I was on board with pieces of this, but it's the same that I see in pretty much every article of this type in that there is zero consideration of power. Parent-child relationships are fundamentally unequal; parents are in a position of power over children's lives and emotions in a way that is incomparable to any other relationship we will ever have throughout our lives. It is reasonable to hold parents, like any authority, to a higher standard than those whose entire lives are supremely governed by them, if only because the level of harm they can do from that position of total control is extreme and non-reciprocal. If that is the cultural change going on, that we are no longer interested in capitulating to authorities who demand grace and loyalty as a matter of course, I think that paradigm shift is a very good thing.
It's also very strange to me to describe families as "sacred" in a context where you are supposed to be a therapist working from the evidence of relational needs, not vibes. There is significantly more going on with American loneliness than parental estrangement, which seems suspicious to leave out. You say that people have a right to leave their crappy families if they decide that's necessary but offer zero examples of what exactly drives children to stop speaking to their parents that you think is unfair. You say we need "wisdom" but who exactly is supposed to be apologizing, here? This is all very vague and seems designed to soothe the feelings of parents who think their children owe them devotion, which is a whole cottage industry unto itself now.
Edit: Hold on. So according to your instagram, you're not actually a therapist, you're an intern. It's phrased in a vague way to sound like you've got a license, but presumably you can't legally call yourself a CPC/LPC/LCPC or you would list those actual licensing credentials. What you do have is an instagram with 135k followers where you post literally nothing but "parental estragement" complaining & family-cohesion promo posts. So this truly is just, that exact cottage industry doing what it does. Fantastic. At least the last name is unironic now.
edit2: a freakish number of people have liked this comment so i guess if you want to see more talk about power dynamics, family, gender, etc check out my substack or whatever, i do write about this stuff at length & not in the context of dunking on a specific professional-managerial-class grifter selling evangelical half-truths in the guise of empathy for troubled parents
Hi Jesse, I recommend you look up what a licensed MFT intern is. Every state is different. It’s the final phase of licensure following the completion of my graduate degree in clinical psychology, a phase in which one conducts 3000 hours of therapy work under supervision with other licensed supervisors to regularly ensure their standard of care meets the highest level of ethical and legal guidelines. All of my qualifications are accurately stated and available for people to see. I also invite you to consider the argument itself. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Hi Rachel, would you be able to provide an example of what adult children are doing that you believe is unfair to their parents? What are your thoughts on the power imbalance that exists in a parent-child relationship?
My take - If we look at the parent-child relationship from an attachment lens, which your writing leads me to believe you are in favor of, a child is entirely dependent on a parent for their survival so any dismissal, neglect or critique from the parent can be experienced as very dangerous by the child. That is why it is important for the parent to repair as soon as possible. Otherwise, these instances are registered as trauma in the child’s body and persist even into adulthood such that any reminder of those hurtful experiences can kick the adult child into a survival response (fight or flight), which is a state where the rational mind is switched off. Could there be instances where the parent didn’t intend harm at all but the child was still negatively impacted? Absolutely. Even so, the way forward is not a dismissal of the child’s reality. Parents who are estranged from their adult children do need support, however, I don’t think it is fair to expect their children, who are undoubtedly hurting themselves, to fulfill that need.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I appreciate your grounding in attachment theory—it’s a vital lens, and one I deeply value. You’re right: when children are young and entirely dependent on their caregivers, misattunement or neglect can be experienced as threatening, and repair from the parent is essential. I also agree that harm can be done unintentionally, and validating a child’s reality matters.
Where I offer a different perspective is in how we conceptualize power—and how we talk about trauma.
The idea that there is a lasting power imbalance from parent to adult child is shaped by postmodern frameworks that often treat hierarchy as inherently harmful. But in child development, hierarchy is not only natural—it’s stabilizing. The key is whether the parent was authoritative (clear, nurturing, consistent) rather than authoritarian (rigid, controlling, punitive).
Once the child becomes an adult, there is no inherent power differential. Parents cannot control their adult children. The only “power” they hold is relational—the kind that comes from mutual attachment, longing, and love. And that runs both ways. Especially for mothers, whose attachment system is profoundly shaped by the children they raised.
In fact, I would argue that the power dynamic often flips entirely. A mother remains deeply impacted by changes to her attachment system. She is bound to the child she bore—biologically, psychologically, spiritually. She may spend her later years yearning for connection, open to dialogue, willing to attend family therapy. And yet she can be entirely cut off and punished for seeming so desperate/needy.
So to your question—what’s an example of adult children being unfair to parents?
To me, the most heartbreaking example is a complete estrangement where a parent is willing to engage, willing to repair—but is met with silence, public blame, or permanent exile. Especially when they are denied access to grandchildren despite never being unsafe or abusive.
I also want to gently challenge the idea that all misattunement leads to trauma. It doesn’t. Children are resilient. Development involves rupture and repair. The body keeps the score, yes—but not every disappointment or misstep becomes trauma. I find myself at odds with the increasingly popular view that suffering is always evidence of harm, or that trauma can be found in nearly every story. That framing, while well-intended, can strip people of agency, inflate minor hurts into lifelong wounds, and keep families stuck in cycles of blame instead of growth.
We are interdependent creatures. Attachment isn’t just about what was missed in childhood—it’s about what we choose to do now, in adulthood, when the opportunity to heal presents itself. Thanks for reading. Best to you!
“To me, the most heartbreaking example is a complete estrangement where a parent is willing to engage, willing to repair—but is met with silence, public blame, or permanent exile. Especially when they are denied access to grandchildren despite never being unsafe or abusive.”
I am living this. The estranged person is my youngest sister. The grandparents are my parents. The grandchildren are my nephews I haven’t seen in 5 years. I grew up in the same house as my sister and cannot wrap my head around why she places so much blame on “us” the family as her problem. Honestly she hasn’t defined it. She has chosen to estrange herself a second time. Sadly she was near homelessness and my parents granted her space in their house and asked we try to repair but, she was able to move out didn’t need us anymore and cut us off. Her 3 sons are split among 2 fathers; we see one of them as the father cares about our relationship but the other one doesn’t and neither does she. I will never understand it. Even reading this article gives me little clarity but the only thing I am learning is how my family is one of many experiencing this split. It is emotionally painful and wearing. I have been in therapy for 3 years now, first to deal with this now to keep growing out of it. Grieving a “death” of people who are not dead is so confusing.
So for the record, this an extremely convenient way to launder the behavior of controlling and cruel parents. If you look at other (real) therapists who do not believe in the sacredness of hierarchy, they point out that the majority of children who go no-contact with their parents have spent years attempting to talk and reconcile with them. The response from these parents is frequently some variation of "I know I had some issues, but I'm a good parent, you can't blame me" instead of "I'm sorry for the ways I hurt you, even by accident. What do you need from me to maintain our relationship?"
So it seems you are inflating the precedence of children randomly deciding to go no-contact as a first resort, in order to claim that this is a "postmodern" cultural scourge making everyone lonely. You're also doing a lot of defense of the "stabilizing" effect of hierarchy re: a group of people frequently dealing with parents whose problems include addiction, severe mental health problems, and cycles of abusive behavior from their own past trauma. Again, an honest person would be capable of thinking about this and pointing it out instead of fantasizing that parents are across-the-board authorities whose control is necessarily a positive force in their children's lives. But this is of course what follows from a Christian culture which basically thinks of children as feral animals and which sees hierarchy as the natural order of the world, so no surprises here.
I appreciate your response. In the reading that I have done, I have not found the hierarchy in the parent-child relationship characterized as inherently harmful. It’s just that, because the parent has more power, their positive actions can have an outsized positive effect and their negative actions can have an outsized negative effect, simply because kids are so vulnerable and impressionable. I think we agree on this point.
I also agree that all misattunement does not lead to trauma. There is the concept of the good enough parent - a parent who is responsive to a child’s needs 40% of the time (or somewhere close to that) is perceived by the child as being a loving and trustworthy parent. Parents do not have to be perfect because children, by design, see the best in them and are more forgiving than the average adult.
It would help me understand your perspective if you provided more details in your example of a parent who is willing to repair but is stonewalled by their adult child who is unwilling to engage. What is the nature of the rift? What reason does the adult child give for their desire to not repair? The trouble with not providing more specifics in your example is that people end up substituting their own experiences as the example, and the only people your words end up resonating with are parents who are hurt by their adult child’s decision to insert distance in their relationship. If your desire is to reach the adult children in this equation, then more specifics would be immensely helpful in bringing about more understanding. Otherwise, adult children who felt they had no recourse but to sever contact with their parents will read this article and think about their own situation where perhaps their parent said they would like to repair but didn’t actually make a good faith effort to understand their child’s perspective. As you can imagine, adult children with this experience will not be receptive to the points you are trying to make and will simply feel hurt.
I am happy to continue this conversation if you provide more detail. If not, then thank you for considering the points I have made.
So it’s ironic that what you ask for is what we ask for. She doesn’t give a reason, she won’t explain herself and only just basically calls us the problem, generically. It’s an impossible cycle to repair without two way communication. You’re right I can make up reasons and stories all day long but at the end of my day where does that leave me. I’ve finally in the last 6 months just fully let her go bc I have no other choice.
I am one of those parents. I took parenting and bringing someone into this world incredibly seriously. I felt a very big responsibility to make sure that my children went into adulthood with everything they needed. I gave them constant love and support. I went over and above a volunteering at schools making sure they got to go on a ton of adventures, only working hours when they were in school. (I was a single mom of twins).
I worked hard and I love them deeply and of course I didn't understand the things about mental health that I know now. And I didn't understand emotional intelligence in the way that would have been more helpful to my children. But I was there for them every time and always. I was strong, I had boundaries calling the kids had rules, but more often than not it was my love and caring and compassion for them that guided me.
My my son is incredibly balanced, one of the finest human beings I know. And a good man. But his twin sister who is bipolar and has an anxiety disorder and has been in therapy since she was 18 for said issues, has chosen over the last 15 years to distance herself. To have a very superficial relationship that may as well be no contact because it's still creates the same grief for a lack of relationship that no contact would.
And I have tried everything, asking if she would at 10:30 with me, giving her space, lots and lots of space, never ever giving her unsolicited advice, never ever criticizing, working very hard to find out who "she" is and what her needs are. Apologizing for anything and everything I might have done and being completely willing to work on it..
I could almost guarantee you that it is therapy, "modern therapy" that has given her the idea that to be strong is to separate, to to be healthy is to separate. What she's actually done is fractured the family, created a lot of pain, and not just for me, for her twin brother for her extended family, and also I don't believe she's helping herself by isolating. I think that she's basically avoiding working through her tough feelings instead of growing and learning to deal.
This is just one example, there are so many like me, and I'm sure you'd love to hear from my daughter, I would too. I tried in a million ways to get her to tell me what is going on. Her reply is always I'm not ready to talk about that or after talking to my therapist blah blah blah.
Thank you for sharing your story Leslie. I am not a parent, but I imagine that your child being distant from you is very painful. It sounds like maybe you do have some understanding of what may have created the need in your daughter to distance herself from you even though there is still a lot that is a mystery to you. Admitting that you could have had more emotional intelligence when your children were younger is very difficult to do - it is painful to admit that you may have done something that really hurt your child. It’s no small thing and I see the strength that it takes to do that.
It sounds like your daughter is in a lot of pain. I am sure that it hurts to be compared to her brother and found wanting and to be blamed for creating a rift in the family. That is a lot to shoulder in addition to her mental illness. I can understand why that would make it hard for her to engage more with her family. I don’t know any details beyond what you have shared with me but it sounds like she is doing her best to take care of herself. Unfortunately we cannot put a timeline or any sort of guarantee on healing. We cannot control the feelings and actions of our loved ones, however much we may want to take away their suffering. If our loved ones are adults, we have to rely on their own sense of self-preservation to take care of themselves and cherish the moments that they turn to us in love, in joy, in sadness.
I hope you and your daughter are able to be closer with each other one day and find comfort in one another again.
Jesse, you clearly have issues with how your parents have failed you despite your trust, and their power and inability to answer your questions, or to make the right decisions about your life as a kid. Or maybe they failed to love eachother and you like they should. Or maybe all of the above. Valid. Not the problem here. Please stop forcing us to fix your situation by proxy.
And what are YOUR professional credentials, Jesse? Also, regarding your criticism of Ms Haack’s online presence: surely you’ve noticed the proliferation of estrangement gurus online. Why are you so aggressively opposed to discussion that considers other sides to this issue?
By the time I was an adult, I no longer saw my parents as having the power. I had my own agency. I didn't hold them to any higher standard than I held myself. Once I reached adulthood, I had to own all that comes with being an adult.
I didn't owe my parents "devotion" or anything else. (Owing feels too transactional to me).
I do see a parent/child bond as being indescribably, archetypally sacred. If that that feels too vibey, so be it. Words fail too when I talk about nature and waterfalls, but man, it can feel like I'm on sacred ground which is why I'm protective of the indescribable, confounding, beautiful and difficult bonds as a child, parent and grandparent.
In my 40s when I first began therapy, I did it privately, and talked to a few close friends about it. I never cut off my parents, because I saw them as deeply wounded and human too. It would have felt indulgent and cruel given what they had experienced in their lifetime. I’m so glad I never did as they are gone now.
With that said, I had to practice setting strong internal boundaries and when necessary, tell my parents how I felt when they made (usually clueless) racist or mean comments. I’m so glad I’m so glad there was no social media at that time because I think I would have felt worse and it certainly would have gotten amplified. I owned my power which included acknowledging our shared humanity.
I listen to people for a living, and life is hard, regardless of the generation. Everyone is carrying something difficult. (I'm okay with Rachel's sharing her insights. 3000 hours is a a lot of training and it reveals commitment to a craft).
Don't love TikTok therapy and not attracted to Pentecostal religion, but I'm also not inclined to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's 2025. Never thought a president would Tweet either. Wisdom comes from many resources and I wouldn't throw out someone's insights because of where they go to school or the religion they practice.
I've worked with women moving through prostitution and addiction, and they were some of the most insightful people I knew. Rachel's piece remains extremely insightful.
All that being said, I appreciate how next generations have normalized therapy, challenged confining gender norms, demanded change in systemic racism and church abuse and called out the excesses of capitalism and the way it’s destroying our planet.
With that said, other generations paved trails too in their own way. They had trauma too but had to deal with an environment where therapy was seen as weak and deviant.
They suffered in silence and we witnessed it and experienced the fallout. Materialism promised relief, but it’s ultimately soul sucking and earth destroying.
Compassion goes a long way and it’s easier to have compassion at a distance than it is to have compassion up close with your family. I sometimes wonder if adults who so quickly estranged from their parents have children who will hold them to the impossible standards to which they've held their parents. It’s painful to witness all the cutoffs. I’ve found that even when parents try, it’s not enough as attention goes to all their flaws and disappointments.
You can raise your kids with all sorts of compassion and kindness, and they still have to make their own way in a social world. It's brutal up there. Have you seen Adolescence? There are no guarantees.
I’ve wondered if that’s where Millennial and GenZ misery comes from. There’s a sense of disconnection and loneliness that comes from thinking they're the only generation who has suffered pain, loss, loneliness and injustice. We’ve all experienced it. We’re just more aware of it now.
I’ve let go of the notion that any of us can heal generational trauma completely. It’s part and parcel of being human as there are external factors we could never have imagined like war, pandemics, mass shootings, social media addiction and authoritarians in power.
At 65, my parents, my sister and 3 close friends have died. I’ve had to look in the mirror and face mistakes, regrets and the bittersweet realities of my life and my family’s life.
I’ve more compassion than ever before for all of us. I am grateful for the human values of connection and forgiveness even when it’s hard. I’m even more grateful for the people who are empowered to have the hard conversations in real time.
I'm grateful for people like Rachel who take the time to address one of the most difficult trends of our time.
The strangest thing I’ve learned is that Wisdom isn’t about knowing more. It’s the humbling realization of how much you don’t know.
I promise you that your characterization of young people "thinking they're the o ly ones who have suffered" is extremely dismissive and not at all true.
I'm happy that you got peace from maintaining contact with your parents, but I spent about ten years trying and failing to reconcile with my parents before I finally gave up. I told them to no longer contact me unless they got therapy and were able to admit and apologize for the ways they hurt me, and they decided that was too tall of an order. Removing them from my life has given me a sense of agency over my life because it allowed me to no longer carry around the judgement of people who did not want a child and did not like anything about the one they wound up with. It was a massive weight off of my shoulders to finally let go of the fear of their judgement and no longer submit to their controlling and cruel behavior towards me. It was genuinely one of the best things I have ever done for myself, and my mental health and wellbeing have improved in ways that were impossible when they were still in my life.
I'm well aware that my parents are deeply sad and imperfect, not malicious people, but for years I attempted to hold them to the same standard as I hold myself in terms of respect and empathy and the demands of reconciliation. I am not the one who rejected reconciliation, which is a pretty consistent feature of estranged children.
