#034 Parental Estrangement is Sometimes Necessary
Or, there's more to the picture than this Economist article advances.
I heard an older therapist advising my peer group once that as therapists, we should not give into the knee-jerk reaction to encourage estrangement of our clients from their parents. After all, sometimes, the parent is making poor decisions and handling things badly, and sometimes, the clients are blinded by their own feelings and prejudices.
Scrolling through Facebook yesterday, I saw an article by The Economist from 2021 (quoted throughout this piece), only a few years old, that has talked about the rise in parental estrangement, generally, with mainly children severing the connection. When we think about estrangement, for those of you who come from intact, relatively healthy and functional families, the idea of cutting contact with a family member permanently may be unfathomable.
Though people tend not to talk about it much, familial estrangement seems to be widespread in America. The first large-scale nationwide survey, recently conducted by Cornell University, found that 27% of adult Americans are estranged from a close family member. Karl Pillemer, a professor of sociology who led the research and wrote a book about its findings called “Fault Lines”, says that because people often feel shame, the real figure is likely to be higher. The relationship most commonly severed is that between parent and adult child, and in most cases it is the child who wields the knife.1
We hear the stories of transitioners—a group who sometimes gets accused of cutting contact unnecessarily—and the stories of their distraught parents trying to navigate the evolving complex realm of gender care, laws, ethics, and their own relationships to their children and providers. That is the example of what comes to mind for me in the current climate.
The article, however, doesn’t go into that, and I think it is attempting to make a fair, careful presentation of the attitudes in brief surrounding a deeply complex issue.
Therapists can but shouldn’t always take the side of their clients, particularly if the client has displayed elements of psychosis or psychotic behavior, lying, and certainly if they present with more complex MI conditions that have been exacerbated by health issues, run-ins with the law, difficult job and family circumstances, etc.
As the article quotes:
A lot of therapy in America emphasises [sic] the role family dysfunction plays in personal unhappiness. Though it is often a factor, it is also often not, he says. “As therapists we need to do due diligence on what our patients say. Just as I wouldn’t take at face value a parent’s depiction of their parenting as flawless, I wouldn’t assume an adult child’s claim that a parent is ‘toxic’ should be accepted without further inquiry,” he says.2
The majority of clients that I see come in truly do arrive with complicating life factors that add additional layers of stress, and parent’s behavior that is immature, manipulative, and toxic.
Case studies:
Parental estrangement, while sounding good, is not always feasible, certainly for one of my clients, who strives to be a good sister and friend to her younger siblings.
In this case, she is a bisexual woman who moved back in with her Christian parents and their disapproval of her lifestyle, much of the discussion in session centers around her struggle to manage her ADD amidst parents who are unhealthy, and inconsistent with their children and one another in their standards. The client doesn’t have the choice of moving out, as her work is client-based, and cannot afford with both the inflation of current prices and a slump in services for her business, to move out on her own again. And yet, the stress of living with parents who struggle to manage themselves creates great difficulty for the client to manage her own space, time, and needs. She never speaks of estrangement, but the need to move out and separate again is apparent.
The Economist article mentions that many adult children feel that their parents are toxic and abusive. Sometimes this genuinely is the case, noting that many cut contact with their fathers.
A client that I had during my first internship year had related how, after her father had divorced her mother and moved to another state, he had actively told her that if she wanted a relationship with him, she would have to contact him. The client had spent many years shuttling 12 hours or so in a car as a teenager to see him on parental visits, and seemed unmoved by her father’s lack of involvement in her life now that she was an adult. She had not told him, out of fear of rejection, about her new marriage to her current partner, a woman.
In some cases, the parent genuinely is abusive and manipulative, or at least, unhealthy and unable to care for themselves. A woman in her 50s related how she has chosen to be estranged from her mother, as her mother has severe mental illness, is a manipulative sort who lied about being married before to someone other than the client’s father, and described a pattern of lying, using people, being unable to keep up on bill payments, and being generally “a hot mess” as she said.
Raising awareness about the issue in this way is likely to be important, and not only because some broken bonds may be fixable. Parent-child estrangement has negative effects beyond the heartbreak it causes. Research suggests that the habit of cutting off relatives is likely to spread in families. But most immediately, it is likely to exacerbate loneliness in old age.3
Perhaps it is just my interpretation, but the last sentence “But most immediately, it is likely to exacerbate loneliness in old age” feels like a subtle dig and guilt trip. We do not live in agrarian societies of villages anymore, and perhaps, the good is that we can separate, and the bad is that there isn’t the level of closeness and social support once present amongst human tribes and bands.
Estrangement is a difficult thing to explain, especially if you are the estranged one.
Others outside of the strained relationship do not see what you see—and perhaps, what you see is not a true depiction of reality. I want to emphasize that. Each time we review a memory, our brain reprocesses it. This is one of the elements of trauma treatment that is deeply vital and helpful—that in reframing and working through the issue, we are able to recategorize it, take out the sting, and allow our brains to sort the information into a way and a place that is manageable for us without becoming flooded and overwhelmed, locking us in cycles of panic, dread, anxiety or fear, and needing some activity or substance to numb us out from the deluge of the unprocessed and terrifying emotional waves.
The other night, I had a conversation with a friend who relayed that she wished her father hadn’t maligned her mother during their divorce, despite the mother’s very active cheating in the last few years of the marriage—the woman wanted to keep the rosy view of her mother, because to her, in her mind, her mother had been a good parent to her despite her flaws.
To be angry and, as I can speak from personal expeirnece, to have the narcicisstic view of “I’m a victim because this person hurt me” is understandable, even normal. But at a certain point, we also have to awaken to the reality else we continue to suffer and wallow, that all individuals have the capacity for good, bad, selfish, and virtuous behavior.
