What do I say?

[Faith-manor]

It isn't a fad. This isn't bell bottoms vs boot cut. Millennial and GenZ are taking mental health a hell of a lot more seriously than Boomers and Gen X ever did. They are recognizing unhealthy relationship patterns and embracing the fundamental truth that they do not have to engage in relationships out of obligation. It is a generational shift against unhealthiness. That isn't a fad. It is a meaningful, cultural change, and it is okay even if the older generations do.not.like it.

If I had not been steeped in religious koolaid that made me think it was my job to put up with my father's egregious behavior, I would have gone no contact. Zero contact. Walked away to never return. I thought I could not do that. It would have been so much better for me, so much better for Dh. 

It is really minimalizing and just sh*tting on the younger generation to call this a fad. Just because parents don't like it, doesn't mean it isn't legitimate. 

OP, you can't win this, but you sure can lose it. So like everyone else  has said, keep your feelings to yourself and if she says Happy Birthday, text "thanks" and move on. You don't need to do more than that, and probably should not. Many hugs!!! As I tell my daughter often, parenting is the hardest schtick anyone will ever have.

Edited November 10, 2022 by Faith-manor

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

12 hours ago, KSera said:

Quoted for Truth

I was agreeing with you on the way abusers separate their targets from friends and family.

I have an estranged sister.  She only recently has gotten back in touch and is still no contact with my parents.  The more open and loving I am the more I am discovering this is what is happening.

[TexasProud]

1 hour ago, Faith-manor said:

It isn't a fad.

 

 

It is for some. Maybe not the majority. But it CAN be.  This isn't black or white.  There is a lot of gray.  But your advice was spot on. Lots of ways she can lose in this situation.

[Jean in Newcastle]

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-11-28/1-in-4-adults-is-estranged-from-family-and-paying-a-psychological-price
 

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20211201-family-estrangement-why-adults-are-cutting-off-their-parents
 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/29/opinion/estranged-american-families.amp.html
 

https://aeon.co/essays/modern-culture-blames-parents-for-forces-beyond-their-control

[BronzeTurtle]

3 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

It isn't a fad. This isn't bell bottoms vs boot cut. Millennial and GenZ are taking mental health a hell of a lot more seriously than Boomers and Gen X ever did. They are recognizing unhealthy relationship patterns and embracing the fundamental truth that they do not have to engage in relationships out of obligation. It is a generational shift against unhealthiness. That isn't a fad. It is a meaningful, cultural change, and it is okay even if the older generations do.not.like it.

If I had not been steeped in religious koolaid that made me think it was my job to put up with my father's egregious behavior, I would have gone no contact. Zero contact. Walked away to never return. I thought I could not do that. It would have been so much better for me, so much better for Dh. 

It is really minimalizing and just sh*tting on the younger generation to call this a fad. Just because parents don't like it, doesn't mean it isn't legitimate. 

OP, you can't win this, but you sure can lose it. So like everyone else  has said, keep your feelings to yourself and if she says Happy Birthday, text "thanks" and move on. You don't need to do more than that, and probably should not. Many hugs!!! As I tell my daughter often, parenting is the hardest schtick anyone will ever have.

I don't understand the ready acceptance that whatever is going on with the young people of any given society is good progress towards better mental health, especially in western society in 2022. I don't look around and think that all the things "they" are doing are creating great mental health forthemselves, including going no contact.

Egregious behavior/abuse is one thing. But If you get into a lot of online communities people are cutting off contact for a lot less than abuse, or classifying disagreements as abusive and have online people saying, "I'll be your mom now". That is incredibly toxic actually. And dangerous. Espcially when those communities by and large involve things like social/communal drug use and other destructive behavious as a solution or way of coping with family members who likely just don't want to see them go down that path.

Families are just people with all their faults. the idea that some young people claiming "mental health" are taking the high ground and are right in all these cases is not borne out by history or just by common sense. People in their early 20s don't even have fully formed brains for crying out loud. And even people older than that without kids of their own might have a hard time seeing how/why their parents act the way they do.  And the idea that it can't be social contagion or a fad isn't insulting. There are examples of stuff like this throughout history to look back to. 

Discarding the wisdom of older generations and casting them to the side (in whatever form that might take) for progress is actually a pretty common theme among humans.

But I agree that in the OPs case she shouldn't vent her frustration at her kid and instead just say, "Thanks, great to hear from you!' No one has a right to demand a certain type of relationship or level of communication. 

