And that’s why I started this thread. I mailed daughter and son-in-law a Chanukah card yesterday. I am hoping for a texr back.
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I’m certainly not going to tell my son my experiences in the detention center. But I think it’s not surprising that I would compare the stories I hear there to my son’s childhood. (Yes, I understand that my son experienced a lot of pain growing up, and I definitely want to listen and learn more about why he did.)
I have been going in with a group from my church to this facility since 2014, once a month with very few exceptions (there are only three of us now - we’ve asked for more volunteers for years but nobody seems to want to step up). I’m not making generalizations about parenting. I shared the stories of two young men. But I’ve heard so many sad stories over the years. Two kids, 12 and 14, were arrested at the same time their mother was. One teenager killed his grandmother after years of abuse from her. Many, many of them have had parents in jail. More than you expect have had a parent die from an overdose. One older kid said he’d been incarcerated for months before his father contacted him, and that was for the purpose of saying, “I’m going to sell your car [that the boy had bought and refurbished] because I need bail money.”
This is an excellent article written by Joshua Coleman. The Problem With Treating Estrangement With Moral Certainty
A couple of good quotes:
“Research does support the claim that estrangement often follows long-term relational strain rather than momentary disagreement. However, the literature does not support the implication that estrangement usually or primarily results from abuse, psychological harm, or chronic boundary violations.”
“Research on narrative identity suggests that once people organize their experiences into morally coherent stories, those stories become resistant to disconfirming information (McAdams, 2001). In estrangement contexts, this can mean that therapy stabilizes distress in the short term while increasing rigidity over time.”
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I am up before sunrise, too, and I want to send support. I am filled with grief over my family estrangement. I wish I could offer something other than a few meaningless words on a computer screen. But I keep coming back to College Confidential as a place where caring people really care - and to feel less alone.
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Good article @MaineLonghorn:
Studies of estranged families consistently find marked divergence in how parents and adult children interpret the same rupture (Carr et al., 2015). Adult children are more likely to describe emotional injury or lack of empathy; parents are more likely to describe misunderstanding, value conflict, or external influences. These differences are real—but they do not establish which account is accurate. They demonstrate the limits of perspective within emotionally charged family systems.
Later work by Pillemer and colleagues has emphasized the heterogeneity of estrangement pathways, including cases marked by mutual escalation, mental illness, personality differences, or loyalty conflicts rather than clear-cut victimization (Pillemer et al., 2020).
Yet ambivalence—holding love and anger, gratitude and grievance—is often the very terrain in which growth occurs.
If the goal is healing rather than vindication, the task is not to replace cultural dismissal with moral certainty, but to restore curiosity where certainty has taken hold.
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Here is the original article the article Maine shared was responding to. Thought it was also an interesting article using the same sources - always fascinating to see how two different professionals analyze the same information.
“Similarly, Gilligan, Suitor, and Pillemer (2015) found that estrangement between adult children and mothers often reflected deeper value conflicts, unmet emotional needs, and long-term deterioration in the relationship rather than sudden or trivial disagreements. These patterns suggest that estrangement typically represents the final outcome rather than a first-line intervention.
The result is a subtle but powerful inversion: The estranged person becomes the subject of scrutiny, while the abusive or damaging dynamics that led to estrangement remain unexamined. This reflects a cultural myth that “family is always safe” and that maintaining contact is inherently virtuous.
When someone steps outside that myth, they are often met with suspicion: Why would you cut off your own parent? But a more accurate question may be: What happened that made distance the only viable option?”
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I’ve been lurking on this thread and just want to wish everyone well heading into the holiday.
One thing I’ve noticed with my own kids and myself is that as they/I get older, things appear less black-and-white. Things don’t seem so clear-cut – what is right and wrong — and the need to prove we are “right” also lessens. Good luck to all.
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And in the comments from MaineLonghorn’s article:
An adult child goes to therapy and relays hurtful events with parents. The therapist ‘helps’ the client realize that those events are abusive, caused current problems, and for self-defense, the AC needs boundaries, including ’ no contact’. The therapist tells the AC that the parent needs to change, to apologize, to acknowledge ‘abuse’, and that the parent does not deserve a relationship unless they admit harm. The therapist implies that the adult child is achieving autonomy and maturity through individualistic focus, and that this autonomy is the most effective way of living.