As you say, its wisdom to know what you dont know, but it's very easy for people like you and Ms. Haack to wave around euphemistic platitudes that you don't even follow yourself. I don't doubt that you've known people whose children seem transient and punishing, but I have met many children who tolerated cruelty out of a sense of obligation, and you and I are equally likely to get a rosy view of any conflict when you only hear one side of it. But when you simply look at young people and go "wow, they must be causing their own problems, the selfish brats!" and call it a day, that just tells me you don't understand young people and are not curious enough to try when you would prefer to tell everyone to do as you have done.
Thanks for sharing this comment. Your story in relationship to your parents parallels mine.
It wasn't a choice I made lightly, and it hurt like hell. My wife and my children have lot our village, so it still hurts like hell to have had to cut them off.
But the thing is, it wasn't my choice. My parents, and in particular my father, decided well before I was born that the bandwidth for who they would accept as their children was very very narrow. I either had to compromise myself or to be myself was an act of rebellion. How is a child supposed to prop up that relationship, there's no mutual respect of personhood. And believe me I tried, my wife tried, and if they were willing to do the work to heal these things, we would be having a different conversation, but that has seemed too much for them at this point. The only one in the wrong, in their eyes, is me (an apology was demanded of me when I did try to reach back out after a year).
I enjoyed reading this article because it challenged me, but I'm afraid that it addresses a symptom not the problem.
The fact is that this country is deeply wounded, generationally and systematically. The fracturing of family units has been the end point of many long years of prioritizing profits over people, of imperial conquest and the wars fought in their name, of eugenics based social engineering. Parents who are not willing to bear the impossible weight of that with their children and grandchildren, are the ones participating in that fracturing, not the children.
THIS!!! “The fracturing of family units has been the end point of many long years of prioritizing profits over people, of imperial conquest and the wars fought in their name, of eugenics based social engineering.” Somebody at the top of the thread was blaming… The Frankfurt School?! Lord help us.
There are alot of people who NEEDED to read this article, and Jesse, this was not about you. If was for and about THEM.
So please, don't bring everyone down who benefited from it. That's selfish and needy and mean. You're better than that. Please see Mr. Kyle Reeves' response below. It's considerably more gracious to the rest of the readership.
I'm allowed to comment my opinion on any piece I read. You could deal with that by trying to see where I'm coming from-- or you can try to cope with your feelings by trying to boss me around, as you have done. I think this kind of immature and controlling behavior is exactly what causes a lot of conflict between parents and adult children, and I'm disturbed by the way it spills over into the way they treat other people as well. Thank you for the demonstration.
Jesse - As I read through your responses to different folks, there is a pattern of misapplication of meaning and intent. You are giving meaning and intent that simply isn’t there. Words have meaning. Your misunderstanding of the actual words is most evident in your inability to accurately quote the writers. Each of your points is based on an idea that you’ve twisted to mean something else. Your interpretation is distorted. You keep saying they’ve said things that they didn’t say … and then arguing against your version of them.
The other pattern present is that since your situation has merit for estrangement (according to your perspective - we don’t know your parents’ version) your insistence on badgering the author, and any who agree or value the author’s ideas, for referring to situations that DON’T resemble yours, shows a fundamental lack of awareness of just how varied others’ experiences are. Just because this piece isn’t offered from your experience and perspective does not therefore mean that the author has unilaterally proclaimed your experience invalid. This piece is about the perspective of folks who DO experience what the author is talking about. Just as your experience deserves recognition and validation, the same is true for people NOT like your parents who are unwillingly estranged from their adult-children who are NOT like you with good reason. They exist. Your not believing they exist because it’s not your story does not mean they don’t exist. This piece is NOT about or for the folks who rightly need to disengage. It’s not about you. It’s a finite space to offer one perspective … not a college course of comparison of all the possible variables.
You will know you are healing and healthier when you can come to a space and engage with others’ ideas through the lens of curiosity and when your understanding of others’ experiences is not impeded by your own.
Again this is a bunch of faux-concerned dismissal in the guise of therapy-speak and parental advice, aimed at controlling someone who isn't even your child. You're basically telling me that I shouldn't express my perspective in public not because anything I'm saying is untrue, but because you don't like how it makes you feel, and I'm sorry, but you don't get to demand control over realities that upset you. That is just not how the world works. I don't know how to be any clearer that if you treat your children this way that's likely a big part of why they don't speak to you anymore!
I'm done here. Feel free to respond and make me look wrong/bad/problematic. I just hope you can see that even a victim can crush other people. In families, and online. And that's not right. That's all I want to get through.
I'm a mom, and I am not the one who rejected reconciliation or healing or apologizing or changing. I'm sorry for what you went through and that your parents weren't willing to grow and understand you and be responsible for what they had done and change. But you got to understand that there's another side, there's parents who have done everything they can and never really did anything wrong enough to have an estrangement.
I never said there isn't. But I don't think a responsible writer is one that ignores the power dynamics between parents and children or writes about how kids these days have dumb therapists in the vague defense of "family is sacred." If my criticism of her piece makes you feel implicated, if you and her both cannot at least consider both of these realities at once, that says more about you than it does about me.
I appreciate your candor but I do not care about your judgement or your priorities or whether you think I am curious enough. I don't know you and I don't give one shit about your assessment of your own character or mine. All of that energy is better spent on people who actually know you and care to maintain their personal relationships with you.
I do not agree that the plight of parents is "rarely represented"-- there is literally no one out here pretending that being a parent is an easy job, and American society has had maybe a generation or three of moving past the idea that children are effectively mindless rosetta stones & literal property of their parents. If the cultural backlash to parental authority today (since That is the subject at hand) is an overstep, it's at worst an understandable swing of the cultural pendulum. American society has been oriented towards maintaining the nuclear family as a unit of social cohesion since its founding, so this recent shift towards slightly-disempowering parents is incredibly recent in the scheme of things ("slightly" as in, children still have basically zero legal rights and adult children exerting social boundaries with their parents are effectively exerting too-little-too-late kind of power only once the rship is sort-of legally equal. There remain very few avenues for children to escape abusive parents unless that abuse is straight-up criminal, and parents are still the de facto responsible party in charge of decisionmaking on behalf of their children, even in death, if no one is around who can claim otherwise. This wouldn't be such a bad thing if people could simply opt out of it if they choose, but that is not how the law works.)
The next generation will judge our (millennial parents', i guess, or just millennial critics') conduct based on their own assessment of our mistakes, and so on with every generation that comes after. I understand that none of us will ever "get it right" in terms of parenting, but we are still accountable for our failures even if perfection is an impossible goal. None of this treadmill of trying-our-best-and-being-criticized-anyway adds up to "family is sacred" or that parents deserve more grace than their children (or that grifters selling sympathy are legitimate arbiters on the subject). Lots of people are going to want a life outside of the family that raised them; that is a reasonable thing to want, and a good society is one that offers opportunities to achieve it rather than treating the nuclear family as the inevitable backbone of society's moral and social organization.
That weight of history weighs on all of us, and sometimes you are judged for your position in that history more than your personal conduct, which is certainly painful but also inevitable. You either steward your power the best of your ability & accept the judgement of those you govern, or you do this mincing "please feel sorry for me, it's so hard to be the boss of things" dance to avoid consequences from those who feel you abused your authority. I think if every parent was oriented towards honest & cooperation (and the vulnerability that requires) rather than manipulation and control, if every authority was willing to accept consequences even for their honest mistakes (rather than demanding to retain their authority regardless of how badly they fuck it up), then parent/child relationships would be wildly different and far less stressful. It will take time to create that world, though, and blame cannot be shouldered onto the powerless for not behaving themselves better in the face of authorities who spend all their time wheedling for clemency for the harm they have done. If your take is just that people in positions of power deserve endless forgiveness while the disempowered ought to make up the difference, then I'm sorry, I am never going to agree with that in any circumstances.
I don't know how to contextualize this problem any clearer than to say that millennial-and-below children generally look at their parents' pleas for sympathy as if their folks are akin to a king watching a peasant revolt and going "okay but what about MY feelings :"(" and it tracks that they would think that way. Whether you think that's fair or not, and that's the power dynamic that modern parents have to work with-- you can either rest easy knowing that you did your best, or you.... argue with people like me online as a cope, idk.
Hi Leslie, Wow so well said. I’m around your age and stage in life (68 yo white woman) and also surveying the family landscape now that both my parents have been gone (for over a decade). They were not great parents and I honestly did blame them for some things. But, like you, as I’ve gotten further along in my life — and further along in my healing, especially through 18+ years of therapy — it’ll fascinating how my view of these two (admittedly flawed) human beings continues to change. I see it as a sign of my healing and maturity that I am more open to respecting that they have/had a fullness to their lives beyond being my parents. I am better able (I believe) to center them in their stories. But I don’t think I could have done this when I was young and reactive and less solid in myself. Having said all that, I have distanced myself from my six siblings (communicating through texts and emails only, for the most part). I know that one sister, In particular, feels very upset with me and likely betrayed by my requiring this distance. She has cut off all communication to me. I feel sad knowing how much pain I’ve caused her. Because there are a lot of alliances in my family of origin, I didn’t and still don’t know how to repair across tangled, glued relationships. Now our older son (37 yo) has estranged himself from us (my husband and me), which means we don’t get to see our 3 yo granddaughter. As you can see, I’m very much in the thick of it! Our older son had expectations of us that we were not able to deliver. I’m grateful for your thoughtful comments (and for the article this thread relates to).
I'm an adult child who has come very close to cutting off my parents and is still thinking about it. (I'm very low contact.)
And I fully disagree with the statement that parents have power over us FOR LIFE. That is an infantilizing attitude to have towards adults and a perpetual -victim mindset to have towards oneself. Telling yourself that even as an adult you are still helpless as a child in your relationship with your parents is EXACTLY what is causing you to fail to see any options other than cutting your parents out of your life. It's a small child's thinking: all you can do is run away.
If you're willing to take ownership of your adult power, then you'd be able to feel secure within yourself because you have this adult power. From this new vantage point you would see your parents as human and treat them as human beings who are equal to you. Which they are.
Until you make the shift in this mindset, though, you'll see them as terrifying all-powerful monsters who are out to get you. A child's perspective, a perpetual victim mindset. Not suited to an adult.
You're willfully misunderstanding what I'm saying. Formative relationships are called "formative" because they lay the foundations of who you will be for the rest of your life. Trauma experienced as a child can alter your personality and the way you interact with the world forever. That is not the same as saying "I need mommy and daddy's permission until the day I die."
That's true, the parent child relationship is formative for the child. But that still doesn't mean that the parent-ADULT child relationship can never be an adult-adult equal relationship.
If this isn't what you're meaning to suggest, then great! But I've seen way way way too many adults who seem confused about it.
For example, many adults cut their parents out of their lives claiming that they're doing so in "self protection" because otherwise the parent will "continue abusing" them... as if parents still have power over them and the capacity to abuse them even though they live far away and have lives completely disengaged from the parent and therefore the parents have no power over them at all! How can there be abuse when there is no power-over? That is the perpetual victim mindset I was talking about.
To be very clear, it's well within our rights to cut parents off just because they abused us in childhood. We don't have to pretend they're STILL dangerous to us when they're objectively not, though.
As adults we are all on an equal footing in the sense that coping with our childhood trauma is our burden alone - not anyone else's responsibility but ours. We as adults are fully within our rights to cut parents out of our lives as punishment, if they abused us when we were children. But to claim that we are cutting them out of our lives in *self-protection* is a perpetual victim mindset.
Parents absolutely have the capacity to be abusive to their adult children, as many adult children of abusive parents can tell you-- the memory of parental authority does not magically disappear just because the parents no longer have literal control over every aspect of the child's life. Parents frequently have financial leverage over their children, since family wealth is our society's first line of defense against poverty, for one. They are more likely to have their testimonials believed among the family itself, which affects the child's relationships with other family members-- their status as a social authority is protected by the other adults in their generation even once the child is too big to be physically controlled.
If my relationship with my parents is genuinely as equal any other, then I'm perfectly free to remove them from my life if I judge they present an ongoing negative influence, whether that is literally "abusive" or not, and my reasoning makes no difference. That is not often what happens-- our society places a premium on filial loyalty, and most children are (understandably!) attached to their parents in a way that makes them seek to tolerate or excuse bad behavior before condemning it. Parents' status as a (the!) formative relationship is not easily forgotten, which affects the power dynamics between them forever.
You and the author of the original post have conjured this vague fantasy of the oversensitive victim, seemingly so that you can locate the source of the problem not in the abuser's conduct but in the way the victim feels. I don't know how to tell you that this framing of yours-- that it is *disempowering* to recognize when people are doing ongoing harm to your wellbeing-- is fully backwards. It is none of your business how other people feel about their relationships, and your eagerness to judge their decisions on how to handle it is your own issue.
Literally power is absolutely necessary in order for someone to abuse you. In every other case you're just playing the victim, using your memories as your excuse. Your views here are exactly what I mean by “perpetual victim mindset” and “infantilizing yourself” and refusing to step into your adult power.
Our memories of abuse are real, they are damaging, and have lifelong consequences. AND ALSO the abuse is no longer our current reality. PTSD is a mental illness. It's our brain lying to us. The feelings we get because of it should not be confused with reality. Just because we feel like we are in danger, doesn't make it true. Our parents WERE our abusers but no longer ARE.
(Note that I explicitly talked about adults who are no longer under their parents’ control in my comment - adults who live independently. If a parent is providing financially for their adult child who cannot provide for themselves, abuse is a definite possibility!)
I think people are free to stop hanging out with their parents even if their parents are merely assholes and not abusers, so I'm not sure why you're so desperately hung up on your own personal definition of abuse. Again this is a You Problem, it seems like you are taking issue over semantics with people you made up because you think they're too delicate in response to cruelty. I can't make it any clearer how cold, uncompelling and bizarre this take is.
I agree. The article seems to only repeatedly state that there are some situations where becoming estranged makes sense, but then just switches back to how terrible it is. I chose to become a parent and I hope to never need assistance from my daughter, but I know if I need it, she will help me happily, because I chose to raise her with respect and kindness, which is the opposite of how I was raised. I wasn't even really raised, just neglected and abandoned, then abused once my mother chose to take responsibility of me at 13 only to kick me out at 18. I would have been on the streets if not for a kind coworker. She still only cares about herself, she cut contact when I got sick and was trying to get family info on neurological illnesses, she blocked me on all socials and my phone number, till she wanted something from me. Maybe the problem is not the young people escaping these things, but the way our parents and grandparents were raised, especially the religious aspects.
Rhia, your childhood sounds truly terrible. I’m sorry for what you went through. No one denies that there are people who are unsuited for parenthood. However that does not preclude the possibility that loving and devoted parents can be cut off by their adult children. I’m sorry to burst your bubble but although you have chosen to raise your child with “respect and kindness,” the day may still come when she decides to go no contact from you under the influence of an unethical therapist or controlling partner. Or due to any number of factors beyond your control such as mental illness or addiction. Estrangement can be a form of elder abuse inflicted upon parents who were not guilty of neglect or abandonment. Cruelty towards parents seems to be the only form of mistreatment acceptable in our society.
You named an incredibly painful truth: people can do all the right things in raising their children with respect and kindness and they still get cut off. I can't tell you how often I've seen this.
Or they may have a child who expressed appreciation that they were raised by loving parents and then marry a partner who, for whatever complicated reasons (or something as simple as wanting to spend the holidays with their side of the family), finds endless fault with the in-laws who do life differently than them.
A millennial parent recently shared that she did all the right things and her child is depressed and suicidal. She is now seeing that perhaps, she was overly harsh on her parents.
This generation is going to be humbled as we all are humbled.
One of the things that may come home to roost is a generation of adult grandchildren wondering why they were cut off from loving grandparents who wanted to see them.
We must challenge parenting perfectionism towards ourselves and others and start realizing we are all part of this human condition. It's always been complicated between parents and children.
Rather than turning against each other, we can grow in wisdom by looking at the larger forces that shape our parents, ourselves and our children and seek to understand and forgive ourselves and each other.
jesse, I find your words, tone, and image toxic. You're making me feel unsafe in this space where I thought I could hold peace. As a queer person who suffers from emotional damage, not by my parents or family, but by words used by you and others like you who attack strangers and impose your anger dressed up as moral arrogance, that has now disrupted my mental capacity for discussion and triggered me and my traumas from bullies like you.
I would like you to form a boundary with this type of behavior you exhibited and not cross it in the future because you are being selfish, aggressive, and causing a sensory overload for me and others like me. I stand up for queer anxiety ridden bullied people like me. You are the gender goblin of my anxiety-riddled nightmares and you need to stop being a bully in this space and in your own life choices.
You've captured the voice of this trend of victim narcissism. It ultimately usurps the transformative value in articulating the experience of authentic pain.
Once you realize how deeply someone is over identified with their disempowered victimhood, you have to walk away. It's a hamster wheel.