Edited November 10, 2022 by BronzeTurtle

[Melissa Louise]

3 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

It isn't a fad. This isn't bell bottoms vs boot cut. Millennial and GenZ are taking mental health a hell of a lot more seriously than Boomers and Gen X ever did. They are recognizing unhealthy relationship patterns and embracing the fundamental truth that they do not have to engage in relationships out of obligation. It is a generational shift against unhealthiness. That isn't a fad. It is a meaningful, cultural change, and it is okay even if the older generations do.not.like it.

If I had not been steeped in religious koolaid that made me think it was my job to put up with my father's egregious behavior, I would have gone no contact. Zero contact. Walked away to never return. I thought I could not do that. It would have been so much better for me, so much better for Dh. 

It is really minimalizing and just sh*tting on the younger generation to call this a fad. Just because parents don't like it, doesn't mean it isn't legitimate. 

OP, you can't win this, but you sure can lose it. So like everyone else  has said, keep your feelings to yourself and if she says Happy Birthday, text "thanks" and move on. You don't need to do more than that, and probably should not. Many hugs!!! As I tell my daughter often, parenting is the hardest schtick anyone will ever have.

There's a generational shift, for sure. I'm not sure I'd use the word 'fad' but it's a change, and like all changes, it probably has both positive and negative aspects. 

It's only now becoming conceivable to me that I don't have to be a dutiful daughter. No religion involved, just trauma keeping me in an intensely ambivalent environment. 

So, definitely, I applaud dd2's freedom from duty ( and, ironically, think it points to better parenting than I received - that internal freedom she can access doesn't come from generational moral superiority but from her attachment needs being met in infancy and early childhood). 

I anticipate that weakening bonds of duty will have some negative impacts on society, but positive impacts for the individual.

It's a conundrum, and from this Gen X position, it's a bit like being wedged between two losses at times - the loss of self to duty, and the loss of the promise of duty. 

 

 

 

 

[Corraleno]

According to the research cited in the articles that Jean linked, 1 in 4 American adults is estranged from a member of their family (which could also be a sibling or grandparent). That doesn't seem far-fetched to me at all. I imagine that the number of people who have at least one toxic relative is probably a lot higher than that, but only 25% are consciously restricting contact because of it. I'm sure there are some cases where a young adult gets turned away from parents due to the malign influence of a friend/boyfriend/online group, but I suspect in most cases there are good reasons. The difference between Gen Z and previous generations is that in the past people just put up with it (to their detriment) and Gen Z won't.

I think estrangement from parents and refusal to accept lousy working conditions are reflections of the same push towards greater personal autonomy in an environment where the younger generation feels like their future has been severely limited by the self-serving choices of previous generations, so they are looking to exert control over the few aspects of their lives that they can control, and to reduce the few stressors that they still have the power to reduce. Gen Z and younger Millennials know they're never going to have the financial security or lifestyle that their parents had, they're going to be stuck with the bill for the previous generations' refusal to address climate change, failing infrastructure, the astronomical costs of college and healthcare, and social and economic inequality. They're paying money that they'll never get back into social security and medicare systems that are supporting the very people who have screwed them, while simultaneously being called lazy and entitled for refusing to continue to prop up a system that's rigged against them.

One of the articles Jean linked (I think it was the Aeon essay) made the connection between the higher rate of estrangement in the US, compared to much of Europe, and the fact that we are a fend-for-yourself culture compared to European countries where childcare, healthcare, education, support for the elderly, etc., are provided and levels of estrangement are much lower. In the US, the cultural narrative is that everyone is responsible for their own economic and emotional well-being, and government services are framed, not as social contributions for the greater good, but as "other people's money" that no one has a right to. Gen Z is constantly told that older generations don't owe them anything — not affordable college, or healthcare, or a decent wage, or job security, or a even a non-destroyed planet and survivable climate. And then when Gen Z and younger Millennials say, "OK, well then we don't owe you anything either, including our labor and our time and attention," suddenly employers who took for granted that they had a right to workers on their own terms, and parents who took for granted that they had a right to a relationship on their own terms, are like "Oh, wait, no, we just meant that we don't owe you anything, not that you don't owe us..."

[gardenmom5]

2 hours ago, Corraleno said:

According to the research cited in the articles that Jean linked, 1 in 4 American adults is estranged from a member of their family (which could also be a sibling or grandparent). That doesn't seem far-fetched to me at all. I imagine that the number of people who have at least one toxic relative is probably a lot higher than that, but only 25% are consciously restricting contact because of it. I'm sure there are some cases where a young adult gets turned away from parents due to the malign influence of a friend/boyfriend/online group, but I suspect in most cases there are good reasons. The difference between Gen Z and previous generations is that in the past people just put up with it (to their detriment) and Gen Z won't.