An adult child goes to therapy and relays hurtful events with parents. The therapist ‘helps’ the client realize that parents are human, with their own challenges, capacities, defenses, and flaws. The therapists tells the AC that perhaps the parent may not change, apologize, or recognize flaws, and that the parent’s behavior is not reflective of the value of the child, but of the reality of the life of the parent. The therapist encourages the adult child to have self- compassion but to also grow through an imperfect upbringing by embracing grace, forgiveness, and empathy. The therapist assists the AC to develop resilience.
Individualism vs magnanimity.
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But what if, as in this case, the rejecting child is unmoved by such parental efforts? What if they ignore or ‘ghost’ the parent, meeting every gesture of reconciliation with cold silence? There is little a parent can do to shift the gears of this relationship if a child remains stuck in the grooves of resentment. The most a parent can do is signal their willingness to reconnect. At intervals, they can send a message conveying good wishes and a hope that soon the child will be willing to open up and assure the child that when they do, you will listen without defending yourself or arguing against their position.
This article also brings up the cutting off of grandparents from their grandchildren because of child estrangement. My husband’s grandparents came to visit him in college–he had never been allowed to meet them because of his stepmother. Really didn’t know who they were except knowing they existed somewhere. They were absolutely delightful people–and he sure could have used them growing up (he’s now NC/LC with his stepmother).
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One thing I did after my DD cut off contact:
After much discussion with my therapist (and searching my texts with DD), I realized that the emotional neglect my depression had affected my daughter during her school-age years had had a profound effect on her, for which I had never apologized. So I did apologize by text, mentioning specific times/places/instances. I can only hope that she will open the door to me , eventually feeling comfortable with face-to-face contact.
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It’s tough being human, isn’t it? We make mistakes, look at things through our own individual lenses, think we’re doing the right thing for the right reasons … we’re not perfect. None of us. Sometimes that imperfection results in pain to those we love, even though we never intended to cause pain. If we can find a path to working through things, it’s wonderful. If we try but fail, we have to give ourselves grace and know that we tried. When I hear the pain in my aunt’s voice when she wonders aloud how her estranged son is doing, or when I re-read the letters my parents sent my brother in an effort to apologize for the pain they unknowingly caused him, it breaks my heart. I know that my aunt loves her son with all her heart; I don’t know how he feels. I know that my parents loved my brother with all their hearts, and because we spoke about it before he died, I know that my brother loved our parents. Life is messy, and it sometimes hurts. Keep moving forward and working towards peace … even if it doesn’t happen, you will have done everything you could. 
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@gouf78 that describes my sister vs me. And I still cannot say which is healthier. Possibly not me!
I wonder if birth order is significant in terms of how responsible we feel for our parents’ feelings vs our own.
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My brother is estranged from me; way too complicated to describe. He won’t talk to me, I would be happy to speak with him.
In our case I struggled to understand how someone who is a good person, with good intentions, could behave so badly. He has neglected his kids and our parents to the degree that it rises to abuse. I realized that he is wired differently, and sees the world differently (which does not make it ok!). In fact, I have come to the conclusion that he is on the autism spectrum. Very high functioning, a successful doctor. But literally zero close relationships– divorced, no friends, kids are a mess.
I would be open to a relationship with him, but also, I really don’t care if that happens or not. I don’t think I’m fooling myself either.
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My older daughter was a micro-preemie, and spent 3 months in the NICU and then several years in different therapies (OT, PT mainly). We’ve met a lot of people in what we call our Hospital friends. Many of these kids have a lot of physical problems but also many (many) mental health issues. My daughter is surprisingly very average (didn’t even wear glasses until college). She’s left handed ( caused by brain bleeds, which may have caused other damage) and her math skills are limited (to put it kindly). My other daughter spent 2.5 years in an orphanage, had some lead poisoning, malnutrition, probably had the measles and chickenpox, and her teeth were rotted, so some physical and mental delays. She couldn’t really read until well into 3rd grade.
