"Adult children frequently say the parent is gaslighting them by not acknowledging the harm they caused or are still causing, failing to respect their boundaries, and/or being unwilling to accept the adult child’s requirements for a healthy relationship. Both sides often fail to recognize how profoundly the rules of family life have changed over the past half century.... Deciding which people to keep in or out of one’s life has become an important strategy to achieve that happiness....
"In my clinical work I have seen how divorce can create a radical realignment of long-held bonds of loyalty, gratitude, and obligation in a family.... One of the downsides of the careful, conscientious, anxious parenting that has become common in the United States is that our children sometimes get too much of us—not only our time and dedication, but our worry, our concern. Sometimes the steady current of our movement toward children creates a wave so powerful that it threatens to push them off their own moorings; it leaves them unable to find their footing until they’re safely beyond the parent’s reach.... From the adult child’s perspective, there might be much to gain from an estrangement: the liberation from those perceived as hurtful or oppressive, the claiming of authority in a relationship, and the sense of control over which people to keep in one’s life.... [O]ur American love affair with the needs and rights of the individual conceals how much sorrow we create for those we leave behind. We may see cutting off family members as courageous rather than avoidant or selfish. We can convince ourselves that it’s better to go it alone than to do the work it takes to resolve conflict....."From "A Shift in American Family Values Is Fueling Estrangement/Both parents and adult children often fail to recognize how profoundly the rules of family life have changed over the past half century" by psychologist Joshua Coleman, author "Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict" (The Atlantic).
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Re-titled, "I've f**ked up my life and it's not my fault."
They'll be voting Democrat to the end.
Or maybe people could just act like grownups.
"In 1987 it became possible in the US for a young person to sue his parents for the way he had been raised. He could take them to court and make them pay money and even serve jail terms for serious mistakes they made when he was just a helpless little kid. This was not only an effort to achieve justice but to discourage reproduction, since there wasn't anything much to eat any more. Abortions were free. In fact, any woman who volunteered for one got their choice of a bathroom scale or a table lamp."
"The Big Space F*ck" -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
One of the downsides of the careful, conscientious, anxious parenting that has become common in the United States is that our children sometimes get too much of us
Let me see, If i've Got This Straight??
Making a generation of Momma's Boys, Wasn't Helpful??
milk-toast skirt-boys AREN'T the ideal children??
Who The HELL Knew??? Oh, that's right... ANYONE
Re-titled, "I've f**ked up my life and it's not my fault."
The KIDS? The kids f**ked up their lives, by the way their parents raised them??? HUH???
Or maybe people could just act like grownups.
The KIDS? The kids could just act like grownups, even though they've NEVER been taught how? HUH??
Your children are ours.
The Left have been working on dismantling the family structure for decades now. They first practiced it to perfection on the Black community and had so much success they expanded to the entire country. And over the last generation or two they've truly made headway. Breaking the bonds between parent and child is so easy now.
Speaking of Kurt Vonnegut.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDLzLUmtU3w
"Deciding which people to keep in or out of one’s life has become an important strategy to achieve that happiness.."
True. I don't build friendships with people who cut off their parents for no reason.
Psychiatric contagion delivered with social progress is the forward-looking phantom menace.
"it’s better to go it alone"
Alone. OK. So no kids for the anti-family parent-haters, and no dependence on Big Brother and his subsidies, correct?
One change affecting relationhips is life expectancy.
My dad lost both parents before he was 30. I was fortunate to still have one into my sixties. Although that is balanced by the later ages people become parents.
In my personal experience, a disturbingly high percentage of adult children are screwups, both professionals and personally. They need someone to blame. Candidly, for many of them it should indeed be the parents who gave them horrible life advice and ill-prepared them for adulthood. Acorn-fall-tree.
The children being discussed or used as examples in this article sound gay. Which makes sense.
Yes, you fucked up your life. No, mamaw and pepaw aren't responsible. You do you. Wait...you've always done you. OK then.
Or, simply the triumph of gaining the upper hand through claiming victimhood.
"One change affecting relationhips is life expectancy."
Though undoubtedly true in many ways, how does this relate to the present post? Is the suggestion that extended familiarity breeds contempt? Seems to me these adult children have become estranged fairly early in their adulthood.
Making Paul Lynde, of all people, sound like a child rearing expert?
Wait until their children cut them off.
And they will cite their parents' example when they do it.
The best advice I ever received wasn't advice. It was just a friend saying "I saw the direction my life was headed, and I decided to change it."
Larkin nailed it in “This be the Verse”
People have been estranged from their parents ever since Adam and Eve relocated to new digs outside of Eden. This is neither new or noteworthy, the only difference now is we psychologize it so that people trained in the pseudo-science of psychology can make money from people's poor choices and behavior.
"Estranged parents often ... Adult children frequently ...".
Sounds like this "psychologist" racket is a solid grift, one that pays dividends.
