Gibson opens by defining emotionally immature parents not through dramatic abuse but through subtler, chronic patterns of self-centeredness.

Common markers she identifies:

• Prioritizing their own feelings over the child's, consistently
• Low tolerance for the child's distress, treating it as an inconvenience
• Rigid, black-and-white thinking under stress
• Difficulty engaging in genuine two-way emotional connection

Many adult children of such parents struggle to name what was wrong growing up precisely because nothing dramatic happened — the harm was in what was chronically missing.