I attend, annually, a Hospital friend’s Hanukkah party where many of our hospital friends gather (plus others I’ve met through this friend). I do marvel at the parenting job these parents have done although I wouldn’t have done things the same way (and didn’t). The host’s daughter was twice exceptional, but always had private lessons for things like swimming and gymnastics as her parents felt she couldn’t fit in with the classes of her age group. My kids? $5 group class for gymnastics and many group swimming lessons, then swim team (where they were TERRIBLE!) but had fun with their friends. Social play group therapy? Not for my kids, we joined girl scouts. I had limited resources and time, so we couldn’t do things that cost a lot of money or were inconvenient for me. They did activities at school (choir, girl scouts, spelling bee) that they could go to from the after school care program.
Do my kids complain about my parenting? Yes. They did have much fewer financial resources than most of their friends. I do understand why they feel like they were deprived because they were; their friends and cousins did have an easier time. Mine had to attend 3 high schools because of my job transfers, it was HARD on them. They had limited college choices because of financial needs but they know I did my best to help them find affordable schools. They didn’t have top test scores or top class rankings because of the transfers and the schools using different scales. I did my best, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t wish for USC or Chapman or USD like their friends and cousins got to attend.
But when I go to this party and see what other parents had to deal with, and what the siblings had to deal with, I give myself a little grace that I did the best I could (as did those parents) and that my girls did turn into pretty competent adults. Most of the kids at this party are permanently disabled and live on social security (most are 20-35), even if they have college degrees. Both of mine made the best of their college experiences and they are starting to see that (they are 29) , and although not perfect college experiences, they were pretty good. Do they wish things had been different? I think they do. Do they resent me? I think they (often) do.
But give yourselves some grace. No parent is perfect. If you helicopter, they wish for space. If you give independence, they wish you’d helped more. Too many hugs, not enough hugs? Anything can be a trigger.
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From the Damage article:
The pain of estrangement rarely ebbs with time, but, Coleman advises, parents should ‘compartmentalise’ this grief to limit its impact. A child takes this drastic step for their own varied reasons. But when you have done your best, their decision should not ruin your life.
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No one in our family talks to our father, each for different reasons, all very legitimate. No one has any regrets and no one will change their mind, nor should they. Neither parent was a great parent, and our family was very dysfunctional, but our mother put her kids first and did her best most of the time. We understand that parents are not perfect, but there are levels of bad parenting that many kids can never get past or forgive. It’s very easy for outsiders to say forgive and forget, but they didn’t live the experiences that led to the estrangement. Peace is important. And true family is often the people you choose, rather the ones you are related to by birth.
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Alas, easier said than done.
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Out of curiosity, I went and watched some of that “Doormat Mom”‘s videos. Super duper passive aggressive. That would drive me bonkers if I was related to her.
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I was brought up in a bizarre and artificially impoverished environment because of my father’s eccentricity (and likely mental illness). Most of my memories of my mother during my childhood were of her in a rage. But I harbor no resentment, just pity for the difficulty of their lives. Sometimes when I hear about the trivial things that adult children are heaping anger on their parents for, cutting them off and punishing them, I think, “You have got to be kidding me. Get over it, live your life, they did the best they could”.
If there’s one thing in my life I feel good about, is that I never tormented my parents. I never blamed them and made them feel bad, and I never made them feel grief and despair. So much for karma.
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I am happy that you found a way to live your life that made you most happy with your choices.
I think many estranged adults are also finding ways to live their lives happy with their choices. They ‘get over it’ by not continuing a relationship they found too damaging. They are not agonizing over the estrangement - they are getting on with their actual life.
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I can certainly understand estrangement in cases of actual abuse, continuing cruelty, when the parent has the information about why this is happening and has opportunities to communicate and possibly fix the relationship. But in these situations where there is no apparent reason, no opportunity to talk about something, where the parent doesn’t even understand why this is happening…..no, causing a parent terrible pain is not a way to live one’s life happy. I could never imagine adding to my tortured parents misery by being cruel to them and completely cutting them off. I could have always just minimized contact if I needed to, as my sister did.
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