There's also disown. It's how you undo the possessives, my parent, my son. Possessives indicate reciprocal responsibilities.
40's joke. I used to have three theories on how to raise children. Now I have three children and no theories.
Maybe there is a reason "Honor your father and your mother" is one of the commandments. I can't think of a much greater crime towards one's parents than to cut off them off just because it makes things easier. Such an adult child just doesn't know or doesn't care about the pain this causes. If this happens enough, people will just stop having kids. (Oh wait, they already have).
I see this thing all the time on reddit, the assertion that I wAs aBuSeD bY mY tOxIc fAmIlY which has since been summarily cut off. Proclamation followed by attaboys from other redditors.
Hell one of the step kids has cut off everyone without a word. We're all dead to him. Everyone shrugs it off.
Just what do the child-free, family-unburdened enlightened ones expect to have in their old age, other than a handful of dust?
Can't relate. Our adult children begged us to move from California to New England so they could spend more time with us. They both are hard working, well respected, responsible, happy and healthy, cough MIT cough cough Harvard. Drooing the H-Bomb. I guess we got lucky because when the latest and greatest child-rearing recommendations were broadcast over the popular press, we did the opposite turbocharged.
Don't say "no"
Give them choices
Boost their self esteem
Don't punish
Don't get angry
Share your feelings
Tell them about all your fuckups
Be their best friend
My parents got married in 1956, when my mom was sixteen and my dad was 19.
They were not well suited for one another, even though they had five children together between 1957 and 1965. They divorced in 1970, and then they fought over us -- not about who would get to care for us, but who would be able to force the other parent to accept the obligation of our care.
This was a disgusting abdication of responsibility, blessed by the "no fault" divorce regime that rose in the US in the late 1960s.
The 1980s called and they want "recovered memories" back.
From what I read a long time ago, this type of pendulum-swing wasn't rare in the Bible Belt: Strongly religious or dogmatic parents had alcoholic rebellious children who had strongly religious grandchildren. And so forth. It follows from dogma, and rules without reason.
There's a natural 1960s-style reaction to come against helicopter parents, "Karens", and the infantile, asinine moralizing of the wealthy greens. "I saved the planet by eating fake meat and driving an $80K Tesla. Hey, look at my Instagram photos of my trips to Norway, Australia, and Dubai. I invest in ESG companies only."
I haven't forgot this billionaire Sir Branson story. I don't know if it's true or not.
Both parents highly valued Richard Branson’s independence. They encouraged him to stand on his own feet and his mother even once made him find his way back home from his grandmother’s house when he was four years old. According to Richard Branson, he got lost but he eventually made it home.
It caught my imagination because i remember doing errands for my step-mom when i was around 7 years old. Four it's just unbelievable.
"Adult children frequently say the parent is gaslighting them by not acknowledging the harm they caused or are still causing, failing to respect their boundaries, and/or being unwilling to accept the adult child’s requirements for a healthy relationship. “
Says the “adult” child from his apartment in his parents basement.
Blogger Pianoman said...
"In 1987 it became possible in the US for a young person to sue his parents for the way he had been raised.
In Los Angeles about 25 years ago, a woman social worker who had been conceived by artificial insemination was looking for the donor to sue him. USC medical school had run a clinic with sperm from medical students. Fortunately, I had never donated.
We just got back last evening from visiting our children in CA. We have a blended family with three of mine and one together. All are adults and there are 6 grandchildren.
"They divorced in 1970, and then they fought over us -- not about who would get to care for us, but who would be able to force the other parent to accept the obligation of our care."
That's horrible. I'm sorry that happened to you.
I was a feral child raised by newts, but I turned out okay.
Re-writing a will is cost-effective and takes hardly any time at all. By why would kids be ungrateful and disrespectful unless they've grown up and seen what was missing in their early life? It just wouldn't happen in a traditional household. I can see it happening in one with screwed up values, no time spent together, no shared experiences, single parent, or worse, two careerists with no time.
The real examples in my generation are the ones who grew up in hardship, accepting armed forces drafting and battle obligations, growing up in the Great Depression in true hardship, etc. They knew that an extended family was essential to survival, and fundamental to happiness and multi-generational fulfillment. The Boomers screwed that all up, didn't they? And it's carried on downhill ever since, for many. But not all.
When my sister was in her 20s, she really talked down our parents, said they were slave-drivers, etc. They weren't. In her 50s and 60s, she wanted to be close to them and helped care for them as they declined and eventually died. Life is funny. And some times it works out.
Some musicals on the topic from the Golden Age: Gypsy, Fiddler, My Fair Lady.
But better than being an orphan (Oliver, Annie, Pirates of Penzance).
