Emily Chan
Society has begun to move away from the traditional family model as more and more young adults choose to stop contact with their parents. According to a recent study, over a quarter of young adults are estranged from one or both parents.
The study drew on interviews with adult children and found that 26 percent were estranged from their fathers. In addition, six percent had cut off contact with their mothers. The phenomenon is known as parental estrangement.
“I think it relates to this new desire to have healthy relationships,” Rin Reczek, the lead author of the study and a sociology professor at Ohio State University, said. “There might be some cultural shifts around people being allowed to choose who is in your family. And that can include not choosing to have the person who raised you be in your family.”
Reczek added that at least one in four Americans will sever ties with a parent over the course of young adulthood. Eventually, many of these rifts heal. In modern society, having no contact with parents is a little harder than during the pre-Internet era.
Young adults will block phone numbers, email messages, and social media. They will even return unopened gifts. To the parents, these estrangements often happen without warning or explanation. They are left feeling confused and deeply hurt.
Children are more likely than parents to go no-contact. Parents may also feel that the adult child is exaggerating past events, turning small incidents into examples of emotional abuse and trauma.
“What I hear from boomer and Gen X parents all the time is, ‘I would never have cut off my parents, and my parents were abusive. And now, we’re being cut off for things that are hard even to fathom,'” said Joshua Coleman, author of “Rules of Estrangement.”
From the perspective of the adult child, their parents may be unable to fathom what a healthy relationship looks like in adulthood.
The parents’ inability to practice healthy anger, disappointment, and conflict resolution makes it a challenge to maintain a relationship with them. So, adult children may resort to the difficult decision of cutting their families off completely.
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