Familiar strangers: What’s behind the trend of family members severing relationships?

BUFFETED BY DYNAMIC social and technological changes, a growing number of adult children are choosing estrangement from their parents, grandparents or siblings.

Typically initiated by one person, estrangement involves the decision to go “no-contact” or to severely limit interactions, perhaps to as little as once a year, with a family member or members. Although there is currently no national database tracking such family rupture, social scientists and psychologists say the problem’s spread is ripe for discovery.

The phenomenon is escalating “while hiding in plain sight,” says Cornell University professor and family sociologist Karl Pillemer.

Intrigued by a lack of literature on the topic, Pillemer undertook a study that over a recent five-year period combined data and case histories from 1,340 participants. The study, known as the Cornell Family Estrangement and Reconciliation Project, found that 27 percent of Americans were estranged from one or more family members.

“There’s just something about estrangement in the news every single day,” says Joshua Coleman, a Bay Area-based clinical psychologist and fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families.

Traditional news media, social media and mobile communications are clearly all helping to fuel this trend. Technology can invite over-zealous hothouse parenting, as devoted caregivers turn into micromanaging supervisors who hover over their child’s every move and decision. And podcasts, platforms like TikTok and even television talk shows can all amplify stresses on parents and children, in part by encouraging the cavalier use of psychological diagnostic terms such as “toxic,” “narcissistic” and “borderline ____” (fill in the diagnostic term of choice).

But Coleman, an acknowledged authority who has published extensively on the topic, said the growing prevalence of estrangement runs deeper than mere media — reflecting changing views of the family as a fundamental institution in society.

“In modernity,” he said, “humans became dis-embedded from the institutions that governed family life for millennia. We have evolved to the idea that identity is purely constituted on the basis of what’s in line with personal ideas, happiness, self-growth and mental health.”

What’s your problem?

There is, to be sure, much that is positive about this change. One example of this is how advice for married women has gone from a focus on how to be a “good wife” to how to be happy and express oneself. Similarly, a parenting focus on having children respect their parents now emphasizes the fragility and vulnerability of children, with an emphasis in many cases on therapy.

But by encouraging children to view their parents through a therapeutic lens, this shift can also lead to estrangement. And that’s especially the case with the growing incidence of mental illness, addiction and divorce, which can make conflicts within families appear overwhelming and unsolvable.

Coleman said he encounters this in his practice and at public speaking events.

“Earlier generations were not as keen to diagnose their parents — they didn’t have the same psychiatric-informed vocabulary they do now,” he says. “Younger generations (being) involved in therapy fuels their diagnoses of parents. By pathologizing the parent, adult children gain freedom from guilt, therapists become detachment brokers, and more estrangement happens.”

For Coleman, the study of estrangement comes with a deeply personal dimension, which he discloses in the introduction to his book, “Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How To Heal the Conflict.” There he tells of a years-long estrangement from his daughter. He can only describe “the talk” she gave him without specific words, as they are “too excruciating to recall.”

“A problem is that most of the media is about justifying (estrangement). Most of it’s written from the adult children’s perspective: Why I had to cut off my parents. Why it’s better for my mental health. There’s little written about the tragedy of it for a parent.”

Joshua Coleman, psychologist and author of “Rules of Estrangement”

He remembers more clearly his reaction to her pain: “I defended myself, I explained, I rationalized, and I blamed others. None of this worked, of course — she withdrew even further.”

Although they have since reconciled, Coleman has not forgotten feeling wounded, working hard to re-examine his own responsibilities and receive his daughter’s different version of the past and, as do many of his clients who are parents, working to resist social stigma that casts blame and shame on parents.

“A problem is that most of the media is about justifying (estrangement),” he says. “Most of it’s written from the adult children’s perspective: Why I had to cut off my parents. Why it’s better for my mental health. There’s little written about the tragedy of it for a parent.

“There are certainly parents,” Coleman continues, “who become estranged because of extreme abuse. But … a good parent can become estranged because a child might have mental health illness, a trauma unrelated to parents, attachment disorders and others. The dominant narrative is still that it’s primarily parents who were neglectful or abusive.”

Showing ‘empathy, curiosity and commitment’

All of which might cause someone to believe Coleman “sides” with parents when it comes to estrangement and efforts to reconcile or accept the situation. Instead, his practice and “rules of” book emphasize parents avoiding focus on “what really happened.”

Those conversations are subjective and fraught with the complexity of what he calls “concept creep.” Normal behaviors in one generation are viewed differently by younger generations. “I tell parents, don’t even go there. Trying to prove to a child you were a better parent than they’re saying is not going to get you anywhere. You have to show empathy, curiosity and commitment.”

“Rules of Estrangement” offers composite case histories, data and research, and chapters dealing with specific situations such as divorce, mental illness, in-laws, sibling and grandparent estrangement, money matters like wills and estates, and strategies for coping, interventions, healing, and reconciliation.

Investigation of the rifts includes delving into solutions involving reconciliation, making amends, and oftentimes, acceptance of differing versions of history and taking responsibility in efforts to achieve solutions.

Parents who come to Coleman for help are encouraged to begin by writing letters of amends. Such an undertaking shows an estranged adult child the parent cares. It requires courage, but helps clarify who is responsible for what, separates parents’ reality from their child’s scenario, and aids them in finding self-forgiveness and self-acceptance.

“It can be therapeutic but can also be painful. It moves them toward radical acceptance of ‘Yeah, these are the ways I failed you or hurt you and I’m really sorry.’ Ironically, it can make children feel more listened to. Out of 10 things you can do to heal this, I say there are two or three that will help parents become less preoccupied, less limited and shamed by estrangement.”

To help families who might not be able to afford private therapy, Coleman offers free Q&As every other Monday and prices his webinars and online training for therapists inexpensively. Beyond his capacity for handling the recent surge in people looking for support, he suggests people seek out his and other Facebook groups. Longterm, though, he is concerned the problem is still receiving inadequate attention.

“I don’t see undergraduate or graduate programs for future psychologists and therapists really grappling with the enormity of this problem,” he says. “It’s a problem that’s not going away.”

Research, according to Coleman, is also lacking in estrangement related to adoption, the LGBTQ+ and trans community, and long-term studies that track what happens to adult children who choose estrangement when they become parents.

In addition to his own writings, Coleman suggests checking out Pillemer’s research at Cornell.

Pillemer and Coleman were similarly puzzled that with hundreds of thousands of websites and news reports on estrangement and millions of people experiencing distress, no reliable professional guidance existed. Families were left to find their own solutions. Pillemer writes, “In what world does this make sense?”

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