I agree with your thoughts about the post but I think it’s a bit reductive to characterize the author’s instagram as nothing but parental estrangement promo posts. I saw that one of her posts was about how she works with her older parent clients to help them understand the heart of what their child might be upset about without letting defensiveness get in the way. So I hope that she clarifies the specific things that adult children are doing that she feels are unfair and addresses the power imbalance in a parent-child relationship.
This is not a writer who deserves your defense or your attention! This is a grifter who went to Calsouthern University (aggressively for-profit online college which gets very bad reviews from students) and then Azusa Pacific University (a Christian college named after the event that spawned the Pentecostal denomination). She is a Christian ideologue who is not honest enough to present herself as such. You can find plenty of parental advice from people who do not go out of their way to be deceptive.
Those of us who are ex-evangelical can readily see the religious terminology and justification for their ideology in this article. Thank you for doing your research on this writer.
sure, i found this piece because a friend shared the bit about how people who are trying to rebut authoritarian parents wind up behaving in ways that are controlling in their own way. but if you need me to tell you that even snake oil salesmen can give a good pitch then you have bigger problems
People representing themselves as experts in a subject matter are themselves making empirical claims, sometimes backed by references, sometimes backed by 'I'm an expert, trust me bro'.
And when someone tells you they work in mental health, or are a therapist, or they have therapy clients, they are setting themselves up as an expert giving their fair and unbiased opinion.
This is why it's kosher to uncover religious and other ideological commitments that someone speaking as an expert has -- it invariably colours how we see the world, thus how we understand it as experts.
Here, the speaker is also covertly promoting their own pecuniary interest.
Noting these things is not at ad hominem attack, and, notably, the critique did not even build on this line of attack in any substantive way.
That’s not an ad hominem fallacy though, on its own. It’s fine to dispute someone’s authority to make an argument on the basis of something like their obfuscation of their actual credentials or their ideological commitments to certain other beliefs. An ad hominem fallacy is not, as you point out, a good response to someone’s argument, but outside of that specific case, there’s nothing inherently invalid about attacking someone’s qualifications or ideological position. That would be ridiculous, as these are relevant to the situation at hand, as they often are. If you’re going to use terms like those, it pays to at least understand the context in which they are relevant, no?
Agreed and appreciate the nuance! Jesse, with a lowercase "j" seems to find joy in antagonistic loaded hurtful language and projection as dressed up fervor. I hope she/he/they can find the help and healing she/he/they needs. They seem to like the art of war with others and tearing down honest pursuits of discourse through dialogue and nuance, rather than 'the art of gender.'
Very triggering for someone like me who is queer and was bullied ad nauseum by profiles like lower case jesse. I hope she/he does better ;)
I know an abusive mother- physically and emotionally abusive- who was estranged from her daughter (who because of her mother’s abuse suffers from a slew of mental disorders). Her mother refuses to see what harm she’s caused, and actually sees herself as a victim of parental estrangement, receiving validation from this Instagram account. It’s so heartbreaking and so dangerous.
What an astounding comment. So because you “know an abusive mother,” all estranged mothers (and estranged fathers, one assumes) are guilty and deserving of cruelty? Family estrangements are much more complicated than you seem to think. Grieving parents who have been unfairly vilified and mocked by the estrangement industry most definitely deserve a source of validation and comfort. If you don’t agree, then don’t read their discussions. For now, at least, we do not live in a fascist society. What is “so heartbreaking and so dangerous” (in your words) is your conviction that only one side of an issue deserves “validation “ and that you personally get to bestow blanket victimhood.
What’s astounding is your interpretation of my comment, lol. Never once did I imply ANY of the things you’ve accused me of. I simply stated a fact, and that is: I know a physically and emotionally abusive mother who sees herself as a victim and receives validation from this Instagram account. The fact that… that fact… triggered you has nothing to do with what I said and everything to do with your own experience/insecurity/etc. I’m sorry for what you’re going through- or for what perhaps *some* grieving parents who have been unfairly mocked and vilified have gone through, AND ALSO this Instagram account has proven dangerous and heartbreaking as I’ve witnessed first hand. Both can be true. I’m sorry, Cornelia, but it seems the only person who “blanket” statement-ed here was you. I truly hope you don’t know anyone who has been PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY abused by a mother who refuses to see the harm she’s caused. It’s one of the most painful things to witness, watching this woman’s child suffer. I really, really hope you don’t have to witness it, walk alongside it.
I hope you took action to intervene on the behalf of this child. Did you report this situation to CPS? The abandonment and abusive estrangement of vulnerable elders is no less heartbreaking - especially when you consider how ageism is used to rationalize mistreatment. This thread is focused on the pain experienced by parents of ADULT children. While there are many, many resources available for adults who claim abuse, there is comparatively little discussion of cruelty towards elderly parents. This issue warrants greater attention whether or not you feel it’s “dangerous.”
He said "Parent vs. Adult Child" dynamic. ADULT child. And power inequalities do not absorb you of moral responsibility in how you treat the other person - even if you are a minor child and the other person is an adult. You still have the ability to harm them. Just because you are MORE vulnerable than they are, does not excuse you for not applying empathy. Nor does it erase your obligation to treat them under the same standard that you wish to be treated - and if you can't be kind, to atleast not choose cruelty.
I’m a mother who hasn’t had communication with her son for over 2 years. I wrote a letter of amends, I have been in and offered to do family therapy , I have apologized for any hurt I have caused and zippo. Silence. No explanation no communication all family is now cut off for no apparent reason.
Thank you! I think I feel this way largely because I have seen how good parents demonstrate a more reciprocal kind of relationship with their kids. My boyfriend has an excellent relationship with his parents, and also feels a strong duty to not ask them for more than they can give-- I think part of why they have this relationship is because his parents are reflective about their own inevitable mistakes, and forthcoming with apologies for things they think they did wrong. I really admire them for that, and getting to have a relationship with them has genuinely healed a lot of the damage done by my own controlling parents. It's just much better to recognize that providing the helpless-- children in this case-- with what they need to thrive is a moral obligation, and does not entitle us to control them or demand repayment for what they could not provide for themselves.
Like -- MFTI means that she's an Intern providing assistance to a licensed family therapist rather than a licensed therapist herself -- which she fails to declare. There's no sign of relevant tertiary education nor even a whiff of science in her credentials, her article lacks references to respected clinical data, she construes a paranoid societal conspiracy theory without substantiating causes and effects, offers false equivocation on advice yet rehashes traditional Christian filial values without saying when they work most effectively and the conditions under which they are likely to be dangerous or fail to work?
My conclusion? She's not functioning as an empirical clinician but as a life-coach influencer with a quasireligious agenda. That wasn't a reasoned empirical discussion designed to help distressed readers discern cases, but a sermon.
What responsible clinician self-promotes on TikTok?
A fantastic article. One that gets to the heart of what is going on in our society and not just the destruction of family, although that is surely one of the key targets. Those doubting what is going on might take a look at the Frankfurt School and post modernist movements' takeover of the education system, starting at Columbia University in the 1930-1950 period. In the Commonwealth nations, we have the Fabians operating much the same ideological program. End goal is state/corporate totalitarian control (fascism by another name) and to get that they need to replace the family with the all powerful State—digital ids, CBDCs and tokenisation of everything are stages on the path.
Thanks for your article. I recall my training in family systems therapy training a hundred years ago. Pretty good system of seeing the family, and I use it to help my parishioners understand some of the behavior their adult children are exhibiting….I rarely get to talk to their adult kids because they stopped coming to church. Perhaps I could instill a thanksgiving for their parents (warts and all) and the reality that their decoupling is really hurtful to their parents. I wish I understood everything I know about this stuff. I will keep trying…..
The Frankfurt School? The Frankfurt School destroyed the modern family when the market forces are right there? Turning children into atomized individual consumers whose every desire must be catered to? The Frankfurt School destroyed the moral authority of the church, made children laugh at their parents, trivialized values? more so than 50 years of “have it your way” burger and cereal commercials and “family values” brought to you courtesy of Married With Children culminating in the supremacy of Joe Rogan? Maaaaaan. All I can say is, the urge to find a leftist Jewish conspiracy scapegoat has got to be really powerful for you to pull this one out of your rear end.
You're clearly drawing on themes from the later Frankfurt School—Adorno and Horkheimer’s critique of consumerism and the culture industry—and yes, their analysis of how mass media pacifies the public and corrodes traditional values still holds weight. But the irony is that you’re using their insights to mock the very tradition they came from. What you’re overlooking is that the Frankfurt School’s earlier project explicitly targeted the traditional family as a site of ideological reproduction. In Authority and the Family (1936), Horkheimer argued that the family isn’t just a private haven but a mechanism for instilling obedience and conformity—essential for sustaining both capitalism and authoritarianism. Marcuse and Fromm developed this further, tying the family to psychic repression and social control. This wasn’t just a critique in isolation—it was part of a broader re-engineering of the social sciences, shifting them from descriptive disciplines to normatively charged tools for social transformation. Education, psychology, and sociology were reshaped to view institutions like the family, religion, and moral authority not as foundational but as obstacles to liberation. So when I pointed out that ideological currents within academia sought to reshape the family and undermine inherited values, I'm not grasping at some form of conspiracy (Jewish or not)—I'm describing what was openly theorised, institutionalised and eventually mainstreamed. Reducing that legacy to a scapegoating impulse misses both the intellectual history and the demonstrable institutional effects it produced. You’re half right about consumerism—but you're standing on ground the early Frankfurt School prepared, whether you realise it or not.
The Frankfurt School is not PREscriptive—it DESCRIBES a method of analysis. I’m not *ignoring* the contention that the family is “a site of ideological reproduction” —it’s an underlying assumption because it is obviously and self evidently *true*. Am I missing something?
I’m just finishing my dissertation at Virginia Tech (rhetoric and writing) after a decade teaching full time and completing 2 MAs. I can absolutely confirm that Critical race theorists (Delgado, Bell, Crenshaw), postmodernists, critical pedagogues (Freire), gender theorists, and Marxists took up/cited the Frankfurt school’s critique of capitalist production to critique cultural sites of production (schools, communities, companies, churches, publishers, govt structures, and yes the domestic sphere in the form of the family, etc.) to identify obstacles that prevent liberation. My trans and female peers explicitly state the hetero monogamous family unit is an obstacle to their freedom, it oppresses them and they must liberate children. Humanities are steeped in the Frankfurt paradigm. It’s literally not a conspiracy, to claim so is a red herring and epithet. Ive read so many authors and mainstream scholars in composition studies, rhetoric, and applied linguistics who use Marcuse, Adorno, and others as theoretical foundations and research frameworks. Please consider this experience and adjust your reality to accommodate this new information so you realize when you’re sharing incomplete understanding or misinformation. Howard is 💯 on this.
You’ve shifted from mockery to a kind of strategic concession—acknowledging that the family is a “site of ideological reproduction” but now claiming the Frankfurt School was merely descriptive, not prescriptive. That’s a rhetorical deflection.
Let’s be clear: the Frankfurt School, particularly in its early phase, was not content with analysis for its own sake. Horkheimer, Marcuse, Fromm—they developed Critical Theory precisely as a tool for social transformation. In Authority and the Family (1936), Horkheimer didn’t neutrally observe the family—he argued that the traditional family structure produced authoritarian personalities and reinforced capitalist domination. This critique was foundational to a broader effort to re-engineer the social sciences, which increasingly treated institutions like the family, church, and school as targets for ideological deconstruction.
So when you say the ideological role of the family is “self-evidently true,” what you’re really doing is conceding the premise while downplaying the programme that followed from it—in education, psychology, and culture. That’s not honest engagement; that’s rhetorical containment.
As for the accusation that I’m defending “only ONE desirable organisation of family”—that’s a straw man. No one here claimed the traditional family is the only valid form. The point is that ideological projects—shaped in part by Frankfurt School thinking—have systematically delegitimised it under the banner of liberation, without acknowledging the social fragmentation and atomisation that followed. Raising that concern is not the same as insisting on one model—it’s pointing out the consequences of deliberately unmaking one without offering a stable alternative.
So again: this isn’t about nostalgia or conspiracy. It’s about recognising that ideas have institutional consequences—and pretending that the Frankfurt School’s influence was merely observational is, at best, misinformed, and at worst, evasive.
Thank you so much. I long to be embraced. My sister many states away is hurting with me and she feels like she is loosing me in the process. I am not the same.
No, sadly, you are definitely 💯 not alone. I am so sorry for your pain.
The loss of a child who is still alive is devastating. Please do what you need to do to take care of yourself and be good to yourself. Your well-being matters. You matter.
There is a line in the Baghavad Gita where Krishna tells the warrior Arjuna that we are all entitled to our actions but not the “fruits of our actions.” These wise words are a solace to me. My son, who was raised with love, now has this endowment from me of the “fruits of my actions.” So he reaps the benefits of my good care. And I was a good mother.
I believe that his decision to estrange from us shows a deficit of courage, fortitude, strength, and integrity. I have to reckon with the painful probability that all of my determination, protectiveness, worry, joys, laughter, celebration, a hundred decisions and revisions that a moment will undo (T.S. Elliot) — given freely in the hopes of raising a good man who would “pay it forward” — were for naught. Because I know as sure as I’m writing this text right now that someone who could treat/discard me as my son has, is not a good man by any standard I recognize.
But, according to Krishna, I have my actions, as the warrior Arjuna did. I feel good about how I mothered my son. And that is something no one, not even my adult son, can take from me.
I’m so glad that a therapist wrote an article from a SOCIOLOGICAL perspective. Yes- this is a movement and you are spot on. It’s similar to what we are seeing with politics and social action protesting or promoting DEI , book banning and other ideological driven activities.
In other words, ideology leaves no room for compromise or balance in points of view. So many of today’s parental alienations are not due to parental abuse or child endangerment but from adult children feeling entitled; they cry abuse and mistreatment when met with parental disagreement or difference in perspective and viewpoint. Our world has moved away from middle ground and is becoming polarized as these attitudinal younger generations move into adulthood. Sadly, pain and suffering usually provide the greatest lessons in humility.
Wow, i think you need to look up what transitioning is. It's not being given resources and kindness. Not to mention, social media is so far from a reputable source for information
That someone loves them and cares for them as they are. Children who are trans and face alienation at home have off the charts suicidal behavior. There’s no amount of “indoctrination” at school to make a child trans. Teachers would indoctrinating kids into doing their homework if this was even possible.
There are also a rising number of suicides from young folks who "transitioned" as teens/young adults, then later were horrified by their decision, a life choice they could not undo.
Even before the incr wokeness in the past few yrs there was at least one book on the subject of serious mental health issues faced by young ppl who transitoned:
"Irreversible Damage" by a pro-trans lesbian author
So in your view, since God gave men the preputium, it's arrogance and wrong to try to improve on it by inflicting male genital mutilation on babies and young children, yes?
You’re living in an irrational fantasyland. If god gave me my gender, he didn’t do a good job! Or maybe, if god doesn’t make mistakes, trans people are actually what they say they anre and YOU are the one standing in the way of his will. After all, it’s odd that the gender binary, for supposedly being biological and divine in origin, takes so much enforcement and punishment to maintain…
Indeed, how? Trans people aren’t mistakes. We’re part of God’s plan, obviously. How could you possibly know better than a literal child of god what their gender identity is??? Nobody appointed you to a position of divine authority over others. Get over it.
The influence public schools and ideological activist teachers have today can overwhelm the influence of parents, especially when what's going on there is kept secret from them.
If you have kids, surely you wdve noticed you can explain any small thing to your kids & they ignore you, then come home one day all enthusiastic abt the very same idea bc a teacher they like said it?
That happens A LOT, whether the child hears it from a friend, the tv (internet these days) etc. It's very powerful.
(They arent the only ones 😉 eg someone advises their spouse who ignores them, then the spouse hears the same from a friend or respected peer or even online & now they listen!)
Thank you for all your posts and this exceptional article. I have been also asking why the parent-adult child relationship are not expected to be reciprocal. I see so many younger generation amputating relationships, blame and shame lacking maturity, having no clue about boundaries, no accountability and are one way street righteous activists. Maybe we contributed by saving and not letting them experience consequences. Healthy Relationships 101 should also be taught in school. My hope is that people will listen to each other and yes its super uncomfortable to deal with conflict but we can grow from it. Ah the Rich deep love of Grandparents!
No, not everything "should be taught in schools". Relationships should be taught at home. This outsourcing mentality is probably a high contributor to this mess.
As an instructional aide and supervision aide for elementary school for the past 20 years, I can tell you relationships ARE taught at home. Good ones and bad ones. It's bringing those dynamics into a larger community when we find out who is being taught what. Some kids do great one on one with their parents but can't navigate their place with their peers.
