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I cannot comprehend the state of the young adult mind this generation. We are living in a culture of parental alienation involving people who are supposed to be the smartest. Raised with the internet and massive amounts of information it provides at their fingertips. Yet, at a staggering rate of 10% of American households, they are choosing to estrange themselves from their parents.
I’ve read the articles. They often quote the “Generational stake hypothesis” which suggests that parents have a greater stake in ending estrangements because we are aging and “need” our children. The adult child holds all the cards and the parent must find a way back into their lives. It’s misinformation like this that is wrecking havoc on the American family.
How Terribly Misleading!
This theory is completely backwards. It makes it sound like parents are grappling to hang on for fear of being alone, implying we must comply with any demand our children make just to stay in their lives. But the truth is much colder: The parent is not the one who will suffer most. The parent will eventually be set free from the estrangement with their own passing. Some will revert to their psychological standing before they had children. Yes, parents had a time of their life before they had children. Children do not have a time before they had parents. To cope with the hurt and dismay of an estranged child parents will do what they can to ease the hurt, ignore the dismay. But the adult child? They are setting themselves up to suffer for the rest of their lives.
The Myth Of A “Clean Break”
There is no such thing as a “Clean Break” when you’re talking about estrangement from a family member. Estrangement does not erase a parent from your mind. You get one parent, one childhood, and one adulthood. If you’re angry because you weren’t raised exactly the way you wanted? Well, join the club. I have never met a single person who said, “My childhood was exactly perfect.” There is always something we wish had been different.
If your childhood wasn’t what you wanted, that’s ” how the beans fall“. It’s over. Move on. Sticking “it” to your parent(s) and starting an estrangement because you didn’t get your way is a surefire way to cause yourself great pain in the future. You have to live with the consequences when your estranged parent is gone or moved on.
The Ghost Phenomenon: The Silence Gets Louder!
Adult children aren’t looking at the facts of how the human brain works. An article in Psychology Today says, “When a parent is alive, a child might think of them weekly or bi-weekly. But after that parent passes, those thoughts often become nearly constant”. Memories of pushing an estrangement that could have been mended start to play on a loop.
Who is going to suffer for years thinking about what they said or what they could have said, but didn’t? What they could have done to make things different. What they missed by pushing an estrangement on their parents? Not the parent. They are gone. The adult child, and they alone, will carry those memories. Think about it, you will think of your parent more often. after they have passed, than you ever did while they were alive. From where I’m standing, the adult child has a much bigger motive to reconcile. They are the ones with a lifetime of painful memories to look forward to!
The Deep Lesson
In these situations, the first weapon used is often the grandchildren. Withholding visits, no phone calls, and making rude, degrading remarks about the grandparent.
You think you are “winning” a power struggle, but you are actually embedding a silent, deep lesson into your own child. You are teaching them: “This is how you treat a parent.”
- You keep them away from the grandparent(s)?
- You just taught your child not to communicate with you when they are an adult.
- You make rude remarks to, or about the grandparent(s)?
- You just taught them to say rude remarks to you.
- When the grandparent(s) call you are rude, short, maybe hang up on them?
- You just taught your child this is the way you are to treat me when I call you.
- Birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, any Holiday the grandparent(s) aren’t invited?
- You just taught your child, don’t invite me to your holidays. Leave me at home alone.
Everything you are doing to your estranged parent is going to come crashing back down on you. Your children will do their best to copy and comply with the “manual” you are writing for them right now.
Grandparents/Grandchildren – The Vital Connection
In the book “Grandparents/Grandchildren The Vital Connection‘“-Arthur Kornhaber, Kenneth L. Woodward 2019 – The authors have summarized what people are not realizing when they alienate a parent.
“The author’s basic premise is that to exist is to be connected, and that no matter how grandparents act, they affect the emotional well-being of their grandchildren, for better or for worse, simply because they exist., In an age when mounting economic and social pressures make it increasingly easier to split a family than to sustain one, the authors alert us to a forgotten source of family strength, the power of grandparents to enrich the lives as a whole. The case studies reported in this volume represent a first effort in an area left unexplored by developmental researchers. There are lessons here for social scientists, but even more for our alienated society. Urie Bronfenbrenner, Cornell University”
A Reality Check
I know many people reading this will think, “That’s not me” or “My situation is different.” Au contraire. If you’re estranged, you are estranged, no matter how you look at it I don’t think the adult children today are stupid, but I think they aren’t using their heads. They aren’t thinking of the consequences of their actions and how they will play out. Estrangement is being used to “make the parent change,” but the only thing it truly changes is the adult child’s future peace of mind.
Before you settle into the “trend” of alienation, look in the mirror. You are currently creating the ghost that will haunt you and the children who will eventually the exact same way you are treating your parents now. They can’t help it, it’s what you taught them.
“Do unto others as you would have done unto you.”
If you have children pay great attention to how you act, speak, and deal with your parent because your children are watching your lesson plan. What you teach them today will be what you experience when they grow up. “Do as I say not as I do” doesn’t work. Children pay far more attention to how you conduct yourself than what you say to them.
Wake up. “Cutting off” a parent, saying the most aweful things you can come up with to them, creating a niche for yourself where a “toxic” parent isn’t invited, you’ve just created your own vault of hurt and pain that will last you the rest of your life. When all is said and done, the only cards that you hold are those of pain and misery for years.
What Can You Do, Today, To Change This?
Use your words, not to insult, or cause pain, but to heal and cause harmony. The past is the past, leave it there.
Write a letter or email: The alienator would be the most appropriate person to reach out.
For an adult child that is not happy with how their parent(s) raised them try something like (copy and paste if you like):
OR
For the estranged parent to send:
OR
These are simple notes, an olive branch, to start healing. The most important part is to leave the past in the past. Stop the remarks. Stop re-hashing. Just stop. Live for today and the future happiness you alone can create with your family.
Conclusion
We are a world of intelligent people with more information than ever before that can teach us how to make amends, live and let live, agree to disagree, use that information. Learn how to not destroy your family, and ultimately your world, and your future.