Joshua Coleman must be a blind mole in a darkened room not to realize that rapid changes in human nature, what he vapidly calls "the rules of family life", are ephemeral, mostly illusory, and subject to further change. Put it this way, what rapidly changes is subject to rapid change, or as the French say, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
As noted before Coleman obviously lacks the necessary wisdom to correctly analyze these absurd parent-directed conflicts among the selfish offspring of selfish people, which is why he's published in The Atlantic.
Temujin: "your children are ours." Yeah.
The Left weaponized our children. And because they are our children, they know how to evade all of our defenses, they know where the weak points are. The more we love them, the more easily they can pull this crazy shit.
My guess is, they don't even know they're doing it. They think they're somehow vindicating or repairing their lives, by forcing us to "fix it" or at least acknowledge our fault. But are we?
What rules apply?
The Left laughs: "Rules? We don't need no stinking' rules!"
I solved the estrangement problem by out-living my detractors. My 2nd son, who had disowned me at one point, now treats me with the utmost respect and care. His mother and step-father are both dead.
Family of Origin problems are real.
There are people in this world who are, for a variety of reasons, unable to respond in an organized, predictable, and effective manner to their children. Marriage, divorce, re-marriage, re-location, and introduction of step- and/or half-siblings are all parental prerogatives taken for the benefit of the parent. Children are along for the ride and expected to be "okay". Mom and Dad need them to be okay. Worse yet for the child, if the child is not okay, attempting to communicate distress and is then told "something is wrong with you, this is fine."
Like employers wringing their hands over lack of "employee loyalty" after rounds of layoffs and restructurings, these parents don't seem to understand the transactional nature of relationships. I appreciated Lori Gottlieb's response to the distressed older father in the letter linked from the Atlantic article.
We can't create this much instability for children and expect nothing else to change. They are going to learn from what we show them.
My adult children have told me in the past, it was clear what our expectations were without demanding that they meet them. They simply thought the offer was fair.
We have family and friends that have become estranged from their children. The common factor was the child decided to rebel and most importantly demanded that their parents respect their rebellion. Even as an outsider, it was clear the issue for rebellion would be unacceptable to most people. However, the child thought differently and refused to tolerate anyone that didn't accept their viewpoint. They gave no quarter, except they had no quarter to offer, so they ended up homeless. The parents and siblings continued on without them.
More than one of my kids (have)(has?) told me that I shouldn’t have raised them the way I had(did?)(grammer!!)b/c “no one else” was raised in the same way. It’s made life harder for my kids, being raised within a deep Faith and a moral awareness- when everyone else’s parents party w/them!! It’s mostly the 2youngest.
I raised them in the same way I was. I’m thankful for my parents lessons, sacrifices and advice. Sure- I wasn’t always grateful at the time, but I knew everything was done so I would succeed in life. That’s what I want for my children. It’s still too soon to tell, but no estranged relationships, so far. Some strained times- and some disappointments in choices, but I would do it all over in the same manner.
Catholic Faith and all.
I read the post, had some objections to what was said, and then read the original article. Joshua Coleman, the author, certainly is not judgemental against those adult children who may have no better option than to distance themselves from parents who were abusive and caused serious emotional wounds, and who remain unwilling to make any amends or acknowledgement of what had happened.
Memory is fallible. There is nothing surprising about people remembering events differently.
I vividly remember at least two movie scenes that I know did not occur. And a different ending to a play.
My son recently told me that a formative event of his childhood was seeing me take a pair of latex gloves from my doctor's exam room, for my personal use. If Dad can do that, he reasoned, it can't be that bad a thing to do, despite what Sunday School says. He told me that he balanced compliance with arbitrary rules and personal annoyance later on in his life, as a result of that experience.
1. I'm glad he was doesn't recall other stuff I did with him present as a toddler.
2. He is a thoughtful, decent, successful adult and I trust him with my life.
For most of history, we needed our family whether they were perfect or not. The family had a plot of land or a business (e.g., blacksmith) and if you wanted to eat you helped with that business. Without that family land or business you had nothing. The larger the extended family, the more secure against not only hard times but against theft and bullies. So you valued them. Now, even a teen can feel like he can leave and make it (and maybe he can) without family.
We have also enabled lots of narcissism.
Owen: Sure, my kids know how to get past my defenses. But they tell me that they've met a lot of people much easier to fool than me in their young lives already, which means I raised them well.
Telling someone a story doesn't make it true. Therapists don't investigate. They have no expertise in determining guilt. A therapist hearing a story doesn't transmute reality.
Therapists are paid to listen and believe. Unconditional positive regard.
"My therapist says-"
No shit. You paid them.
People know that telling a therapist makes a story more believable.
Some parents deserve to be kicked to the curb. However, a therapist isn't really necessary for the process.
These comments are clueless. Children don't cut off parents lightly, as research has shown. Parents with untreated and unacknowledged personality disorders are not good parents. Tragically, ending relationships with abusive parents can be necessary in order to heal.
Joe Biden is to blame.
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