The power of social media these days cannot be underestimated. In my case my son was close to us in the 'before', but he struggled to fit in and had a wobbly sense of self. He had plenty of loving support from his whole family, cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents as well. I am sure there are cases where cut offs may be warranted, but there are also vulnerable young people and adults who are living their lives online to the exclusion of real life contact. It's sad and scary. Yes, it is his choice to live on the edge but he is loved and missed by all of us.
Colleges teach critical thinking skills? Really? Because I helped put five children through college recently and that is not my impression.
Children are being taught that governments are the true authority figures. I can cite dozens of examples but I sense you aren’t ready to confront this truth.
If you’re truly interested in growth, start your research with Sweden. The government there was highly successful in teaching young people that family systems are unnatural and inconvenient. It has been widely cited and written about and is not what you’d call a “conspiracy theory.”
Depends on where the child’s primary attachment lies. If the parents abandon their children to peer care from an early age for 5/7 of their waking hours then yeah, the kids are going to follow their peers.
"If estranged parents spent half as much time working on themselves as they do feeling sorry for themselves, they might have relationships with their kids."
I do think you are missing some pieces of the problem. Many loving and caring 'good enough' parents are being cut off by their children. I don't think we, here, are talking about those who were getting their own needs met through their children. It truly isn't true that if you were a good enough parent your kids won't cut you off.
True estrangement is incredibly rare as it goes against every biological need. The people I know who are estranged have done so after many years and many attempts at repair. And they agonized over it. Our generation is no longer okay with lighting ourselves on fire in order to keep our parents warm.
I disagree wholeheartedly. Who would choose estrangement? Who would choose to alienate themselves if they believed there could be a route to reconciliation? I don't believe anyone would. I sure wouldn't have chosen it, but I had to choose my own peace over enmeshment with someone who refused to grow, accept the consequences their mistakes had over my life, continuously infantilized me and somehow also expected me to be their caregiver when they got older. There are deep-seated problems with boomer/genx parents who don't acknowledge the power dynamics in the relationship or the autonomy of their adult children.
I find this all so frustrating. No one is saying voluntary estrangement from one’s family is never called for. I think the author explains herself very well. She says she’s all for boundaries when strong boundaries are called for.
What she is alluding to is a spoiled generation that doesn’t feel the need to learn the give and take of relationships. We are all a witness to the entitlement of the younger generation today. I have five children, and while we’re all very close, I see the tendency in them too.
I recently helped my mother die. I was her backup plan. I cared for her and helped her to the end, even when it wasn’t easy. And not because I am a martyr, but because I believe in the dignity and importance of family and that there are relationships where being a true and committed human being is called for because it’s the right thing.
This isn’t a relationship crisis we are living through, or a political crisis—it is a spiritual crisis. Even atheists acknowledge there are universal truths that govern behavior and action in this world, but we are being encouraged to forget those truths.
I hope I’m gone before the victim mentality becomes the law of the land, if it hasn’t already. What a cruel and lonely world it will be when compassion and forgiveness are gone for good.
The world is presently in a spiritual crisis, with the Divine being expunged, and I think that when people use words, such as, sacred, spiritual, compassion, etc., many readers/listeners switch off. My mother badly abused me as a child and I left home at 18 to work abroad. However, I chose to keep a thread of communication with her because she was my mother (she had given me the gift of life, albeit a difficult one!) and I chose to tend to her in her old age; neither because I was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or anything else, nor because she merited it, but simply as a younger person looking after an older person. I am now 80 - I have never considered myself to be a victim because, as an adult, I am responsible for myself. This present trend of victimhood drives me crazy 😜 go out and enjoy Life and practise kindness... 'do onto others as you would wish done onto yourself '
Who would choose estrangement? A narcissist who feels 100% responsible for her success and therefore has zero gratitude for what her parents did for her. A narcissist who is incapable of incorporating the feelings and needs of others into her decision to cut her parents off completely. A narcissistic who. . . I have quite a list but I’ll stop here.
I’m not sure where you are getting your information. Why would you ‘believe’ my experience when it isn’t your own? What is an ‘unsafe’ parent? Where has that idea come from? I would ask that you at least continue to consider that this is possible. I don’t think this is something you can understand unless it happens to you. I live an incredibly healthy lifestyle yet I got cancer. People often want to know what I did, or didn’t do, to get it. Sometimes things happen to us and it really isn’t our fault, which is very, very hard to accept I know. Please stop blaming parents when you don’t understand. Come walk a mile in my shoes, then we can continue this conversation.
I do agree with your article Rachel and have felt this way about a loss of connection and community post pandemic. Having personally experienced upsetting behaviour in my own family, I struggle with being the one always making the effort when it isn’t reciprocated.
You say: “And yes, sometimes cutting off contact really is the healthiest choice. I support anyone’s right to make that decision thoughtfully. But I also think we need to slow down and ask: are we cutting off dysfunction—or cutting off discomfort? Are we refusing to tolerate abuse—or refusing to engage in the repair work that all long-term relationships eventually require?”
I became estranged from my mother at age 44 after a lifetime of verbal, physical and emotional abuse and manipulation from her. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly or quickly. It came after 20 years of me trying over and over again to turn our relationship into something healthy. It never worked. It couldn’t be repaired, as only one of us was prepared to do the work.
So, I think estrangement is a complex and personal thing that is different for everyone and by calling it a trend, you diminish the difficulty and pain that people who make the decision to refuse any more abuse, go through.
That said, I completely agree that the governments of the world are trying to destabilise our sense of community and connection.
My story is also similar, my mother only ever "took care of me" between the ages of 13 and 18 when she kicked me out on the street because I forgot to dust my room for 1 week, clearly she was just looking for an excuse. Not surprising after she never bothered to show up to the custody hearing when I was 2.
I feel like this article comes from a very privileged perspective.
I think the article waa not directed at people in you situation, at all.
It seems more about kids who grow up in perhaps slightly dysfunction (read: imperfect) families, kids seem fine, happy even (tho again, imperfect) then years later - often after years in college - decide their parents just werent good enough.
Compare that to previous generations that KNEW , also, that their parents hadnt beem perfect, made mistakes (even a ton of mistakes) ... but understood that their parents did the best they could, given their circumstances & their childhoods & also understood how much we owe our parents (warts & all) & that our childhood/ life experiences (both positive and "negative") make us who we are.
Nowadays, ppl seem to think we are entitled to amazing, incredible, nururing, respectful (dare I say, perfect?) parents, & dont want to acknowledge how much we learn & grow from so-called "negative" experiences.
And none of that addresses that our Creator put us where we were always meant to be.
On the contrary it is you who has the privileged perspective, expecting other people to only write blog posts that cater to your experience, which you clearly know is atypical.
This clarity is so needed! I’m also a therapist, and I’m a parent of adult children. I’m so glad to hear you speak to this problem in our culture and, let’s be honest, in our profession. Estrangement ideology has been perpetuated by therapists who offer a weekly echo chamber of validation for their individual clients because challenging their narrative might mean losing a client. It perpetuates pain and isolation in families and keeps clients in a victim mindset whether they realize it or not. The root cause of this pain is localized externally in a difficult or mismatched familial relationship or person. Growth can’t happen in an echo chamber. Healing can’t happen in isolation.
A friend is a therapist and works with young people. She said this younger generation is brutal on their parents. They walk in to session armed with social media therapeutic language to pummel and diagnose their folks. She's so disheartened that she's ready to leave the profession.
Another friend fired her therapist because she was having challenges with her mom and her therapist suggested she cut off her Mom. She said "I didn't want to cut off my mother, I wanted some tools communicating as we have such different needs." The profession is complicit with this trend so your piece is much needed.
My family has experienced estrangement and it's devastating. Most of my friend group has experienced it either in their own families or their extended family. The intergenerational fallout can't be understated. Every month, I refer someone new to Josh Coleman's work.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece and for your work in the world. I'm sharing it with therapist friends, clients and other parents navigating the pain and confusion.
I appreciate the honesty of this post and exposing the fraudulent language that many are now using. Toxic becomes the 'go to' catch all for when someone refuses to think about the hurt they are imposing when 'no contact' is celebrated by those who have no context or background to the family situation that is now permanently scarred.
Yeah... that kind of "love" left me with cPTSD. I will continue to avoid people that treat me even slightly close to the way my family treated me. Nobody deserves that
As the only family member on one side of my family who is trying to maintain and even encourage communication this is damn complicated. I tried explaining my thoughts while affirming their concerns but was met with silence or a barrage of Fox News quotes. I tried to bring family members from the two sides together but they ended up disowning each other. Family gatherings became unbearable. I am now confined to sharing in on family news conversations on Facebook and sending birthday greetings. The only time everyone managed to keep it together was at one family reunion to keep peace for my 95 year old brother. It was wonderful for a while to talk of old times when politics weren’t taking over. I know a grief over this that weighs me down. I honestly think it will never end and when my brother is gone that will be it. 😣
I don’t talk politics with family. Number one rule. Politics should not be taken out on family members. It’s to much like religion. One wouldn’t try and convert a family member from Christiandom to Hinduism because they really believe Hinduism would be a better choice.
This is how me and my family try to keep it but this is seen as a bad thing these days with most people my age. It comes across as faking it or being fake. That's the mentality at least these days for a lot of my peers that I talk with.
At least you are trying Linda... I know it might not feel like much when your efforts aren't being matched and the results aren't showing but it matters. It seems to be a growing theme these days so just know you aren't alone.
This is a good article. I very much agree. Although, many times reconciliation is not possible because the two parties involved are not the problem. In my experience, when an adult child gets to be estranged from their loving families it is becaise the adult child is being coercively controlled by their partner to think their family of origin is bad in some way. The adult child is actively being isolated from their support network and they don't realize that they are being abused by their spouse; or in really bad scenerios, they can't fight against the abuse, so they go along with the estrangement because it is what their abusive spouse wants.
It really isn't that the family doesn't get along. It's about an abusive spouse and their desire to control.
Yes, my brother’s wife decided a year ago that he’s no longer able to have a relationship with his family and we can no longer see their kids. My mom is devastated. This all happened because I committed the unforgivable sin of being late for dinner. (Yes it was rude but unintentional. I did apologize. It didn’t matter, we don’t live up to her standards.) She attempted to excommunicate me and my husband and kids from the family and when my parents refused to support that, she cut them off too.
Thank God your parents could see the games for what they are. I fear many people see the issue as a 'sibling thing' which plays right into the abuser's hands.
Obviously it’s more nuanced than that but that was apparently the final straw. For many years I thought that we were friends - she was part of my family and I loved her. Apparently all this time she’s hated me and been keeping score of every time we were a minute late for anything, every time we celebrated Christmas in a way she didn’t like, every time my teenagers used their phones during a family gathering, every piece of dog hair in my home (she hates pets), every time the conversation wasn’t deep enough for her liking, etc. If she wants to dislike me that’s her right, but my parents have never been anything but kind and welcoming to her, helped them, regularly babysat so they could go out whenever they wanted, and now she’s turned on them and won’t allow them to see their grandkids. It’s completely unbelievable how she could be so cruel to them.
Your family member being abused by their spouse pushes the emotional, psychological abuse onto you because they cannot fight against their abusive spouse. I think this is called secondary abuse.
I have found that being able to find the correct vocabulary is a springboard to finding more information to make sense of your experiences. It is really confusing until you see the pattern over and over and over....
For eleven years I have followed Dr. Joshua Coleman's group, and this comes up again and again. Often the isolating spouse waits until the leverage of children is in play and then the ultimatum is levied.
Thank you for your statement. This is exactly what our family is experiencing with our son. As their relationship grew we experienced her swearing at our family and telling us what's wrong with us. She created chaos every holiday, birthday, and special event. We all walked on pins and needles around her. The hardest part was watching our son slowly adopt her behavior. After their wedding, she managed to isolate him from his lifelong friends, and distance our family. When they were expecting their first child, I even mustered up the courage to share with her that I was afraid she'd punish us by keeping us away from our grandchild. Of course she said, "I'd never do that!" My granddaughter is two and a half and we haven't seen her since she was six weeks old. We now have a second granddaughter that we'll never get to hold. My ninty-year-old Mom and our other children has never seen either child. His friends and family are gone. Am I wrong for thinking it's also his fault because he didn't stand up for his family connections? He's no longer the son we mourn.
That is so terrible. How can people forget decades of good relationships? How does a good person turn into an enabler of abuse or just an outright abuser themselves? Is the abuse they live with that bad, so bad that they have to abuse their own family? I suffer these same questions... But as One therapist said : there are no victims just volunteers. It might be an unpopular opinion but I think it is true for some of these victims-turned-abusers. They decide to take the easy way out, which is instead of facing the fact that they married a bad person, instead they will treat you like the abuser. Hopefully one day there will be more resources for families of origin and the abuse they suffer due to one person's terrible decision to marry and force the abuser on everyone else. This is single handedly destroying more families than divorce. But no one is talking about it.
Superb, Rachel! you nailed it! I have an ex-husband, 4 married children and 11 grandkids. We don't relate perfectly by any means, but we all agree that FAMILY is super important and worth our best efforts. i strongly support all you are trying to do to resolve estrangement and no contact.
Everything you said here is true. After years of unresolved issues, misunderstandings, and increasingly bad fights, I walked away from my family (parents and younger sibling). We didn't speak for almost 4 years. I don't think the therapists and influencers who cheer this on understand how damaging it is to your soul to make this choice. In my case, I reached back out after some painful soul-searching and confusion, we reconciled over time, and our relationship is much *much* better. I believe I sinned gravely and will always regret what I did, but I've made peace with the past.
I changed my mind about the estrangement because a few people I respected were brave enough to suggest I reconsider my decision and *try* to fix things. They could see a truth that I could not, but they were compassionate in their delivery. More rifts like this would be fixed if people were braver about speaking up.
Christine, I’m sorry you had to go through this but happy you have reached a place where things are much better. Holding out hope my daughter manages the same, like Susan, it gives me hope. Thank you for sharing xx
If this was reframed to be about the adult parents taking accountability and leading the way to open dialogue, self reflection, change…then it would be doing something.
My family got scattered to the ends of the earth due to political instability, driven by Marxism in Africa. Not once, but twice. Completely beyond our control.
My kids have never known extended family and that includes grandparents. Moving continents and legally being allowed to enter, live and work in a foreign country literally cost us everything we owned.
There was never any money to travel, and how is 3-4 weeks every two to 3 years going to help, anyway? One is powerless to help a brother or a sister or a parent suffering in another continent.
So I get angry when I hear people here complaining about their families coming for Christmas, or “it’s my turn to do Christmas lunch.” We would love to have extended family here!
Being able to build a sense of belonging by living in a fairly stable country, in one place for years and years with old school friends, and extended family all around you- is an incalculable blessing from G-d.
I was on board with pieces of this, but it's the same that I see in pretty much every article of this type in that there is zero consideration of power. Parent-child relationships are fundamentally unequal; parents are in a position of power over children's lives and emotions in a way that is incomparable to any other relationship we will ever have throughout our lives. It is reasonable to hold parents, like any authority, to a higher standard than those whose entire lives are supremely governed by them, if only because the level of harm they can do from that position of total control is extreme and non-reciprocal. If that is the cultural change going on, that we are no longer interested in capitulating to authorities who demand grace and loyalty as a matter of course, I think that paradigm shift is a very good thing.
It's also very strange to me to describe families as "sacred" in a context where you are supposed to be a therapist working from the evidence of relational needs, not vibes. There is significantly more going on with American loneliness than parental estrangement, which seems suspicious to leave out. You say that people have a right to leave their crappy families if they decide that's necessary but offer zero examples of what exactly drives children to stop speaking to their parents that you think is unfair. You say we need "wisdom" but who exactly is supposed to be apologizing, here? This is all very vague and seems designed to soothe the feelings of parents who think their children owe them devotion, which is a whole cottage industry unto itself now.
Edit: Hold on. So according to your instagram, you're not actually a therapist, you're an intern. It's phrased in a vague way to sound like you've got a license, but presumably you can't legally call yourself a CPC/LPC/LCPC or you would list those actual licensing credentials. What you do have is an instagram with 135k followers where you post literally nothing but "parental estragement" complaining & family-cohesion promo posts. So this truly is just, that exact cottage industry doing what it does. Fantastic. At least the last name is unironic now.
edit2: a freakish number of people have liked this comment so i guess if you want to see more talk about power dynamics, family, gender, etc check out my substack or whatever, i do write about this stuff at length & not in the context of dunking on a specific professional-managerial-class grifter selling evangelical half-truths in the guise of empathy for troubled parents
Hi Jesse, I recommend you look up what a licensed MFT intern is. Every state is different. It’s the final phase of licensure following the completion of my graduate degree in clinical psychology, a phase in which one conducts 3000 hours of therapy work under supervision with other licensed supervisors to regularly ensure their standard of care meets the highest level of ethical and legal guidelines. All of my qualifications are accurately stated and available for people to see. I also invite you to consider the argument itself. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Hi Rachel, would you be able to provide an example of what adult children are doing that you believe is unfair to their parents? What are your thoughts on the power imbalance that exists in a parent-child relationship?