While the relationship is better now, for about six years, I chose to go low- to no-contact with my own mother. Although it was deeply painful and isolating to cut contact with her, and by extension, the rest of our family, I knew that if I needed and wanted to continue growing into being an independent, responsible, and autonomous adult, the only real way to avoid being emotionally manipulated and/or guilt-tripped, was to cut the tie.
I do not engage in her version of the story, and we have come to a respectful-enough truce. This is not the case for all people, and frankly, it shouldn’t be. I accept the way things are because there has been some level of effortful change.
The Economist article, while I think it was written in good-faith, leaves out so much of the context for why we become estranged. So often, the assumption is that there’s something wrong with the child—they’re spoiled or privileged, individualistic and selfish even is the subtle blame to American culture, or out of touch with reality. In some instances, that may be the case. But there is always greater context for why we choose to separate.
There is very little done to understand that perhaps, it is because the parent really is a problem—emotionally immature, blaming, or parentifying the adult child to sooth their feelings like an unhappy toddler. One recent male client has developed firm boundaries with his mother, who emotionally treated him like her spouse to confide in after his father divorced and the left the mother for a much younger partner and had additional children with the new woman, after insisting that the client’s mother have her tubes tied. It’s a messy relationship dynamic, and while not per se an estranged one, the man has firm emotional boundaries lest it become emotionally incestuous.
Each case of parental estrangement or difficult family circumstances really has to be taken on it’s own, case-by-case.
I’ve been around plenty of healthy families in the years since to understand this is not just my perception, but to be able to compare and contrast what is healthy, average, and expected, versus what is not. This is often the best predictor for people waking up. Once, one of my older half brothers and I discussed how his spending time at the houses of other friends and observing how their fathers treated their mothers, as opposed to our father and his first wife’s marriage, treated one another. It had been revelatory for him, and helped him to contextualize that something was amiss. To be fair, he also had the intelligence and ability to develop insight to recognize it in the first place.
Those of us who separate, I cannot be your therapist nor affirm that you made the right decision—only time and self-reflection can confirm or deny that choice. But for those who stand on the outside, family dynamics are far more complicated than they seem.
Despite the failings of their relationship, my mother was the greatest defense, protector, and bulwark against my father’s rages, mostly when I was a small child. She played with me when he would not, taught me how to bake and clean, how to stand up for myself and give a polished speech despite my fear and nervousness of public speaking. She helped me with my school projects (sometimes taking over and directing a bit too much, I will admit), was heavily involved in my Girl Scout Troop, and taught me a love of crafts, arts, and repairing and mending clothes and other broken items. She was patient the majority of the time, and humored the fact that I was a girly girl who loved pink (her least favorite color). She, more than my father did, taught me patience, perseverance, industriousness, planning, and a solid, hard work ethic.
The truth is, time does heal many wounds, however, some people do and have to choose to be permanently no-contact with a relative(s) for the rest of their lives. Not all of us are able to mend the fence, because it requires both sides to try and mend. Each person has a right to their version of events, as Cheryl Strayed puts it.4
While that is true, it doesn’t mean we have to affirm their version to the detriment of our own well-being for the sake of saving face and everyone else shuffling along under the illusion that all was hunky dory.
As the old Christian desert fathers attest, separation can be the most loving, charitable thing we can do for another person.
Forgiveness is for everyone, but we cannot always reconcile, and reconciliation is not always necessary. Forgiveness is about letting go of what the person has done, accepting that they are the way they are, that you cannot change them and are not responsible for fixing them, and to allow yourself peace to move on and move forward.
Estrangement hurts, but as this piece asserts, sometimes, it is necessary.
“Blue Collar Jobs Might be the Best Jobs” by
. This singularly, may be my favorite thing Griffin has written. Griffin extols the great value that comes from doing hard work with dignity, courage for difficult and sometimes dirty work, and the sense of accomplishment, pride, and purpose these men and women get for what they do each day. It is a testament to spirit as well as recognizing that you don’t have to have several degrees and thousands in debt to have a good living and a good life.“Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking” by
(apparently she’s on Substack). I’ve been working through this book as more of a supplement to my educational training about personality and psychology, something I didn’t get since my undergrad wasn’t in psych. It’s a thoughtful, well-researched, and interesting book, and beneficial for both Introverts and Extroverts to understand how one another works, with great consideration for what environments nurture us or holds us back. Her work is about a decade old now, but entirely worth reading and rereading.The Gateway Drug to Post-Christian Paganism — Carl. R. Truman, First Things
IQ Discourse is Increasingly Unhinged by
Before it goes into the archives …
General Housekeeping
Pregnancy insomnia is real. I need sleep. But, it did allow me to finally get this done, after multiple tries and having my schedule thrown off consistently for the last few days. And some very interesting dreams (bird people were the theme, not sure what it signifies).
May you all rest easy and sleep peacefully this week.
Till next time.
Pax Christi 🕊️
Rachael Varca is a pre-licensed therapist and writer of more than fifteen years experience. She writes at The Practical Therapist and Inking Out Loud, a collection of essays, poems, and home of the serialized novel, Heart of Stone.
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The Economist “How many American children have cut contact with their parents?”
Ibid.
Ibid.
Strayed, Cheryl, WBUR, “Dear Dad, It’s Over” April 21, 2017
That brought back a flood of memories. I was an estranged child and an estranged adult. Now that both of my parents are deceased it's been easier to process the past and to see their behaviors as their problems, not mine. I didn't cause them to be who they were, and being who they were shaped who I became until I realised that they no longer could directly influence my life and my choices were my own.