My Copy: 9781626251700 (image from bn.com)

This book is pretty self-explanatory in what it’s about. However, it was still an eye-opener, because it doesn’t go for the easy, pigeon-hole answers and instead gets the reader to focus on the range of possibilities.

The word “immature” has always been a strange one to me, because where’s the line between mature and immature? Throw emotionally in there and it’s more awkward. Frankly, I never thought of myself as particularly mature, considering my general ignorance of social norms and whatnot that’ve been part of me all these decades.

But this book is not that hard to understand. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents talks about the four types of difficult parents: the emotional one, the driven one, the passive one, and the rejecting one. At different times, many parents may shift into one of these types, but the Emotionally Immature will be part of one or two of these types.

It’s startling to read some of that old childhood experience in these pages, that niggling feeling like something’s wrong in you, your behavior, or your family that you can’t quantify. I suppose with time and distance come some clarity, especially if you put away justifications and excuse-making and look at it for what it was rather than your own gloss to it.

That’s what this book is about–from the difficult-to-please parent to the physically abusive one, and how some of the children of said parents grew up to think of this behavior as normal.

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents is a book I’d recommend anybody to look through at least. I wasn’t entirely sure what prompted me to pick it up to examine right away, but if you’re a person that’s always had that niggling feeling that something was wrong with you and that’s why you and your parents don’t get along…well, this book’s worth a read for some insight.

And it might help you clarify some things while not being overburdened by clinical language and footnotes.