My take - If we look at the parent-child relationship from an attachment lens, which your writing leads me to believe you are in favor of, a child is entirely dependent on a parent for their survival so any dismissal, neglect or critique from the parent can be experienced as very dangerous by the child. That is why it is important for the parent to repair as soon as possible. Otherwise, these instances are registered as trauma in the child’s body and persist even into adulthood such that any reminder of those hurtful experiences can kick the adult child into a survival response (fight or flight), which is a state where the rational mind is switched off. Could there be instances where the parent didn’t intend harm at all but the child was still negatively impacted? Absolutely. Even so, the way forward is not a dismissal of the child’s reality. Parents who are estranged from their adult children do need support, however, I don’t think it is fair to expect their children, who are undoubtedly hurting themselves, to fulfill that need.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I appreciate your grounding in attachment theory—it’s a vital lens, and one I deeply value. You’re right: when children are young and entirely dependent on their caregivers, misattunement or neglect can be experienced as threatening, and repair from the parent is essential. I also agree that harm can be done unintentionally, and validating a child’s reality matters.
Where I offer a different perspective is in how we conceptualize power—and how we talk about trauma.
The idea that there is a lasting power imbalance from parent to adult child is shaped by postmodern frameworks that often treat hierarchy as inherently harmful. But in child development, hierarchy is not only natural—it’s stabilizing. The key is whether the parent was authoritative (clear, nurturing, consistent) rather than authoritarian (rigid, controlling, punitive).
Once the child becomes an adult, there is no inherent power differential. Parents cannot control their adult children. The only “power” they hold is relational—the kind that comes from mutual attachment, longing, and love. And that runs both ways. Especially for mothers, whose attachment system is profoundly shaped by the children they raised.
In fact, I would argue that the power dynamic often flips entirely. A mother remains deeply impacted by changes to her attachment system. She is bound to the child she bore—biologically, psychologically, spiritually. She may spend her later years yearning for connection, open to dialogue, willing to attend family therapy. And yet she can be entirely cut off and punished for seeming so desperate/needy.
So to your question—what’s an example of adult children being unfair to parents?
To me, the most heartbreaking example is a complete estrangement where a parent is willing to engage, willing to repair—but is met with silence, public blame, or permanent exile. Especially when they are denied access to grandchildren despite never being unsafe or abusive.
I also want to gently challenge the idea that all misattunement leads to trauma. It doesn’t. Children are resilient. Development involves rupture and repair. The body keeps the score, yes—but not every disappointment or misstep becomes trauma. I find myself at odds with the increasingly popular view that suffering is always evidence of harm, or that trauma can be found in nearly every story. That framing, while well-intended, can strip people of agency, inflate minor hurts into lifelong wounds, and keep families stuck in cycles of blame instead of growth.
We are interdependent creatures. Attachment isn’t just about what was missed in childhood—it’s about what we choose to do now, in adulthood, when the opportunity to heal presents itself. Thanks for reading. Best to you!
“To me, the most heartbreaking example is a complete estrangement where a parent is willing to engage, willing to repair—but is met with silence, public blame, or permanent exile. Especially when they are denied access to grandchildren despite never being unsafe or abusive.”
I am living this. The estranged person is my youngest sister. The grandparents are my parents. The grandchildren are my nephews I haven’t seen in 5 years. I grew up in the same house as my sister and cannot wrap my head around why she places so much blame on “us” the family as her problem. Honestly she hasn’t defined it. She has chosen to estrange herself a second time. Sadly she was near homelessness and my parents granted her space in their house and asked we try to repair but, she was able to move out didn’t need us anymore and cut us off. Her 3 sons are split among 2 fathers; we see one of them as the father cares about our relationship but the other one doesn’t and neither does she. I will never understand it. Even reading this article gives me little clarity but the only thing I am learning is how my family is one of many experiencing this split. It is emotionally painful and wearing. I have been in therapy for 3 years now, first to deal with this now to keep growing out of it. Grieving a “death” of people who are not dead is so confusing.
So for the record, this an extremely convenient way to launder the behavior of controlling and cruel parents. If you look at other (real) therapists who do not believe in the sacredness of hierarchy, they point out that the majority of children who go no-contact with their parents have spent years attempting to talk and reconcile with them. The response from these parents is frequently some variation of "I know I had some issues, but I'm a good parent, you can't blame me" instead of "I'm sorry for the ways I hurt you, even by accident. What do you need from me to maintain our relationship?"
So it seems you are inflating the precedence of children randomly deciding to go no-contact as a first resort, in order to claim that this is a "postmodern" cultural scourge making everyone lonely. You're also doing a lot of defense of the "stabilizing" effect of hierarchy re: a group of people frequently dealing with parents whose problems include addiction, severe mental health problems, and cycles of abusive behavior from their own past trauma. Again, an honest person would be capable of thinking about this and pointing it out instead of fantasizing that parents are across-the-board authorities whose control is necessarily a positive force in their children's lives. But this is of course what follows from a Christian culture which basically thinks of children as feral animals and which sees hierarchy as the natural order of the world, so no surprises here.
It seems you are lashing out about this because you feel guilty about how have treated your parents.
I appreciate your response. In the reading that I have done, I have not found the hierarchy in the parent-child relationship characterized as inherently harmful. It’s just that, because the parent has more power, their positive actions can have an outsized positive effect and their negative actions can have an outsized negative effect, simply because kids are so vulnerable and impressionable. I think we agree on this point.
I also agree that all misattunement does not lead to trauma. There is the concept of the good enough parent - a parent who is responsive to a child’s needs 40% of the time (or somewhere close to that) is perceived by the child as being a loving and trustworthy parent. Parents do not have to be perfect because children, by design, see the best in them and are more forgiving than the average adult.
It would help me understand your perspective if you provided more details in your example of a parent who is willing to repair but is stonewalled by their adult child who is unwilling to engage. What is the nature of the rift? What reason does the adult child give for their desire to not repair? The trouble with not providing more specifics in your example is that people end up substituting their own experiences as the example, and the only people your words end up resonating with are parents who are hurt by their adult child’s decision to insert distance in their relationship. If your desire is to reach the adult children in this equation, then more specifics would be immensely helpful in bringing about more understanding. Otherwise, adult children who felt they had no recourse but to sever contact with their parents will read this article and think about their own situation where perhaps their parent said they would like to repair but didn’t actually make a good faith effort to understand their child’s perspective. As you can imagine, adult children with this experience will not be receptive to the points you are trying to make and will simply feel hurt.
I am happy to continue this conversation if you provide more detail. If not, then thank you for considering the points I have made.
So it’s ironic that what you ask for is what we ask for. She doesn’t give a reason, she won’t explain herself and only just basically calls us the problem, generically. It’s an impossible cycle to repair without two way communication. You’re right I can make up reasons and stories all day long but at the end of my day where does that leave me. I’ve finally in the last 6 months just fully let her go bc I have no other choice.
Hi Mrinalini,
I am one of those parents. I took parenting and bringing someone into this world incredibly seriously. I felt a very big responsibility to make sure that my children went into adulthood with everything they needed. I gave them constant love and support. I went over and above a volunteering at schools making sure they got to go on a ton of adventures, only working hours when they were in school. (I was a single mom of twins).
I worked hard and I love them deeply and of course I didn't understand the things about mental health that I know now. And I didn't understand emotional intelligence in the way that would have been more helpful to my children. But I was there for them every time and always. I was strong, I had boundaries calling the kids had rules, but more often than not it was my love and caring and compassion for them that guided me.
My my son is incredibly balanced, one of the finest human beings I know. And a good man. But his twin sister who is bipolar and has an anxiety disorder and has been in therapy since she was 18 for said issues, has chosen over the last 15 years to distance herself. To have a very superficial relationship that may as well be no contact because it's still creates the same grief for a lack of relationship that no contact would.
And I have tried everything, asking if she would at 10:30 with me, giving her space, lots and lots of space, never ever giving her unsolicited advice, never ever criticizing, working very hard to find out who "she" is and what her needs are. Apologizing for anything and everything I might have done and being completely willing to work on it..
I could almost guarantee you that it is therapy, "modern therapy" that has given her the idea that to be strong is to separate, to to be healthy is to separate. What she's actually done is fractured the family, created a lot of pain, and not just for me, for her twin brother for her extended family, and also I don't believe she's helping herself by isolating. I think that she's basically avoiding working through her tough feelings instead of growing and learning to deal.
This is just one example, there are so many like me, and I'm sure you'd love to hear from my daughter, I would too. I tried in a million ways to get her to tell me what is going on. Her reply is always I'm not ready to talk about that or after talking to my therapist blah blah blah.
Heartbroken.
Thank you for sharing your story Leslie. I am not a parent, but I imagine that your child being distant from you is very painful. It sounds like maybe you do have some understanding of what may have created the need in your daughter to distance herself from you even though there is still a lot that is a mystery to you. Admitting that you could have had more emotional intelligence when your children were younger is very difficult to do - it is painful to admit that you may have done something that really hurt your child. It’s no small thing and I see the strength that it takes to do that.
It sounds like your daughter is in a lot of pain. I am sure that it hurts to be compared to her brother and found wanting and to be blamed for creating a rift in the family. That is a lot to shoulder in addition to her mental illness. I can understand why that would make it hard for her to engage more with her family. I don’t know any details beyond what you have shared with me but it sounds like she is doing her best to take care of herself. Unfortunately we cannot put a timeline or any sort of guarantee on healing. We cannot control the feelings and actions of our loved ones, however much we may want to take away their suffering. If our loved ones are adults, we have to rely on their own sense of self-preservation to take care of themselves and cherish the moments that they turn to us in love, in joy, in sadness.
I hope you and your daughter are able to be closer with each other one day and find comfort in one another again.
Not just when they are young.
I did look it up and consider the argument, that's 90% of my comment you disingenuous loser
Any need for the namecalling? I was following the legit conflict and points you were making up to this.
Jesse, you clearly have issues with how your parents have failed you despite your trust, and their power and inability to answer your questions, or to make the right decisions about your life as a kid. Or maybe they failed to love eachother and you like they should. Or maybe all of the above. Valid. Not the problem here. Please stop forcing us to fix your situation by proxy.
And what are YOUR professional credentials, Jesse? Also, regarding your criticism of Ms Haack’s online presence: surely you’ve noticed the proliferation of estrangement gurus online. Why are you so aggressively opposed to discussion that considers other sides to this issue?
You just invalidated any point you might have had with the ad hominem.
By the time I was an adult, I no longer saw my parents as having the power. I had my own agency. I didn't hold them to any higher standard than I held myself. Once I reached adulthood, I had to own all that comes with being an adult.
I didn't owe my parents "devotion" or anything else. (Owing feels too transactional to me).
I do see a parent/child bond as being indescribably, archetypally sacred. If that that feels too vibey, so be it. Words fail too when I talk about nature and waterfalls, but man, it can feel like I'm on sacred ground which is why I'm protective of the indescribable, confounding, beautiful and difficult bonds as a child, parent and grandparent.
In my 40s when I first began therapy, I did it privately, and talked to a few close friends about it. I never cut off my parents, because I saw them as deeply wounded and human too. It would have felt indulgent and cruel given what they had experienced in their lifetime. I’m so glad I never did as they are gone now.
With that said, I had to practice setting strong internal boundaries and when necessary, tell my parents how I felt when they made (usually clueless) racist or mean comments. I’m so glad I’m so glad there was no social media at that time because I think I would have felt worse and it certainly would have gotten amplified. I owned my power which included acknowledging our shared humanity.
I listen to people for a living, and life is hard, regardless of the generation. Everyone is carrying something difficult. (I'm okay with Rachel's sharing her insights. 3000 hours is a a lot of training and it reveals commitment to a craft).
Don't love TikTok therapy and not attracted to Pentecostal religion, but I'm also not inclined to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's 2025. Never thought a president would Tweet either. Wisdom comes from many resources and I wouldn't throw out someone's insights because of where they go to school or the religion they practice.
I've worked with women moving through prostitution and addiction, and they were some of the most insightful people I knew. Rachel's piece remains extremely insightful.
All that being said, I appreciate how next generations have normalized therapy, challenged confining gender norms, demanded change in systemic racism and church abuse and called out the excesses of capitalism and the way it’s destroying our planet.
With that said, other generations paved trails too in their own way. They had trauma too but had to deal with an environment where therapy was seen as weak and deviant.
They suffered in silence and we witnessed it and experienced the fallout. Materialism promised relief, but it’s ultimately soul sucking and earth destroying.
Compassion goes a long way and it’s easier to have compassion at a distance than it is to have compassion up close with your family. I sometimes wonder if adults who so quickly estranged from their parents have children who will hold them to the impossible standards to which they've held their parents. It’s painful to witness all the cutoffs. I’ve found that even when parents try, it’s not enough as attention goes to all their flaws and disappointments.
You can raise your kids with all sorts of compassion and kindness, and they still have to make their own way in a social world. It's brutal up there. Have you seen Adolescence? There are no guarantees.
I’ve wondered if that’s where Millennial and GenZ misery comes from. There’s a sense of disconnection and loneliness that comes from thinking they're the only generation who has suffered pain, loss, loneliness and injustice. We’ve all experienced it. We’re just more aware of it now.
I’ve let go of the notion that any of us can heal generational trauma completely. It’s part and parcel of being human as there are external factors we could never have imagined like war, pandemics, mass shootings, social media addiction and authoritarians in power.
At 65, my parents, my sister and 3 close friends have died. I’ve had to look in the mirror and face mistakes, regrets and the bittersweet realities of my life and my family’s life.
I’ve more compassion than ever before for all of us. I am grateful for the human values of connection and forgiveness even when it’s hard. I’m even more grateful for the people who are empowered to have the hard conversations in real time.
I'm grateful for people like Rachel who take the time to address one of the most difficult trends of our time.
The strangest thing I’ve learned is that Wisdom isn’t about knowing more. It’s the humbling realization of how much you don’t know.
This was powerful to read. Thank you for your kindness and wisdom, Leslie!
I promise you that your characterization of young people "thinking they're the o ly ones who have suffered" is extremely dismissive and not at all true.
I'm happy that you got peace from maintaining contact with your parents, but I spent about ten years trying and failing to reconcile with my parents before I finally gave up. I told them to no longer contact me unless they got therapy and were able to admit and apologize for the ways they hurt me, and they decided that was too tall of an order. Removing them from my life has given me a sense of agency over my life because it allowed me to no longer carry around the judgement of people who did not want a child and did not like anything about the one they wound up with. It was a massive weight off of my shoulders to finally let go of the fear of their judgement and no longer submit to their controlling and cruel behavior towards me. It was genuinely one of the best things I have ever done for myself, and my mental health and wellbeing have improved in ways that were impossible when they were still in my life.
I'm well aware that my parents are deeply sad and imperfect, not malicious people, but for years I attempted to hold them to the same standard as I hold myself in terms of respect and empathy and the demands of reconciliation. I am not the one who rejected reconciliation, which is a pretty consistent feature of estranged children.
As you say, its wisdom to know what you dont know, but it's very easy for people like you and Ms. Haack to wave around euphemistic platitudes that you don't even follow yourself. I don't doubt that you've known people whose children seem transient and punishing, but I have met many children who tolerated cruelty out of a sense of obligation, and you and I are equally likely to get a rosy view of any conflict when you only hear one side of it. But when you simply look at young people and go "wow, they must be causing their own problems, the selfish brats!" and call it a day, that just tells me you don't understand young people and are not curious enough to try when you would prefer to tell everyone to do as you have done.
Thanks for sharing this comment. Your story in relationship to your parents parallels mine.
It wasn't a choice I made lightly, and it hurt like hell. My wife and my children have lot our village, so it still hurts like hell to have had to cut them off.
But the thing is, it wasn't my choice. My parents, and in particular my father, decided well before I was born that the bandwidth for who they would accept as their children was very very narrow. I either had to compromise myself or to be myself was an act of rebellion. How is a child supposed to prop up that relationship, there's no mutual respect of personhood. And believe me I tried, my wife tried, and if they were willing to do the work to heal these things, we would be having a different conversation, but that has seemed too much for them at this point. The only one in the wrong, in their eyes, is me (an apology was demanded of me when I did try to reach back out after a year).
I enjoyed reading this article because it challenged me, but I'm afraid that it addresses a symptom not the problem.
The fact is that this country is deeply wounded, generationally and systematically. The fracturing of family units has been the end point of many long years of prioritizing profits over people, of imperial conquest and the wars fought in their name, of eugenics based social engineering. Parents who are not willing to bear the impossible weight of that with their children and grandchildren, are the ones participating in that fracturing, not the children.
THIS!!! “The fracturing of family units has been the end point of many long years of prioritizing profits over people, of imperial conquest and the wars fought in their name, of eugenics based social engineering.” Somebody at the top of the thread was blaming… The Frankfurt School?! Lord help us.
