Some Thoughts on Narcissistic Parenting and Wealth in America

An excerpt from my book

I've decided I'm writing this book just for myself now as certain events on X have left me wanting to share less, but I'll be posting some snippets via Substack-

The narcissistic mother is the lonely mother, and in all of my years I never met a lonelier woman than Kitty. She had all of the trappings of traditional feminine success- a wealthy husband, two sons, two mansions, two room sized closets filled with designer clothes, a giant ring, yet she spent much of her time contending with feelings of sadness, inadequacy, and emptiness. She would laugh as she told you her husband would have a new wife within a month if she died, but I knew she didn’t find it funny at all. In moments where she couldn’t take it anymore, Kitty would break down and lament that no one loved her, that none of the men in her life would miss her once she was gone, that she would be immediately forgotten. And the saddest part of all was that she wasn’t wrong.

Since marrying Henry, the only identity she had was that of wife and mother, but the very men she had poured so much time and energy into raising, feeding, clothing, and fucking didn’t feel that this all of this work was worth anything. Men, especially American men who have made their own fortunes, rarely value anything that doesn’t produce an income. Of course it was Henry himself that insisted Kitty stay at home and raise their children, but It’s always the people that empathically declare that the most important job a woman can have is wife and mother who don’t value anything a wife and mother actually does. It’s all just marketing, anyone calling you a hero is scamming you.

To Kitty though being a wealthy albeit painfully lonely woman was the best life had to offer by far. Loneliness was never not an option, you were either going to be lonely living in poverty or you were going to be lonely while crying into your Chanel. Born into a fundamentalist doomsday cult in rural Georgia, she never stood a chance at having a normal life. Her only recourse was to offer up her youth and beauty for the opportunity to marry rich. Kitty’s looks weren’t just a way to woo men and have some semblance of power in her life, they were her salvation.

After meeting Henry at a trade show in the 80s, they managed to keep in contact despite living on opposite coasts and Kitty being married to another man at the time. Eventually Henry convinced her to leave her husband and move out West. They were married on Christmas day in sunny, beautiful Southern California, no doubt a fairytale to a girl who grew up rarely leaving her hometown because her parents believed the world was about to end. She quickly learned though that not only did her new Husband have a terrible temper, he was incredibly demanding, desperate for money and status, and something of a con man. It was immediately clear that Henry had lied about the lifestyle he was living in California. But to him it wasn’t a lie. No matter what, he knew that one day he would be rich because he didn’t care what it took to get there.

That’s all you really need to get rich in America after all- some form of latent sociopathy, not intelligence, not luck, not a college degree, not wealthy parents, not hard work, but a willingness to be ruthless and an utter lack of caring for who you may harm in the process, Henry had It. This nation, for better or worse, is an ongoing experiment in letting sociopaths run wild and free, some of them end up eating people, others start companies. Henry went the business route. He enlisted his mother and stepfather in growing his mail-order porn adjacent video business and then immediately cut them off from the profits once it was successful. The relationship from that point remained strained.