One quarter of adult children estranged from a parent | Hacker News Reader

One quarter of adult children estranged from a parent

thehill.com

25 pointspaulpauper15 comments

Individualism and mental health join forces

I am estranged from my mother. I’ll answer if she calls, but she doesn’t. I’ll never call her.

She is deeply mentally ill, and I cannot separate her from her illness. I suffered the conspiracies and delusions of grandeur for fifteen years, and I’m done now.

I consider this healthy mental self-defense, though I don’t judge my sister for enduring a quarterly visit to her. Everyone must decide their own limits.

This isn’t remotely new and it’s unfortunate they didn’t seem to give much effort to describe real reasons why children might choose to stop communicating with their parents.

Abusive parents, alcoholics and drug addicts, etc. These are not uncommon things.

That headline probably should be rephrased as "X percentage of parents have estranged at least one of their kids". As far as I know, the estrangement is often protective and boundary-maintaining (i.e. a healthy action).

Eh, that’s only if you read it with an overly negative interpretation of the word estranged.

I suppose there is room for both interpretations here, my wife is fond of those rehab shows. I’m aware of parents actively estranging their children for that reason.

I’m of the other cohort, such that you might say my parent has forced my hand in estranging them through their actions but I feel that is nothing more than word choice.

This article presents a weird description of “estranged” that seems to be hinting at a more of an active choice by a child to ignore a parent, which to me screams “over political differences.” I can’t tell if it’s attempting to include parents that have abandoned children or not. fwiw, I’m about to turn 40 and haven’t spoken to my father in over 25 years after a falling out… when I was 12. Either of us could easily contacted the other, but neither have ever tried (I don’t honestly know how I’d respond if he tried) - should I be counted in this data?

I’m fully estranged from my father since 16 and have flirted with severing ties with my mother, with whom I have a contentious childhood relationship and an adult relationship punctuated with obvious favoritism displayed towards my “good” brother.

Both are certainly downstream of the “me generation,” in terms of how they’ve lived their lives and so I ask, “if you live for you, why should I pain myself to please you?”

Interestingly, neither my parents nor my wife’s parents have guest bedrooms in their 4+ bedroom homes. Yet they wonder why we seldom visit. There’s no question of their ability to have one, they have the room and the finances. They just choose not to.

There’s something fascinating with our parents generation.

Which generation are you talking about? How old are you?

I am early thirties, parents are boomers (1957, 1959)

Why are you putting such emphasis on having an actual guest room? My parents (in law) don't have an actual guest room. When we stay there, various arrangements are made for everyone to have a bed available during the stay, but they're in various other rooms.

Both parents previously had a guest room but at some point decided to eliminate them in favor of storage for their things, their hobbies, etc.

Then wonder why we are hesitant to spend the money on boarding dogs, driving 5+ hours and renting a hotel. Asking us to commit to $500+ dollars for weekend casual visits is unrealistic and absurd for wealthy retirees.

To be clear they not only have no guest room they have no where for guests to stay.

While at the end you do mention that they also have no space for someone to stay if you ask me it's overshadowed again by your focus on not having a guest room.

Our parents also used to have "guest rooms" by virtue of just keeping the kids bedrooms as-is for a while. Then at some point each changed these rooms over to other uses as well. No difference from what I hear you say really.

Maybe this is different for your parents (in law) but your communications make it unclear. Did you ever talk to them about it? There are sofa beds in some rooms, which we use when we stay but I would never ever expect them to not use the room(s) for their purposes under normal circumstances.

It is clear you have different cultural expectations. I’ve stated the problem quite clearly and your insistence on interrogating me about my family is unwelcome.

Have a great night.

I'm not the one that posted information about your family in a public forum. If you don't want people to know about or ask about information regarding your family situation then don't post about it.

It does seem like I hit a nerve though. Cultural expectations or not, I do hope it makes you think about some stuff at least.

Have a great day!

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