When a grown child's behavior follows a narcissistic pattern, parents describe the same things: contact that only happens when something is needed, money or childcare demanded as an entitlement, grandchildren used as leverage, and rage or silence when a limit is set. It's an isolating kind of pain because so few people talk about it. Only a clinician can diagnose anyone — and the honest questions here go in both directions.
People ask about your kids at every gathering. Almost no one asks whether being their parent has become frightening. So you say something warm and vague, and you carry it home.
This is a real and under-discussed situation: a parent who loves their adult child, is genuinely afraid of them, and feels obligated to keep absorbing it because that's what parents do. You're allowed to name it.
Loving someone has never obligated anyone to be available for harm.
Here is the honest part, and it's not a comfortable one. Some adult children pull away or become hostile because of things that happened in the home they grew up in. Estrangement is sometimes a young adult protecting themselves, not a personality problem. If your child has cut contact and given reasons, those reasons deserve real consideration — even the ones that don't match your memory of that time.
This isn't an accusation, and it doesn't cancel anything above. Both situations exist. Sitting honestly with the question is also, practically speaking, the only route to any repair that might be possible. A therapist can help you do it without collapsing into either defensiveness or total self-blame.
Parenting shapes people, and it isn't the only thing that does — temperament, peers, relationships, substances, and later experiences all matter. Some parents in this situation did cause serious harm; many did not. The useful move is neither total blame nor total defensiveness, but an honest look, ideally with a therapist who can help you tell the difference.
Yes. Supporting an adult child is a choice, not an obligation, and stopping is allowed even if it causes an explosion. If money has become something extracted through pressure or threats, that's financial abuse regardless of who's doing it. Speak to someone outside the family before making large changes.
This is the cruelest lever, and it works because the loss is unbearable. Some states have grandparent visitation laws, though they vary enormously and are often narrow — a family lawyer where you live can tell you what's realistic. What most grandparents find over time is that meeting escalating demands doesn't buy stable access; it just resets the price.
It's an option, not a duty, and most parents find something in between first: limited contact, no money, visits in public, communication only in writing. What matters is whether the arrangement protects you and leaves you able to breathe. It's a heavy decision and worth making with support rather than alone.