I think estrangement from parents and refusal to accept lousy working conditions are reflections of the same push towards greater personal autonomy in an environment where the younger generation feels like their future has been severely limited by the self-serving choices of previous generations, so they are looking to exert control over the few aspects of their lives that they can control, and to reduce the few stressors that they still have the power to reduce. Gen Z and younger Millennials know they're never going to have the financial security or lifestyle that their parents had, they're going to be stuck with the bill for the previous generations' refusal to address climate change, failing infrastructure, the astronomical costs of college and healthcare, and social and economic inequality. They're paying money that they'll never get back into social security and medicare systems that are supporting the very people who have screwed them, while simultaneously being called lazy and entitled for refusing to continue to prop up a system that's rigged against them.

One of the articles Jean linked (I think it was the Aeon essay) made the connection between the higher rate of estrangement in the US, compared to much of Europe, and the fact that we are a fend-for-yourself culture compared to European countries where childcare, healthcare, education, support for the elderly, etc., are provided and levels of estrangement are much lower. In the US, the cultural narrative is that everyone is responsible for their own economic and emotional well-being, and government services are framed, not as social contributions for the greater good, but as "other people's money" that no one has a right to. Gen Z is constantly told that older generations don't owe them anything — not affordable college, or healthcare, or a decent wage, or job security, or a even a non-destroyed planet and survivable climate. And then when Gen Z and younger Millennials say, "OK, well then we don't owe you anything either, including our labor and our time and attention," suddenly employers who took for granted that they had a right to workers on their own terms, and parents who took for granted that they had a right to a relationship on their own terms, are like "Oh, wait, no, we just meant that we don't owe you anything, not that you don't owe us..."

European courts have ordered family members to support the estranged adult family member, that would almost certainly never happen in the US.
e.g. The son in Germany who was ordered by the court to pay for his father's old age care, despite the father having abandoned the son 40 years previously and leaving his estate to his girlfriend, would likely not have ever happened in the US.

And china with their "you must visit your elderly parents" law.

There is a difference between choosing to have contact with family members vs the courts forcing you to have contact with family members.

[Carrie12345]

 Change doesn’t equal fad.

Estrangement is HARD. Like, really, really hard, even on the person choosing it, even in the worst of circumstances.

Healing is hard.  Not having a healed person to return to is extra hard.

[Faith-manor]

8 hours ago, TexasProud said:

It is for some. Maybe not the majority. But it CAN be.  This isn't black or white.  There is a lot of gray.  But your advice was spot on. Lots of ways she can lose in this situation.

Again, not accurate. 25% of all children suffer abuse and or neglect. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470337/

Estrangement statistics match this number quite accurately. I have no idea at all what the issues are for the OP and make no judgment on that. But to suggest it is a fad for victims to themselves off from their abusers is an outlook that is disturbing.That really isn't grey.

Also, 30 states have filial elder care laws obligating children, regardless of circumstances, to financially support/care for their elderly parents. 11 states are fairly non assertive about enforcement. Pennsylvania is troublesome, and has been known to do full financial audits of children to determine if they can be forced to pay for their parents' care or not. https://www.paelderlaw.net/pennsylvanias-filial-support-law-children-can-be-held-responsible-for-parents-unpaid-nursing-home-bill/

Though Michigan does not have a filial support law, when my father became violent and out of control, I was threatened with prosecution under some little used elder neglect/abuse law after he called 911 when I refused to stay in the house with him. $5000 in attorney fees later, I was able to get the DA to back off, but it hurt us financially because we really could not afford that at the time, and I have PTSD from the situation.

So don't be naive about what the US will do if some prosecutor, some social worker, some judge decides you should be the fall guy for your elder, abusive parent. With the baby boomers all aging and soon to overwhelm the very broken elder care system, I suspect that many states will start going after adult children to try to force them to care for or pay for caregivers for their parents. The average cost of nursing homes is now $140,000 a year. How many of you think that offspring should have to be on the hook for that and especially for abusive parents?

 

[Spryte]

This thread has been eye opening, from a few perspectives.

Way back in the 90s being NC felt like a shameful secret. I am thrilled that people are able to talk about this topic and support each other, and to have a common language around it. Better than the silence.