There are alot of people who NEEDED to read this article, and Jesse, this was not about you. If was for and about THEM.
So please, don't bring everyone down who benefited from it. That's selfish and needy and mean. You're better than that. Please see Mr. Kyle Reeves' response below. It's considerably more gracious to the rest of the readership.
I'm allowed to comment my opinion on any piece I read. You could deal with that by trying to see where I'm coming from-- or you can try to cope with your feelings by trying to boss me around, as you have done. I think this kind of immature and controlling behavior is exactly what causes a lot of conflict between parents and adult children, and I'm disturbed by the way it spills over into the way they treat other people as well. Thank you for the demonstration.
Jesse - As I read through your responses to different folks, there is a pattern of misapplication of meaning and intent. You are giving meaning and intent that simply isn’t there. Words have meaning. Your misunderstanding of the actual words is most evident in your inability to accurately quote the writers. Each of your points is based on an idea that you’ve twisted to mean something else. Your interpretation is distorted. You keep saying they’ve said things that they didn’t say … and then arguing against your version of them.
The other pattern present is that since your situation has merit for estrangement (according to your perspective - we don’t know your parents’ version) your insistence on badgering the author, and any who agree or value the author’s ideas, for referring to situations that DON’T resemble yours, shows a fundamental lack of awareness of just how varied others’ experiences are. Just because this piece isn’t offered from your experience and perspective does not therefore mean that the author has unilaterally proclaimed your experience invalid. This piece is about the perspective of folks who DO experience what the author is talking about. Just as your experience deserves recognition and validation, the same is true for people NOT like your parents who are unwillingly estranged from their adult-children who are NOT like you with good reason. They exist. Your not believing they exist because it’s not your story does not mean they don’t exist. This piece is NOT about or for the folks who rightly need to disengage. It’s not about you. It’s a finite space to offer one perspective … not a college course of comparison of all the possible variables.
You will know you are healing and healthier when you can come to a space and engage with others’ ideas through the lens of curiosity and when your understanding of others’ experiences is not impeded by your own.
Again this is a bunch of faux-concerned dismissal in the guise of therapy-speak and parental advice, aimed at controlling someone who isn't even your child. You're basically telling me that I shouldn't express my perspective in public not because anything I'm saying is untrue, but because you don't like how it makes you feel, and I'm sorry, but you don't get to demand control over realities that upset you. That is just not how the world works. I don't know how to be any clearer that if you treat your children this way that's likely a big part of why they don't speak to you anymore!
I'm done here. Feel free to respond and make me look wrong/bad/problematic. I just hope you can see that even a victim can crush other people. In families, and online. And that's not right. That's all I want to get through.
I'm a mom, and I am not the one who rejected reconciliation or healing or apologizing or changing. I'm sorry for what you went through and that your parents weren't willing to grow and understand you and be responsible for what they had done and change. But you got to understand that there's another side, there's parents who have done everything they can and never really did anything wrong enough to have an estrangement.
I never said there isn't. But I don't think a responsible writer is one that ignores the power dynamics between parents and children or writes about how kids these days have dumb therapists in the vague defense of "family is sacred." If my criticism of her piece makes you feel implicated, if you and her both cannot at least consider both of these realities at once, that says more about you than it does about me.
You are very combative. And clearly not open to growth
Try looking in a mirror, hun. Rubber, glue, etc.
I appreciate your candor but I do not care about your judgement or your priorities or whether you think I am curious enough. I don't know you and I don't give one shit about your assessment of your own character or mine. All of that energy is better spent on people who actually know you and care to maintain their personal relationships with you.
I do not agree that the plight of parents is "rarely represented"-- there is literally no one out here pretending that being a parent is an easy job, and American society has had maybe a generation or three of moving past the idea that children are effectively mindless rosetta stones & literal property of their parents. If the cultural backlash to parental authority today (since That is the subject at hand) is an overstep, it's at worst an understandable swing of the cultural pendulum. American society has been oriented towards maintaining the nuclear family as a unit of social cohesion since its founding, so this recent shift towards slightly-disempowering parents is incredibly recent in the scheme of things ("slightly" as in, children still have basically zero legal rights and adult children exerting social boundaries with their parents are effectively exerting too-little-too-late kind of power only once the rship is sort-of legally equal. There remain very few avenues for children to escape abusive parents unless that abuse is straight-up criminal, and parents are still the de facto responsible party in charge of decisionmaking on behalf of their children, even in death, if no one is around who can claim otherwise. This wouldn't be such a bad thing if people could simply opt out of it if they choose, but that is not how the law works.)
The next generation will judge our (millennial parents', i guess, or just millennial critics') conduct based on their own assessment of our mistakes, and so on with every generation that comes after. I understand that none of us will ever "get it right" in terms of parenting, but we are still accountable for our failures even if perfection is an impossible goal. None of this treadmill of trying-our-best-and-being-criticized-anyway adds up to "family is sacred" or that parents deserve more grace than their children (or that grifters selling sympathy are legitimate arbiters on the subject). Lots of people are going to want a life outside of the family that raised them; that is a reasonable thing to want, and a good society is one that offers opportunities to achieve it rather than treating the nuclear family as the inevitable backbone of society's moral and social organization.
That weight of history weighs on all of us, and sometimes you are judged for your position in that history more than your personal conduct, which is certainly painful but also inevitable. You either steward your power the best of your ability & accept the judgement of those you govern, or you do this mincing "please feel sorry for me, it's so hard to be the boss of things" dance to avoid consequences from those who feel you abused your authority. I think if every parent was oriented towards honest & cooperation (and the vulnerability that requires) rather than manipulation and control, if every authority was willing to accept consequences even for their honest mistakes (rather than demanding to retain their authority regardless of how badly they fuck it up), then parent/child relationships would be wildly different and far less stressful. It will take time to create that world, though, and blame cannot be shouldered onto the powerless for not behaving themselves better in the face of authorities who spend all their time wheedling for clemency for the harm they have done. If your take is just that people in positions of power deserve endless forgiveness while the disempowered ought to make up the difference, then I'm sorry, I am never going to agree with that in any circumstances.
I don't know how to contextualize this problem any clearer than to say that millennial-and-below children generally look at their parents' pleas for sympathy as if their folks are akin to a king watching a peasant revolt and going "okay but what about MY feelings :"(" and it tracks that they would think that way. Whether you think that's fair or not, and that's the power dynamic that modern parents have to work with-- you can either rest easy knowing that you did your best, or you.... argue with people like me online as a cope, idk.
Hi Leslie, Wow so well said. I’m around your age and stage in life (68 yo white woman) and also surveying the family landscape now that both my parents have been gone (for over a decade). They were not great parents and I honestly did blame them for some things. But, like you, as I’ve gotten further along in my life — and further along in my healing, especially through 18+ years of therapy — it’ll fascinating how my view of these two (admittedly flawed) human beings continues to change. I see it as a sign of my healing and maturity that I am more open to respecting that they have/had a fullness to their lives beyond being my parents. I am better able (I believe) to center them in their stories. But I don’t think I could have done this when I was young and reactive and less solid in myself. Having said all that, I have distanced myself from my six siblings (communicating through texts and emails only, for the most part). I know that one sister, In particular, feels very upset with me and likely betrayed by my requiring this distance. She has cut off all communication to me. I feel sad knowing how much pain I’ve caused her. Because there are a lot of alliances in my family of origin, I didn’t and still don’t know how to repair across tangled, glued relationships. Now our older son (37 yo) has estranged himself from us (my husband and me), which means we don’t get to see our 3 yo granddaughter. As you can see, I’m very much in the thick of it! Our older son had expectations of us that we were not able to deliver. I’m grateful for your thoughtful comments (and for the article this thread relates to).
I'm an adult child who has come very close to cutting off my parents and is still thinking about it. (I'm very low contact.)
And I fully disagree with the statement that parents have power over us FOR LIFE. That is an infantilizing attitude to have towards adults and a perpetual -victim mindset to have towards oneself. Telling yourself that even as an adult you are still helpless as a child in your relationship with your parents is EXACTLY what is causing you to fail to see any options other than cutting your parents out of your life. It's a small child's thinking: all you can do is run away.
If you're willing to take ownership of your adult power, then you'd be able to feel secure within yourself because you have this adult power. From this new vantage point you would see your parents as human and treat them as human beings who are equal to you. Which they are.
Until you make the shift in this mindset, though, you'll see them as terrifying all-powerful monsters who are out to get you. A child's perspective, a perpetual victim mindset. Not suited to an adult.
You're willfully misunderstanding what I'm saying. Formative relationships are called "formative" because they lay the foundations of who you will be for the rest of your life. Trauma experienced as a child can alter your personality and the way you interact with the world forever. That is not the same as saying "I need mommy and daddy's permission until the day I die."
That's true, the parent child relationship is formative for the child. But that still doesn't mean that the parent-ADULT child relationship can never be an adult-adult equal relationship.
If this isn't what you're meaning to suggest, then great! But I've seen way way way too many adults who seem confused about it.
For example, many adults cut their parents out of their lives claiming that they're doing so in "self protection" because otherwise the parent will "continue abusing" them... as if parents still have power over them and the capacity to abuse them even though they live far away and have lives completely disengaged from the parent and therefore the parents have no power over them at all! How can there be abuse when there is no power-over? That is the perpetual victim mindset I was talking about.
To be very clear, it's well within our rights to cut parents off just because they abused us in childhood. We don't have to pretend they're STILL dangerous to us when they're objectively not, though.
As adults we are all on an equal footing in the sense that coping with our childhood trauma is our burden alone - not anyone else's responsibility but ours. We as adults are fully within our rights to cut parents out of our lives as punishment, if they abused us when we were children. But to claim that we are cutting them out of our lives in *self-protection* is a perpetual victim mindset.
Parents absolutely have the capacity to be abusive to their adult children, as many adult children of abusive parents can tell you-- the memory of parental authority does not magically disappear just because the parents no longer have literal control over every aspect of the child's life. Parents frequently have financial leverage over their children, since family wealth is our society's first line of defense against poverty, for one. They are more likely to have their testimonials believed among the family itself, which affects the child's relationships with other family members-- their status as a social authority is protected by the other adults in their generation even once the child is too big to be physically controlled.
If my relationship with my parents is genuinely as equal any other, then I'm perfectly free to remove them from my life if I judge they present an ongoing negative influence, whether that is literally "abusive" or not, and my reasoning makes no difference. That is not often what happens-- our society places a premium on filial loyalty, and most children are (understandably!) attached to their parents in a way that makes them seek to tolerate or excuse bad behavior before condemning it. Parents' status as a (the!) formative relationship is not easily forgotten, which affects the power dynamics between them forever.
You and the author of the original post have conjured this vague fantasy of the oversensitive victim, seemingly so that you can locate the source of the problem not in the abuser's conduct but in the way the victim feels. I don't know how to tell you that this framing of yours-- that it is *disempowering* to recognize when people are doing ongoing harm to your wellbeing-- is fully backwards. It is none of your business how other people feel about their relationships, and your eagerness to judge their decisions on how to handle it is your own issue.
Literally power is absolutely necessary in order for someone to abuse you. In every other case you're just playing the victim, using your memories as your excuse. Your views here are exactly what I mean by “perpetual victim mindset” and “infantilizing yourself” and refusing to step into your adult power.
Our memories of abuse are real, they are damaging, and have lifelong consequences. AND ALSO the abuse is no longer our current reality. PTSD is a mental illness. It's our brain lying to us. The feelings we get because of it should not be confused with reality. Just because we feel like we are in danger, doesn't make it true. Our parents WERE our abusers but no longer ARE.
(Note that I explicitly talked about adults who are no longer under their parents’ control in my comment - adults who live independently. If a parent is providing financially for their adult child who cannot provide for themselves, abuse is a definite possibility!)
I think people are free to stop hanging out with their parents even if their parents are merely assholes and not abusers, so I'm not sure why you're so desperately hung up on your own personal definition of abuse. Again this is a You Problem, it seems like you are taking issue over semantics with people you made up because you think they're too delicate in response to cruelty. I can't make it any clearer how cold, uncompelling and bizarre this take is.
I agree. The article seems to only repeatedly state that there are some situations where becoming estranged makes sense, but then just switches back to how terrible it is. I chose to become a parent and I hope to never need assistance from my daughter, but I know if I need it, she will help me happily, because I chose to raise her with respect and kindness, which is the opposite of how I was raised. I wasn't even really raised, just neglected and abandoned, then abused once my mother chose to take responsibility of me at 13 only to kick me out at 18. I would have been on the streets if not for a kind coworker. She still only cares about herself, she cut contact when I got sick and was trying to get family info on neurological illnesses, she blocked me on all socials and my phone number, till she wanted something from me. Maybe the problem is not the young people escaping these things, but the way our parents and grandparents were raised, especially the religious aspects.
Rhia, your childhood sounds truly terrible. I’m sorry for what you went through. No one denies that there are people who are unsuited for parenthood. However that does not preclude the possibility that loving and devoted parents can be cut off by their adult children. I’m sorry to burst your bubble but although you have chosen to raise your child with “respect and kindness,” the day may still come when she decides to go no contact from you under the influence of an unethical therapist or controlling partner. Or due to any number of factors beyond your control such as mental illness or addiction. Estrangement can be a form of elder abuse inflicted upon parents who were not guilty of neglect or abandonment. Cruelty towards parents seems to be the only form of mistreatment acceptable in our society.
You named an incredibly painful truth: people can do all the right things in raising their children with respect and kindness and they still get cut off. I can't tell you how often I've seen this.
Or they may have a child who expressed appreciation that they were raised by loving parents and then marry a partner who, for whatever complicated reasons (or something as simple as wanting to spend the holidays with their side of the family), finds endless fault with the in-laws who do life differently than them.
A millennial parent recently shared that she did all the right things and her child is depressed and suicidal. She is now seeing that perhaps, she was overly harsh on her parents.
This generation is going to be humbled as we all are humbled.
One of the things that may come home to roost is a generation of adult grandchildren wondering why they were cut off from loving grandparents who wanted to see them.
We must challenge parenting perfectionism towards ourselves and others and start realizing we are all part of this human condition. It's always been complicated between parents and children.
Rather than turning against each other, we can grow in wisdom by looking at the larger forces that shape our parents, ourselves and our children and seek to understand and forgive ourselves and each other.
Right on Cornelia…
Rhia,
I am so sorry for the trauma that you experienced growing up.
But make no mistake, you are absolutely wrong. You can do everything you are doing now and your adult child may still decide to cut ties with you.
No, you don't know my child. We have a great relationship and she knows I've got her back no matter what. You are wrong
jesse, I find your words, tone, and image toxic. You're making me feel unsafe in this space where I thought I could hold peace. As a queer person who suffers from emotional damage, not by my parents or family, but by words used by you and others like you who attack strangers and impose your anger dressed up as moral arrogance, that has now disrupted my mental capacity for discussion and triggered me and my traumas from bullies like you.
I would like you to form a boundary with this type of behavior you exhibited and not cross it in the future because you are being selfish, aggressive, and causing a sensory overload for me and others like me. I stand up for queer anxiety ridden bullied people like me. You are the gender goblin of my anxiety-riddled nightmares and you need to stop being a bully in this space and in your own life choices.
Please do better ;)
You've captured the voice of this trend of victim narcissism. It ultimately usurps the transformative value in articulating the experience of authentic pain.
Once you realize how deeply someone is over identified with their disempowered victimhood, you have to walk away. It's a hamster wheel.
I agree with your thoughts about the post but I think it’s a bit reductive to characterize the author’s instagram as nothing but parental estrangement promo posts. I saw that one of her posts was about how she works with her older parent clients to help them understand the heart of what their child might be upset about without letting defensiveness get in the way. So I hope that she clarifies the specific things that adult children are doing that she feels are unfair and addresses the power imbalance in a parent-child relationship.
This is not a writer who deserves your defense or your attention! This is a grifter who went to Calsouthern University (aggressively for-profit online college which gets very bad reviews from students) and then Azusa Pacific University (a Christian college named after the event that spawned the Pentecostal denomination). She is a Christian ideologue who is not honest enough to present herself as such. You can find plenty of parental advice from people who do not go out of their way to be deceptive.
Those of us who are ex-evangelical can readily see the religious terminology and justification for their ideology in this article. Thank you for doing your research on this writer.
Still makes some great points and very well-articulated. She must have learned to write somewhere.
sure, i found this piece because a friend shared the bit about how people who are trying to rebut authoritarian parents wind up behaving in ways that are controlling in their own way. but if you need me to tell you that even snake oil salesmen can give a good pitch then you have bigger problems
That's called ad hominem.
You don’t understand that term
Attacking the person or qualifications or where they're from rather than their argument/ideas.
I did critique her ideas though. I just also pointed out that someone who lies to you about their qualifications is not a good source of information.
People representing themselves as experts in a subject matter are themselves making empirical claims, sometimes backed by references, sometimes backed by 'I'm an expert, trust me bro'.
