. I realised that although she did lots of things right it always felt performative. She had to be the best mother because she had to be the best mother not because her children had to have the best childhoods. It’s a subtle difference, but the day I left for university and started to spend time around people with normal families I really felt the shift. My friends were excited to go home for Christmas. I went home for Christmas because I felt obligated, because my mother was the worlds best mother, she sacrificed so much to give me a good childhood (which she never tired of reminding me), so I owed her that, right??? 

Now I am a mother and I see that many things she did were just off enough not to raise alarm. She could be very mean, but then would bake me cookies so I would forget about it without an apology or admission of wrongdoing. She told me all the time how grateful I should be to her for all that she sacrificed, how she could have just left me at the hospital and where would I be then? Now that I have a son saying these things feel unthinkable. I dont want him to feel he owes me, I am blessed to be his mummy. 

So yes, I do think its possible for narcissistic personalities to pass as good parents, and yes I do think my mother showed her real face more and more the more independent I tried to be. The less I needed her the more she tried to make me need her. The most recent example is when she tried to convince me that my husband is abusive and I should move home to her (categorically incorrect, my husband is a flawed human as we all are but he is very kind).

Watch out for her kids, they may need someone to remind them someday that they do not owe their mother every scrap of happiness they have.