My advice to you would be to view the texts at face value. She’s thinking of you, and hopefully she’s cracking the door, or at least leaving it unlocked. Respond with a thank you, something completely vanilla as others have suggested, and that’s enough. That’s taking the crack in the door and making it just a bit wider. She will see that, and when/if she’s ready, she’ll crack it a bit more. 

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Spryte

[Spryte]

I live in a state with filial support laws, and yes, nursing homes and assisted living facilities can legally go after adult children for even an estranged parent’s medical bills here. And they do. Our elder attorney explained that some judges will look kindly upon families with kids heading off to college, but it is within the law to be held accountable for all the bills, estranged or not.

[madteaparty]

This breaks my heart for you OP.

i think I would bite down hard on my reactive tongue and welcome any goddamn crumb my child throws my way. See if it opens a small window. I’d almost respond back with something that invites another response like “thanks for remembering! Going to xYZ restaurant that you liked, hope they have abc dish. Miss you and love you etc”. But I also see how you wouldn’t want to hang yourself out there to dry. Argh. Big kids are hard. 

[Not_a_Number]

I think it's kind of a mix. I do absolutely think it has a "social spread" component. I know that when I was looking up narcissistic parenting to figure out why my mom would NEVER take any of my feedback on her behavior but instead would explode into abuse and later act like I hadn't spoken, I found advice to go no contact, and it did influence me. This was unambiguously good for me -- ending that cycle was good for my ability to be a functional wife and mother. But I can imagine someone in a more ambiguous situation finding the same advice and doing something unproductive, possibly encouraged by unreflective people who take others' self-valuations at fact value. 

I will also say that I did feel like something was missing when I didn't speak to my mom at all. My mom is emotionally abusive and also incredibly difficult (she's on her 5th long-term partner, and all of these partnerships have blown up, so it's not like I'm the only one who notices), but she does love me and she also does provide a connection with my childhood. Going no contact was completely essential for me to get some distance, but I'm not sure I would want to do it long term. (I'm not sure I wouldn't, either. I've been working on setting boundaries with my mom and it's a ridiculously uphill battle. But our current relationship is laced with insecurity and resentment, which doesn't work for anyone, either. It's difficult.) 

Anyway, I think it's a really hard issue. 

I do know that the worst thing my mom does, OP, is to invalidate my feelings and to try to control me by bringing everything back to herself and her feelings. Whether you agree with your DD's reasons or not, she's not refusing to talk to you in order to hurt you. She's doing it because of how your relationship was affecting HER. And acting like it's all about you is a surefire way to make sure she keeps feeling like your relationship doesn't work for her. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Not_a_Number

[Scarlett]

14 hours ago, hshibley said:

I wonder how much of it is a social spread component vs how easy it is to keep in contact with people (which for some may be more contact than they want). 
 

I remember doing a little internet research on Laura Ingles Wilder and reading about how after they left the big woods for good they never saw their grandparents again. (Not that they wanted to go no contact obviously) It just really struck me how today you’d never lose contact with people/relatives like that unless you really went out of your way to break contact.  
 

I wonder how many people today have to go to the extreme of telling someone they are breaking contact with them vs how it could have more naturally happened in the past. 
 

Also as a side note keep in mind how many posters here talk about cutting off contact with parents/in-laws they view as being toxic. I think this is not just a phenomenon of the young. 
 

 

To the bolded, I agree it isnt just the young….older people are doing it too…but it has become a thing in recent years….MUCH more so than anytime I can remember.  

[Scarlett]

14 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

It isn't a fad. This isn't bell bottoms vs boot cut. Millennial and GenZ are taking mental health a hell of a lot more seriously than Boomers and Gen X ever did. They are recognizing unhealthy relationship patterns and embracing the fundamental truth that they do not have to engage in relationships out of obligation. It is a generational shift against unhealthiness. That isn't a fad. It is a meaningful, cultural change, and it is okay even if the older generations do.not.like it.

If I had not been steeped in religious koolaid that made me think it was my job to put up with my father's egregious behavior, I would have gone no contact. Zero contact. Walked away to never return. I thought I could not do that. It would have been so much better for me, so much better for Dh. 

It is really minimalizing and just sh*tting on the younger generation to call this a fad. Just because parents don't like it, doesn't mean it isn't legitimate. 