And when someone tells you they work in mental health, or are a therapist, or they have therapy clients, they are setting themselves up as an expert giving their fair and unbiased opinion.
This is why it's kosher to uncover religious and other ideological commitments that someone speaking as an expert has -- it invariably colours how we see the world, thus how we understand it as experts.
Here, the speaker is also covertly promoting their own pecuniary interest.
Noting these things is not at ad hominem attack, and, notably, the critique did not even build on this line of attack in any substantive way.
That’s not an ad hominem fallacy though, on its own. It’s fine to dispute someone’s authority to make an argument on the basis of something like their obfuscation of their actual credentials or their ideological commitments to certain other beliefs. An ad hominem fallacy is not, as you point out, a good response to someone’s argument, but outside of that specific case, there’s nothing inherently invalid about attacking someone’s qualifications or ideological position. That would be ridiculous, as these are relevant to the situation at hand, as they often are. If you’re going to use terms like those, it pays to at least understand the context in which they are relevant, no?
Agreed and appreciate the nuance! Jesse, with a lowercase "j" seems to find joy in antagonistic loaded hurtful language and projection as dressed up fervor. I hope she/he/they can find the help and healing she/he/they needs. They seem to like the art of war with others and tearing down honest pursuits of discourse through dialogue and nuance, rather than 'the art of gender.'
Very triggering for someone like me who is queer and was bullied ad nauseum by profiles like lower case jesse. I hope she/he does better ;)
Well written and excellent response to something that felt neither honest nor balanced when I was reading it.
I know an abusive mother- physically and emotionally abusive- who was estranged from her daughter (who because of her mother’s abuse suffers from a slew of mental disorders). Her mother refuses to see what harm she’s caused, and actually sees herself as a victim of parental estrangement, receiving validation from this Instagram account. It’s so heartbreaking and so dangerous.
What an astounding comment. So because you “know an abusive mother,” all estranged mothers (and estranged fathers, one assumes) are guilty and deserving of cruelty? Family estrangements are much more complicated than you seem to think. Grieving parents who have been unfairly vilified and mocked by the estrangement industry most definitely deserve a source of validation and comfort. If you don’t agree, then don’t read their discussions. For now, at least, we do not live in a fascist society. What is “so heartbreaking and so dangerous” (in your words) is your conviction that only one side of an issue deserves “validation “ and that you personally get to bestow blanket victimhood.
What’s astounding is your interpretation of my comment, lol. Never once did I imply ANY of the things you’ve accused me of. I simply stated a fact, and that is: I know a physically and emotionally abusive mother who sees herself as a victim and receives validation from this Instagram account. The fact that… that fact… triggered you has nothing to do with what I said and everything to do with your own experience/insecurity/etc. I’m sorry for what you’re going through- or for what perhaps *some* grieving parents who have been unfairly mocked and vilified have gone through, AND ALSO this Instagram account has proven dangerous and heartbreaking as I’ve witnessed first hand. Both can be true. I’m sorry, Cornelia, but it seems the only person who “blanket” statement-ed here was you. I truly hope you don’t know anyone who has been PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY abused by a mother who refuses to see the harm she’s caused. It’s one of the most painful things to witness, watching this woman’s child suffer. I really, really hope you don’t have to witness it, walk alongside it.
I hope you took action to intervene on the behalf of this child. Did you report this situation to CPS? The abandonment and abusive estrangement of vulnerable elders is no less heartbreaking - especially when you consider how ageism is used to rationalize mistreatment. This thread is focused on the pain experienced by parents of ADULT children. While there are many, many resources available for adults who claim abuse, there is comparatively little discussion of cruelty towards elderly parents. This issue warrants greater attention whether or not you feel it’s “dangerous.”
He said "Parent vs. Adult Child" dynamic. ADULT child. And power inequalities do not absorb you of moral responsibility in how you treat the other person - even if you are a minor child and the other person is an adult. You still have the ability to harm them. Just because you are MORE vulnerable than they are, does not excuse you for not applying empathy. Nor does it erase your obligation to treat them under the same standard that you wish to be treated - and if you can't be kind, to atleast not choose cruelty.
Oh my, you must be hurt.
I’m a mother who hasn’t had communication with her son for over 2 years. I wrote a letter of amends, I have been in and offered to do family therapy , I have apologized for any hurt I have caused and zippo. Silence. No explanation no communication all family is now cut off for no apparent reason.
I’m envious of parents that were
given reasons.
jessy sounds like a bitter spoiled child
Perfect example of how authoritarian attitudes are antisocial and dehumanizing, thank you.
Thank you! I think I feel this way largely because I have seen how good parents demonstrate a more reciprocal kind of relationship with their kids. My boyfriend has an excellent relationship with his parents, and also feels a strong duty to not ask them for more than they can give-- I think part of why they have this relationship is because his parents are reflective about their own inevitable mistakes, and forthcoming with apologies for things they think they did wrong. I really admire them for that, and getting to have a relationship with them has genuinely healed a lot of the damage done by my own controlling parents. It's just much better to recognize that providing the helpless-- children in this case-- with what they need to thrive is a moral obligation, and does not entitle us to control them or demand repayment for what they could not provide for themselves.
Like -- MFTI means that she's an Intern providing assistance to a licensed family therapist rather than a licensed therapist herself -- which she fails to declare. There's no sign of relevant tertiary education nor even a whiff of science in her credentials, her article lacks references to respected clinical data, she construes a paranoid societal conspiracy theory without substantiating causes and effects, offers false equivocation on advice yet rehashes traditional Christian filial values without saying when they work most effectively and the conditions under which they are likely to be dangerous or fail to work?
My conclusion? She's not functioning as an empirical clinician but as a life-coach influencer with a quasireligious agenda. That wasn't a reasoned empirical discussion designed to help distressed readers discern cases, but a sermon.
What responsible clinician self-promotes on TikTok?
Sit down Ruv. You're encroaching on a woman's right to her truth.
A fantastic article. One that gets to the heart of what is going on in our society and not just the destruction of family, although that is surely one of the key targets. Those doubting what is going on might take a look at the Frankfurt School and post modernist movements' takeover of the education system, starting at Columbia University in the 1930-1950 period. In the Commonwealth nations, we have the Fabians operating much the same ideological program. End goal is state/corporate totalitarian control (fascism by another name) and to get that they need to replace the family with the all powerful State—digital ids, CBDCs and tokenisation of everything are stages on the path.
I appreciate your feedback, and I’ve also recently discovered your articles. Very thought provoking and insightful, thank you!
Thanks for your article. I recall my training in family systems therapy training a hundred years ago. Pretty good system of seeing the family, and I use it to help my parishioners understand some of the behavior their adult children are exhibiting….I rarely get to talk to their adult kids because they stopped coming to church. Perhaps I could instill a thanksgiving for their parents (warts and all) and the reality that their decoupling is really hurtful to their parents. I wish I understood everything I know about this stuff. I will keep trying…..
The Frankfurt School? The Frankfurt School destroyed the modern family when the market forces are right there? Turning children into atomized individual consumers whose every desire must be catered to? The Frankfurt School destroyed the moral authority of the church, made children laugh at their parents, trivialized values? more so than 50 years of “have it your way” burger and cereal commercials and “family values” brought to you courtesy of Married With Children culminating in the supremacy of Joe Rogan? Maaaaaan. All I can say is, the urge to find a leftist Jewish conspiracy scapegoat has got to be really powerful for you to pull this one out of your rear end.
You're clearly drawing on themes from the later Frankfurt School—Adorno and Horkheimer’s critique of consumerism and the culture industry—and yes, their analysis of how mass media pacifies the public and corrodes traditional values still holds weight. But the irony is that you’re using their insights to mock the very tradition they came from. What you’re overlooking is that the Frankfurt School’s earlier project explicitly targeted the traditional family as a site of ideological reproduction. In Authority and the Family (1936), Horkheimer argued that the family isn’t just a private haven but a mechanism for instilling obedience and conformity—essential for sustaining both capitalism and authoritarianism. Marcuse and Fromm developed this further, tying the family to psychic repression and social control. This wasn’t just a critique in isolation—it was part of a broader re-engineering of the social sciences, shifting them from descriptive disciplines to normatively charged tools for social transformation. Education, psychology, and sociology were reshaped to view institutions like the family, religion, and moral authority not as foundational but as obstacles to liberation. So when I pointed out that ideological currents within academia sought to reshape the family and undermine inherited values, I'm not grasping at some form of conspiracy (Jewish or not)—I'm describing what was openly theorised, institutionalised and eventually mainstreamed. Reducing that legacy to a scapegoating impulse misses both the intellectual history and the demonstrable institutional effects it produced. You’re half right about consumerism—but you're standing on ground the early Frankfurt School prepared, whether you realise it or not.
All I can say is, the urge to find a leftist Jewish conspiracy scapegoat has got to be really powerful for you to pull this one out of your rear end.
The Frankfurt School is not PREscriptive—it DESCRIBES a method of analysis. I’m not *ignoring* the contention that the family is “a site of ideological reproduction” —it’s an underlying assumption because it is obviously and self evidently *true*. Am I missing something?
I’m just finishing my dissertation at Virginia Tech (rhetoric and writing) after a decade teaching full time and completing 2 MAs. I can absolutely confirm that Critical race theorists (Delgado, Bell, Crenshaw), postmodernists, critical pedagogues (Freire), gender theorists, and Marxists took up/cited the Frankfurt school’s critique of capitalist production to critique cultural sites of production (schools, communities, companies, churches, publishers, govt structures, and yes the domestic sphere in the form of the family, etc.) to identify obstacles that prevent liberation. My trans and female peers explicitly state the hetero monogamous family unit is an obstacle to their freedom, it oppresses them and they must liberate children. Humanities are steeped in the Frankfurt paradigm. It’s literally not a conspiracy, to claim so is a red herring and epithet. Ive read so many authors and mainstream scholars in composition studies, rhetoric, and applied linguistics who use Marcuse, Adorno, and others as theoretical foundations and research frameworks. Please consider this experience and adjust your reality to accommodate this new information so you realize when you’re sharing incomplete understanding or misinformation. Howard is 💯 on this.
Your contention appears to be that there is only ONE view/desirable organization of family. That is obviously and self evidently UNtrue.
You’ve shifted from mockery to a kind of strategic concession—acknowledging that the family is a “site of ideological reproduction” but now claiming the Frankfurt School was merely descriptive, not prescriptive. That’s a rhetorical deflection.
Let’s be clear: the Frankfurt School, particularly in its early phase, was not content with analysis for its own sake. Horkheimer, Marcuse, Fromm—they developed Critical Theory precisely as a tool for social transformation. In Authority and the Family (1936), Horkheimer didn’t neutrally observe the family—he argued that the traditional family structure produced authoritarian personalities and reinforced capitalist domination. This critique was foundational to a broader effort to re-engineer the social sciences, which increasingly treated institutions like the family, church, and school as targets for ideological deconstruction.
So when you say the ideological role of the family is “self-evidently true,” what you’re really doing is conceding the premise while downplaying the programme that followed from it—in education, psychology, and culture. That’s not honest engagement; that’s rhetorical containment.
As for the accusation that I’m defending “only ONE desirable organisation of family”—that’s a straw man. No one here claimed the traditional family is the only valid form. The point is that ideological projects—shaped in part by Frankfurt School thinking—have systematically delegitimised it under the banner of liberation, without acknowledging the social fragmentation and atomisation that followed. Raising that concern is not the same as insisting on one model—it’s pointing out the consequences of deliberately unmaking one without offering a stable alternative.
So again: this isn’t about nostalgia or conspiracy. It’s about recognising that ideas have institutional consequences—and pretending that the Frankfurt School’s influence was merely observational is, at best, misinformed, and at worst, evasive.
Thank you Rachel. It’s just what I needed as I sit here sobbing…and feeling all alone. The pain is real. I know I’m not alone
Sending a virtual hug, Bernadette.
We are not alone❤️
There are many of us grieving. You are not alone. 💜
Sending a virtual hug to you as well, Bernadette!
Yes, you are not alone.
Sending virtual hugs in which we long for ♥️
You are not alone...I am sobbing for both of us!
I’m sobbing with you and thought I was alone.
You're really not alone. Adding to the hugs x
Virtual hugs. I'm sure we both long to hug and be hugged by our children.
Thank you so much. I long to be embraced. My sister many states away is hurting with me and she feels like she is loosing me in the process. I am not the same.
No, sadly, you are definitely 💯 not alone. I am so sorry for your pain.
The loss of a child who is still alive is devastating. Please do what you need to do to take care of yourself and be good to yourself. Your well-being matters. You matter.
There is a line in the Baghavad Gita where Krishna tells the warrior Arjuna that we are all entitled to our actions but not the “fruits of our actions.” These wise words are a solace to me. My son, who was raised with love, now has this endowment from me of the “fruits of my actions.” So he reaps the benefits of my good care. And I was a good mother.
I believe that his decision to estrange from us shows a deficit of courage, fortitude, strength, and integrity. I have to reckon with the painful probability that all of my determination, protectiveness, worry, joys, laughter, celebration, a hundred decisions and revisions that a moment will undo (T.S. Elliot) — given freely in the hopes of raising a good man who would “pay it forward” — were for naught. Because I know as sure as I’m writing this text right now that someone who could treat/discard me as my son has, is not a good man by any standard I recognize.
But, according to Krishna, I have my actions, as the warrior Arjuna did. I feel good about how I mothered my son. And that is something no one, not even my adult son, can take from me.
Wishing you peace, love, and light.
I’m so glad that a therapist wrote an article from a SOCIOLOGICAL perspective. Yes- this is a movement and you are spot on. It’s similar to what we are seeing with politics and social action protesting or promoting DEI , book banning and other ideological driven activities.
In other words, ideology leaves no room for compromise or balance in points of view. So many of today’s parental alienations are not due to parental abuse or child endangerment but from adult children feeling entitled; they cry abuse and mistreatment when met with parental disagreement or difference in perspective and viewpoint. Our world has moved away from middle ground and is becoming polarized as these attitudinal younger generations move into adulthood. Sadly, pain and suffering usually provide the greatest lessons in humility.
Schools do not transition children, please stop spreading false information.
They absolutely do secretly “socially transition” children. It is the law in California and probably other states by now.
put the koolaid down and step away from it.
Wow, i think you need to look up what transitioning is. It's not being given resources and kindness. Not to mention, social media is so far from a reputable source for information
So it’s secret…and also public…? lol conspiracy thinking at its finest
That someone loves them and cares for them as they are. Children who are trans and face alienation at home have off the charts suicidal behavior. There’s no amount of “indoctrination” at school to make a child trans. Teachers would indoctrinating kids into doing their homework if this was even possible.
There are also a rising number of suicides from young folks who "transitioned" as teens/young adults, then later were horrified by their decision, a life choice they could not undo.
Citation needed
Its not a secret. Anyone can research the topic.
Even before the incr wokeness in the past few yrs there was at least one book on the subject of serious mental health issues faced by young ppl who transitoned:
"Irreversible Damage" by a pro-trans lesbian author
2021
That book is packed with debunked claims and misleading argument. It’s been widely debunked by experts. Anyone can research the topic.
lol
So in your view, since God gave men the preputium, it's arrogance and wrong to try to improve on it by inflicting male genital mutilation on babies and young children, yes?
You’re living in an irrational fantasyland. If god gave me my gender, he didn’t do a good job! Or maybe, if god doesn’t make mistakes, trans people are actually what they say they anre and YOU are the one standing in the way of his will. After all, it’s odd that the gender binary, for supposedly being biological and divine in origin, takes so much enforcement and punishment to maintain…
So, how does a mistake like that happen?
Indeed, how? Trans people aren’t mistakes. We’re part of God’s plan, obviously. How could you possibly know better than a literal child of god what their gender identity is??? Nobody appointed you to a position of divine authority over others. Get over it.
The influence public schools and ideological activist teachers have today can overwhelm the influence of parents, especially when what's going on there is kept secret from them.
If you have kids, surely you wdve noticed you can explain any small thing to your kids & they ignore you, then come home one day all enthusiastic abt the very same idea bc a teacher they like said it?
That happens A LOT, whether the child hears it from a friend, the tv (internet these days) etc. It's very powerful.
(They arent the only ones 😉 eg someone advises their spouse who ignores them, then the spouse hears the same from a friend or respected peer or even online & now they listen!)
Thank you for all your posts and this exceptional article. I have been also asking why the parent-adult child relationship are not expected to be reciprocal. I see so many younger generation amputating relationships, blame and shame lacking maturity, having no clue about boundaries, no accountability and are one way street righteous activists. Maybe we contributed by saving and not letting them experience consequences. Healthy Relationships 101 should also be taught in school. My hope is that people will listen to each other and yes its super uncomfortable to deal with conflict but we can grow from it. Ah the Rich deep love of Grandparents!
