9 Behaviors Of An ‘Eggshell Mom’ That Leave Kids Anxious And Always On Alert
When love feels unpredictable, kids learn to walk on eggshells.
MurrrPhoto | Canva When women decide to become mothers, they must be in a healthy state — mentally, physically, and emotionally. As the nurturers of our children, we are responsible for teaching them to have high self-esteem and good decision-making abilities, all while making sure we have a supportive emotional connection with them.
Every person is unique, and their specific parenting style depends on their own experience and upbringing. But how a woman interacts with her children can impact their mental health.
There are many ways to have a toxic relationship with your offspring. One of them is being an "eggshell mom," a behavior that, over time, keeps your kids on pins and needles around you.
An "eggshell mom" is a mother who has created an emotionally abusive relationship with her kids, causing them to start walking on eggshells around her, hence the name. The term has become increasingly popular on TikTok, with people taking to the platform to explain their experiences with their own mothers.
They aren’t sure if she will be upbeat and loving or lash out in anger from one moment to the next, so they are in a constant state of angst. This emotional abuse is no less damaging than physical domestic violence.
If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Why do I always feel like I am walking on eggshells around my mom?” she might fall into this category. One minute, everything is great, and the next, there is utter chaos. An eggshell mom's behavior is like that of those afflicted with borderline personality disorder (BPD), where there are wild mood swings.
TikToker Dr. Kim Sage shared a video detailing the impact of eggshell moms on kids, including hypervigilance, anxiety, overthinking, a lack of trust, being easily triggered or startled, and developing chronic health conditions. Dr. Sage also notes that there is a lack of predictability with an eggshell parent.
If you happen to be an eggshell mom, whether you know it or not, your kids will do anything to stop walking on eggshells in your presence. Finding out if you are, in fact, an eggshell mom can help you decide if you need some sort of behavioral therapy to overcome it. Here are a few signs that you might be an eggshell mom.
Here are 9 behaviors of an ‘eggshell mom’ that leave kids anxious and always on alert:
1. You're unable to self-regulate
Eggshell moms don’t know how to respond to everyday things that happen in life. You may be an eggshell mom if you have huge emotional reactions that may not fit the situation or circumstances at hand. This can also be true of people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).
Something trivial can easily be blown out of proportion for an eggshell mom, as explained by Dr. Nicole LePera.
2. You set the mood in your home
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If everyone in your home’s mood changes depending on how you are treating them, you might be an eggshell mom. You’ve created an environment where people are required to bend to your whims and try to please you, but have started to react to your hot and cold personality.
Research demonstrates that parents influence children's emotion regulation through household emotional climate, parental modeling, and specific parenting practices. When parents exhibit chronically unpredictable behavior and mood swings, children become hypervigilant as they attempt to navigate an emotionally unsafe environment in response to their parents' volatile reactions.
3. You don’t care about political correctness
Eggshell moms are not worried about sparing anyone’s feelings. For you, because you have trouble controlling your emotions and actions, you do things that many would consider beyond the pale. You may be rude, condescending, or insulting and can’t seem to stop.
Licensed psychologist Jonice Webb explains that emotionally immature parents show intense feelings like anger, hurt, or pain at unpredictable times with impulsive reactions, creating volatile behavior that keeps children constantly on edge and hyper-vigilant in anticipating outbursts at any time. Verbal abusers use words equipped to destroy a person, and the real message behind the hurtful words reveals someone who desires to cause pain.
4. You lack boundaries
If you are an eggshell mom, you don’t know how to draw the line in your communications with your children. Perhaps you share adult information with them, treating them as a "best friend" instead of someone you should be caring for and protecting. Or, you hold them accountable for what is wrong in your life, giving them an emotional burden they shouldn’t have.
Studies have found this type of parentification to be associated with increased symptoms of anxiety and depression in children. When parents treat children as their therapist or best friend, the child is expected to serve as a friend and confidant in ways that force children to abandon their own needs for self-assurance, recognition, and support to satisfy their parents' self-absorbed needs.
5. You lack accountability
Moms with eggshell personalities believe the truth is whatever they say it is. If you are an eggshell mom, you are convinced that you are always right, so there is nothing to be sorry about.
Your treatment of others, and lack of consideration and dismissiveness, is always justified. You blame everyone but yourself because you don’t know how to take ownership.
6. You're jealous-hearted
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As strange as it sounds, eggshell moms can get very envious of their own children, causing them to shame and insult their own offspring. You can be judgmental and take on a delusion of perfection to make yourself feel good. Conversely, in moments of clarity, you can quickly switch to being upset when you realize that you are not all you thought you were.
Narcissistic self-esteem is fragile because it is highly reliant on achievement-related successes and feedback from the social environment. Research shows that individuals with narcissistic traits might bounce between grandiosity and vulnerability, experiencing occasional instances of grandiose thinking followed by moments when their fragile self-concept collapses, leading them to feel inferior and deeply insecure.
7. You're controlling
Eggshell mothers want to control everything around them, including the thoughts and actions of their kids. Any deviation from what you have planned in your children’s lives could lead to an outburst like people have never seen before. Kids learn to toe the line, caving to your impulsive will.
Children of narcissists report that their narcissistic parents didn't allow them to do the things they wanted to do, according to therapist Nancie Barwick. usually with the compliance of the other parent because of fear, money, or ignorance, and their children are made to follow all sorts of restrictive rules, bolstering the narcissistic parent's image. There's a link between the presence of a controlling parent in a child's home atmosphere and their tendency to develop anxiety disorders later in life.
8. You're willing to lie
If you are an eggshell mom, you will get what you want by all means necessary, even if it means being dishonest. You view lying as a means to an end and see nothing wrong with it if you think you are doing it for the right reasons.
Research shows that parents often lie to influence their children despite embracing honesty as an important virtue, viewing dishonesty as a tool to achieve behavioral compliance and maintain authority. Parents who engage in this practice might end up modeling that lying is an acceptable way to communicate and solve problems, teaching children that deception is effective in achieving personal goals.
9. You sow discord
You like to see people upset and reactive because you are. You will turn an entire room upside down because your mood has changed. It’s all about you, and you need to know that everyone feels your wrath when you are angry. You yell, overemote, and might even become violent to get your way.
The bottom line is that mothers who keep everyone around them on eggshells can do a lot of harm to themselves and their children. If you are having trouble regulating your mood or controlling your impulses, reach out to a professional for the help you need.
NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington, and the author of seven books. She focuses on lifestyle and human interest stories that deliver informative and actionable guidance on interpersonal relationships, enlightenment, and self-discovery.