OP, you can't win this, but you sure can lose it. So like everyone else  has said, keep your feelings to yourself and if she says Happy Birthday, text "thanks" and move on. You don't need to do more than that, and probably should not. Many hugs!!! As I tell my daughter often, parenting is the hardest schtick anyone will ever have.

I mean, you are picking on her word choice?  Or you are saying that all of the NC that is happening is warranted? Because I can nearly promise not all of it is reasonable, even if it is a persons right.

[KSera]

1 minute ago, Scarlett said:

I mean, you are picking on her word choice?

It was a bad word choice. I went back and edited the original post to remove that word, but people won’t let it die. It was a quickly written post where I didn’t think carefully about every word. Obviously my mistake. It took the thread way off track from OP’s question. 

[katilac]

9 hours ago, Corraleno said:

According to the research cited in the articles that Jean linked, 1 in 4 American adults is estranged from a member of their family (which could also be a sibling or grandparent). 

Clicking through to the article that talks about the research, you find that the definition is actually "some level" of estrangement. Well, that could mean almost anything! It doesn't mean no or even low contact as the first article implies. 

I actually didn't see where he defined 'family' either. Are we counting step-parents? What about a parent's spouse who never really fulfilled a parental role? Cousins? 

3 minutes ago, Scarlett said:

To the bolded, I agree it isnt just the young….older people are doing it too…but it has become a thing in recent years….MUCH more so than anytime I can remember.  

I do think it is more common than in prior times, because people are more open to the idea that they don't have to put up with disrespect and abuse from parents or other family members. But I also think it's become far more common to talk about it. A person living across the country from their parents may have never discussed it within their current social circle, whereas they would be more likely to do so now. 

[Scarlett]

11 hours ago, BronzeTurtle said:

I don't understand the ready acceptance that whatever is going on with the young people of any given society is good progress towards better mental health, especially in western society in 2022. I don't look around and think that all the things "they" are doing are creating great mental health forthemselves, including going no contact.

Egregious behavior/abuse is one thing. But If you get into a lot of online communities people are cutting off contact for a lot less than abuse, or classifying disagreements as abusive and have online people saying, "I'll be your mom now". That is incredibly toxic actually. And dangerous. Espcially when those communities by and large involve things like social/communal drug use and other destructive behavious as a solution or way of coping with family members who likely just don't want to see them go down that path.

Families are just people with all their faults. the idea that some young people claiming "mental health" are taking the high ground and are right in all these cases is not borne out by history or just by common sense. People in their early 20s don't even have fully formed brains for crying out loud. And even people older than that without kids of their own might have a hard time seeing how/why their parents act the way they do.  And the idea that it can't be social contagion or a fad isn't insulting. There are examples of stuff like this throughout history to look back to. 

Discarding the wisdom of older generations and casting them to the side (in whatever form that might take) for progress is actually a pretty common theme among humans.

But I agree that in the OPs case she shouldn't vent her frustration at her kid and instead just say, "Thanks, great to hear from you!' No one has a right to demand a certain type of relationship or level of communication. 

I love all of this.  I too don’t get why it is seen as so enlightened to cut your parents off.  I think learning about boundaries is good for all of us…..but most families don’t require cutting off.  People are human…..I mean give us a break.

And to the point of the OP…..keep your resentment to yourself….in these cases the less said, the soonest mended.  

[katilac]

11 minutes ago, Scarlett said:

I mean, you are picking on her word choice?  Or you are saying that all of the NC that is happening is warranted? Because I can nearly promise not all of it is reasonable, even if it is a persons right.

Lots of personal decisions aren't viewed as reasonable by other people; it's certainly not limited to no contact. 

When a certain action becomes less likely to be met with harsh societal disapproval, it is going to become more common. More single people keep their baby when they want to, versus feeling tremendous pressure to give them up. More people in loveless marriages get divorced, versus feeling tremendous pressure to stay married. 

I'm glad that people have more freedom to make their own person decisions without harsh societal backlash, whether they are making the best decision or not. 

[Scarlett]

21 minutes ago, katilac said:

Lots of personal decisions aren't viewed as reasonable by other people; it's certainly not limited to no contact. 

When a certain action becomes less likely to be met with harsh societal disapproval, it is going to become more common. More single people keep their baby when they want to, versus feeling tremendous pressure to give them up. More people in loveless marriages get divorced, versus feeling tremendous pressure to stay married. 

I'm glad that people have more freedom to make their own person decisions without harsh societal backlash, whether they are making the best decision or not. 

I don’t think anyone should be harsh.  That isn’t the only choice.  People can—and do what they please. But the consequences in years to come may or may not be worth it.  