I agree, communication and emotional regulation skills should be taught early! Thanks for your feedback
at home and in school
No, not everything "should be taught in schools". Relationships should be taught at home. This outsourcing mentality is probably a high contributor to this mess.
Perhaps we need both. All children do not have parents who understand relationships and have no way to teach what they don't know.
The government explaining to children how relationships should work. What could go wrong.
As an instructional aide and supervision aide for elementary school for the past 20 years, I can tell you relationships ARE taught at home. Good ones and bad ones. It's bringing those dynamics into a larger community when we find out who is being taught what. Some kids do great one on one with their parents but can't navigate their place with their peers.
i stated also in schools (meaning at home as well)
The power of social media these days cannot be underestimated. In my case my son was close to us in the 'before', but he struggled to fit in and had a wobbly sense of self. He had plenty of loving support from his whole family, cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents as well. I am sure there are cases where cut offs may be warranted, but there are also vulnerable young people and adults who are living their lives online to the exclusion of real life contact. It's sad and scary. Yes, it is his choice to live on the edge but he is loved and missed by all of us.
and what say you if the adult child marries a homophobe? or if the father of that child did counter-parenting because of his homophobia?
then what? should the parent renounce their sexuality and go straight?
I'm guessing you'd agree the parent has few to no choices here.
not necessarily.
colleges are well known sources of opposition to "traditional values", including family loyalty, forgiveness etc.
There’s nothing in 5 years of college that even hinted at this.
Not once did college teach me critical thinking skills. Who did teach me this? My dad.
Are you a troll with an agenda? You’ve hijacked a well-meaning and remarkable thread.
Colleges teach critical thinking skills? Really? Because I helped put five children through college recently and that is not my impression.
Children are being taught that governments are the true authority figures. I can cite dozens of examples but I sense you aren’t ready to confront this truth.
If you’re truly interested in growth, start your research with Sweden. The government there was highly successful in teaching young people that family systems are unnatural and inconvenient. It has been widely cited and written about and is not what you’d call a “conspiracy theory.”
No, society has played a very big part. I’m surprised I even have to say this.
No. Children are as influenced by their friends as by their parents. Adult modeling doesn’t always result in the child copying that behavior.
Depends on where the child’s primary attachment lies. If the parents abandon their children to peer care from an early age for 5/7 of their waking hours then yeah, the kids are going to follow their peers.
"If estranged parents spent half as much time working on themselves as they do feeling sorry for themselves, they might have relationships with their kids."
THIS
I do think you are missing some pieces of the problem. Many loving and caring 'good enough' parents are being cut off by their children. I don't think we, here, are talking about those who were getting their own needs met through their children. It truly isn't true that if you were a good enough parent your kids won't cut you off.
True estrangement is incredibly rare as it goes against every biological need. The people I know who are estranged have done so after many years and many attempts at repair. And they agonized over it. Our generation is no longer okay with lighting ourselves on fire in order to keep our parents warm.
I disagree wholeheartedly. Who would choose estrangement? Who would choose to alienate themselves if they believed there could be a route to reconciliation? I don't believe anyone would. I sure wouldn't have chosen it, but I had to choose my own peace over enmeshment with someone who refused to grow, accept the consequences their mistakes had over my life, continuously infantilized me and somehow also expected me to be their caregiver when they got older. There are deep-seated problems with boomer/genx parents who don't acknowledge the power dynamics in the relationship or the autonomy of their adult children.
I find this all so frustrating. No one is saying voluntary estrangement from one’s family is never called for. I think the author explains herself very well. She says she’s all for boundaries when strong boundaries are called for.
What she is alluding to is a spoiled generation that doesn’t feel the need to learn the give and take of relationships. We are all a witness to the entitlement of the younger generation today. I have five children, and while we’re all very close, I see the tendency in them too.
I recently helped my mother die. I was her backup plan. I cared for her and helped her to the end, even when it wasn’t easy. And not because I am a martyr, but because I believe in the dignity and importance of family and that there are relationships where being a true and committed human being is called for because it’s the right thing.
This isn’t a relationship crisis we are living through, or a political crisis—it is a spiritual crisis. Even atheists acknowledge there are universal truths that govern behavior and action in this world, but we are being encouraged to forget those truths.
I hope I’m gone before the victim mentality becomes the law of the land, if it hasn’t already. What a cruel and lonely world it will be when compassion and forgiveness are gone for good.
The world is presently in a spiritual crisis, with the Divine being expunged, and I think that when people use words, such as, sacred, spiritual, compassion, etc., many readers/listeners switch off. My mother badly abused me as a child and I left home at 18 to work abroad. However, I chose to keep a thread of communication with her because she was my mother (she had given me the gift of life, albeit a difficult one!) and I chose to tend to her in her old age; neither because I was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or anything else, nor because she merited it, but simply as a younger person looking after an older person. I am now 80 - I have never considered myself to be a victim because, as an adult, I am responsible for myself. This present trend of victimhood drives me crazy 😜 go out and enjoy Life and practise kindness... 'do onto others as you would wish done onto yourself '
Who would choose estrangement? A narcissist who feels 100% responsible for her success and therefore has zero gratitude for what her parents did for her. A narcissist who is incapable of incorporating the feelings and needs of others into her decision to cut her parents off completely. A narcissistic who. . . I have quite a list but I’ll stop here.
I would give anything to hear his perspective.
I’m not sure where you are getting your information. Why would you ‘believe’ my experience when it isn’t your own? What is an ‘unsafe’ parent? Where has that idea come from? I would ask that you at least continue to consider that this is possible. I don’t think this is something you can understand unless it happens to you. I live an incredibly healthy lifestyle yet I got cancer. People often want to know what I did, or didn’t do, to get it. Sometimes things happen to us and it really isn’t our fault, which is very, very hard to accept I know. Please stop blaming parents when you don’t understand. Come walk a mile in my shoes, then we can continue this conversation.
Well said. There is much truth in this.
Well said, Rachel!
Thank you, Dr. Coleman!
I do agree with your article Rachel and have felt this way about a loss of connection and community post pandemic. Having personally experienced upsetting behaviour in my own family, I struggle with being the one always making the effort when it isn’t reciprocated.
POW! This!
You say: “And yes, sometimes cutting off contact really is the healthiest choice. I support anyone’s right to make that decision thoughtfully. But I also think we need to slow down and ask: are we cutting off dysfunction—or cutting off discomfort? Are we refusing to tolerate abuse—or refusing to engage in the repair work that all long-term relationships eventually require?”
I became estranged from my mother at age 44 after a lifetime of verbal, physical and emotional abuse and manipulation from her. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly or quickly. It came after 20 years of me trying over and over again to turn our relationship into something healthy. It never worked. It couldn’t be repaired, as only one of us was prepared to do the work.
So, I think estrangement is a complex and personal thing that is different for everyone and by calling it a trend, you diminish the difficulty and pain that people who make the decision to refuse any more abuse, go through.
That said, I completely agree that the governments of the world are trying to destabilise our sense of community and connection.
My story is also similar, my mother only ever "took care of me" between the ages of 13 and 18 when she kicked me out on the street because I forgot to dust my room for 1 week, clearly she was just looking for an excuse. Not surprising after she never bothered to show up to the custody hearing when I was 2.
I feel like this article comes from a very privileged perspective.
I think the article waa not directed at people in you situation, at all.
It seems more about kids who grow up in perhaps slightly dysfunction (read: imperfect) families, kids seem fine, happy even (tho again, imperfect) then years later - often after years in college - decide their parents just werent good enough.
Compare that to previous generations that KNEW , also, that their parents hadnt beem perfect, made mistakes (even a ton of mistakes) ... but understood that their parents did the best they could, given their circumstances & their childhoods & also understood how much we owe our parents (warts & all) & that our childhood/ life experiences (both positive and "negative") make us who we are.
Nowadays, ppl seem to think we are entitled to amazing, incredible, nururing, respectful (dare I say, perfect?) parents, & dont want to acknowledge how much we learn & grow from so-called "negative" experiences.
And none of that addresses that our Creator put us where we were always meant to be.
I think most folks who choose to cut off relationships with their parents are very aware that their parents didn't need to be perfect.
Often the choice to cut off parents is an outgrown of parents not being self reflective or aware when asked by their adult children
On the contrary it is you who has the privileged perspective, expecting other people to only write blog posts that cater to your experience, which you clearly know is atypical.
This clarity is so needed! I’m also a therapist, and I’m a parent of adult children. I’m so glad to hear you speak to this problem in our culture and, let’s be honest, in our profession. Estrangement ideology has been perpetuated by therapists who offer a weekly echo chamber of validation for their individual clients because challenging their narrative might mean losing a client. It perpetuates pain and isolation in families and keeps clients in a victim mindset whether they realize it or not. The root cause of this pain is localized externally in a difficult or mismatched familial relationship or person. Growth can’t happen in an echo chamber. Healing can’t happen in isolation.
Well said, Carrie. Thank you!
Thank you thank you thank you for this acknowledgment of the professional challenges associated with counseling through estrangement issues.
Wow. I'm so deeply moved by this, Rachel.
A friend is a therapist and works with young people. She said this younger generation is brutal on their parents. They walk in to session armed with social media therapeutic language to pummel and diagnose their folks. She's so disheartened that she's ready to leave the profession.
Another friend fired her therapist because she was having challenges with her mom and her therapist suggested she cut off her Mom. She said "I didn't want to cut off my mother, I wanted some tools communicating as we have such different needs." The profession is complicit with this trend so your piece is much needed.
My family has experienced estrangement and it's devastating. Most of my friend group has experienced it either in their own families or their extended family. The intergenerational fallout can't be understated. Every month, I refer someone new to Josh Coleman's work.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece and for your work in the world. I'm sharing it with therapist friends, clients and other parents navigating the pain and confusion.
I appreciate the honesty of this post and exposing the fraudulent language that many are now using. Toxic becomes the 'go to' catch all for when someone refuses to think about the hurt they are imposing when 'no contact' is celebrated by those who have no context or background to the family situation that is now permanently scarred.
Sadly, these young people who have banished parents from their lives deprive themselves of a kind of love that is not to be found anywhere else.
Yeah... that kind of "love" left me with cPTSD. I will continue to avoid people that treat me even slightly close to the way my family treated me. Nobody deserves that
As the only family member on one side of my family who is trying to maintain and even encourage communication this is damn complicated. I tried explaining my thoughts while affirming their concerns but was met with silence or a barrage of Fox News quotes. I tried to bring family members from the two sides together but they ended up disowning each other. Family gatherings became unbearable. I am now confined to sharing in on family news conversations on Facebook and sending birthday greetings. The only time everyone managed to keep it together was at one family reunion to keep peace for my 95 year old brother. It was wonderful for a while to talk of old times when politics weren’t taking over. I know a grief over this that weighs me down. I honestly think it will never end and when my brother is gone that will be it. 😣
I don’t talk politics with family. Number one rule. Politics should not be taken out on family members. It’s to much like religion. One wouldn’t try and convert a family member from Christiandom to Hinduism because they really believe Hinduism would be a better choice.
This is how me and my family try to keep it but this is seen as a bad thing these days with most people my age. It comes across as faking it or being fake. That's the mentality at least these days for a lot of my peers that I talk with.
At least you are trying Linda... I know it might not feel like much when your efforts aren't being matched and the results aren't showing but it matters. It seems to be a growing theme these days so just know you aren't alone.
This is a good article. I very much agree. Although, many times reconciliation is not possible because the two parties involved are not the problem. In my experience, when an adult child gets to be estranged from their loving families it is becaise the adult child is being coercively controlled by their partner to think their family of origin is bad in some way. The adult child is actively being isolated from their support network and they don't realize that they are being abused by their spouse; or in really bad scenerios, they can't fight against the abuse, so they go along with the estrangement because it is what their abusive spouse wants.
It really isn't that the family doesn't get along. It's about an abusive spouse and their desire to control.
Yes, my brother’s wife decided a year ago that he’s no longer able to have a relationship with his family and we can no longer see their kids. My mom is devastated. This all happened because I committed the unforgivable sin of being late for dinner. (Yes it was rude but unintentional. I did apologize. It didn’t matter, we don’t live up to her standards.) She attempted to excommunicate me and my husband and kids from the family and when my parents refused to support that, she cut them off too.
Thank God your parents could see the games for what they are. I fear many people see the issue as a 'sibling thing' which plays right into the abuser's hands.
Obviously it’s more nuanced than that but that was apparently the final straw. For many years I thought that we were friends - she was part of my family and I loved her. Apparently all this time she’s hated me and been keeping score of every time we were a minute late for anything, every time we celebrated Christmas in a way she didn’t like, every time my teenagers used their phones during a family gathering, every piece of dog hair in my home (she hates pets), every time the conversation wasn’t deep enough for her liking, etc. If she wants to dislike me that’s her right, but my parents have never been anything but kind and welcoming to her, helped them, regularly babysat so they could go out whenever they wanted, and now she’s turned on them and won’t allow them to see their grandkids. It’s completely unbelievable how she could be so cruel to them.
So, it's clear you have little or no experience with irrational people.
Your family member being abused by their spouse pushes the emotional, psychological abuse onto you because they cannot fight against their abusive spouse. I think this is called secondary abuse.
I have found that being able to find the correct vocabulary is a springboard to finding more information to make sense of your experiences. It is really confusing until you see the pattern over and over and over....
For eleven years I have followed Dr. Joshua Coleman's group, and this comes up again and again. Often the isolating spouse waits until the leverage of children is in play and then the ultimatum is levied.
Thank you for your statement. This is exactly what our family is experiencing with our son. As their relationship grew we experienced her swearing at our family and telling us what's wrong with us. She created chaos every holiday, birthday, and special event. We all walked on pins and needles around her. The hardest part was watching our son slowly adopt her behavior. After their wedding, she managed to isolate him from his lifelong friends, and distance our family. When they were expecting their first child, I even mustered up the courage to share with her that I was afraid she'd punish us by keeping us away from our grandchild. Of course she said, "I'd never do that!" My granddaughter is two and a half and we haven't seen her since she was six weeks old. We now have a second granddaughter that we'll never get to hold. My ninty-year-old Mom and our other children has never seen either child. His friends and family are gone. Am I wrong for thinking it's also his fault because he didn't stand up for his family connections? He's no longer the son we mourn.
That is so terrible. How can people forget decades of good relationships? How does a good person turn into an enabler of abuse or just an outright abuser themselves? Is the abuse they live with that bad, so bad that they have to abuse their own family? I suffer these same questions... But as One therapist said : there are no victims just volunteers. It might be an unpopular opinion but I think it is true for some of these victims-turned-abusers. They decide to take the easy way out, which is instead of facing the fact that they married a bad person, instead they will treat you like the abuser. Hopefully one day there will be more resources for families of origin and the abuse they suffer due to one person's terrible decision to marry and force the abuser on everyone else. This is single handedly destroying more families than divorce. But no one is talking about it.
Superb, Rachel! you nailed it! I have an ex-husband, 4 married children and 11 grandkids. We don't relate perfectly by any means, but we all agree that FAMILY is super important and worth our best efforts. i strongly support all you are trying to do to resolve estrangement and no contact.
Thank you, Cindy!
Everything you said here is true. After years of unresolved issues, misunderstandings, and increasingly bad fights, I walked away from my family (parents and younger sibling). We didn't speak for almost 4 years. I don't think the therapists and influencers who cheer this on understand how damaging it is to your soul to make this choice. In my case, I reached back out after some painful soul-searching and confusion, we reconciled over time, and our relationship is much *much* better. I believe I sinned gravely and will always regret what I did, but I've made peace with the past.
I changed my mind about the estrangement because a few people I respected were brave enough to suggest I reconsider my decision and *try* to fix things. They could see a truth that I could not, but they were compassionate in their delivery. More rifts like this would be fixed if people were braver about speaking up.
Thanks. This gives me hope for my daughter. She hasn't spoken to us in over a year. I thought we had a close relationship, just not perfect.
Christine, I’m sorry you had to go through this but happy you have reached a place where things are much better. Holding out hope my daughter manages the same, like Susan, it gives me hope. Thank you for sharing xx
If this was reframed to be about the adult parents taking accountability and leading the way to open dialogue, self reflection, change…then it would be doing something.
Agree 100%
My family got scattered to the ends of the earth due to political instability, driven by Marxism in Africa. Not once, but twice. Completely beyond our control.
My kids have never known extended family and that includes grandparents. Moving continents and legally being allowed to enter, live and work in a foreign country literally cost us everything we owned.
There was never any money to travel, and how is 3-4 weeks every two to 3 years going to help, anyway? One is powerless to help a brother or a sister or a parent suffering in another continent.
So I get angry when I hear people here complaining about their families coming for Christmas, or “it’s my turn to do Christmas lunch.” We would love to have extended family here!
Being able to build a sense of belonging by living in a fairly stable country, in one place for years and years with old school friends, and extended family all around you- is an incalculable blessing from G-d.