Edited November 11, 2022 by Scarlett

[katilac]

11 hours ago, BronzeTurtle said:

 Egregious behavior/abuse is one thing. But If you get into a lot of online communities people are cutting off contact for a lot less than abuse, or classifying disagreements as abusive and have online people saying, "I'll be your mom now". That is incredibly toxic actually. And dangerous. Espcially when those communities by and large involve things like social/communal drug use and other destructive behavious as a solution or way of coping with family members who likely just don't want to see them go down that path.
 

((OP, there is considerable thread drift below in response to the general ideas other posters have put forward about estrangement. It is not at all a response to your situation, which has its own specifics that go far beyond what I know about.))

Why do you consider it toxic and dangerous for someone to say "I'll be your mom now" if the other person doesn't have a relationship with their FOO mom? If the offspring in question is already part of communities that involve drug use, I don't think they're going to alter their lifestyle because no one offers to be their internet mom. 

Do some young people go no contact with loving, supportive parents for petty reasons? I'm sure it's possible, but I'm also sure it's rare. You have to remember that abuse survivors often minimize abuse. Even when they're trying to explain why they're going no contact with their parents, it can be extremely difficult to get past the embarrassment and shame that is often felt by those who have been abused (something many abusers know, so they intentionally choose humiliating punishments that the victim will instinctively want to hide). Verbal and emotional abuse is often difficult to convey regardless. 

We're talking about kids cutting off contact, but parents do it as well. Concerning "I'll be your mom/dad now," the most common scenario I've seen by far is in response to young LGBTQ+ people whose parents have cut them off.  The internet moms and dads sometimes just offer online encouragement and answer typical parent-type questions. They're available to congratulate the young person for making the dean's list, or talk them through changing their first flat tire.

 If they're local-ish, sometimes they go to graduations or help them move.  There's a whole network of people who go to gay weddings in loco parentis, Sometimes they just attend and be supportive, sometimes the couple asks that they walk them down the aisle, participate in a dad/daughter, mother/son type dance, take photos with them, and so on, because their own parents refuse to be there. I think that's freaking beautiful.

People, particularly young people, need support and encouragement. They need it even if they're the ones who cut their own lines of support. They need it even if they're wrong. No parent needs to say, "Yay, drugs!" but they also don't need to say, "You're no longer my son because you use drugs." 

[BronzeTurtle]

3 hours ago, katilac said:

Why do you consider it toxic and dangerous for someone to say "I'll be your mom now" if the other person doesn't have a relationship with their FOO mom?

I don't think I ever said anything about parents cutting off contact and kids looking elsewhere for support or people offering support for kids who've been abandoned or kicked out or emancipated, so your entire post is confusing to me. 

But to answer this question as it is posed, in terms of online communities, the tiktok set isn't going to replace anyone's mother even if she has left. It is a delusion a kid would indulge in because chatting and texting can create strong emotions and things that feel really good or really bad. Imagine being 15 and complaining to someone online who is 23 and really *gets* you and how unreasonably strict and fundie your parents are. Whole groups of people like that affirming your every thought as a teen over and over again with dopamine that comes with posting to the internet. If only it was the rosy picture you're talking about where people are just being nice.

Friendships and relationships *can* develop through the internet. However, a healthy relationship of an older person to a minor child via the internet without the knowledge of the parent/guardian (present or not) with the intent to enfold them into some kind of parent relationship is...I can't even think of a scenario where it would be appropriate, honestly. If a minor child has been abandoned by their parents or kicked out then the appropriate authorities need to be involved, not an online group of older people (or older person who is not a minor! creepy!) that may or may not have any idea what's actually going on in a kid's real life on the other side of the screen. If someone is over the age of 20, talking to minors online to develop a relationship with them akin to parentage, that is not okay. Offering that up is not okay. It is much harder to be a mandated reporter and do what's supposed to be done for a kid in that kind of trouble.

Quote

People, particularly young people, need support and encouragement. They need it even if they're the ones who cut their own lines of support. They need it even if they're wrong. No parent needs to say, "Yay, drugs!" but they also don't need to say, "You're no longer my son because you use drugs." 

I have a lot of thoughts about this. You've developed a weird strawman hypothetical here but let's go with the drug thing presented here. Just imagine for a moment you're dealing with a kid with a serious drug problem. They claim they have been kicked out and disowned because their parents can't stand them when perhaps they left because their parents searched their room to keep drugs out of the house. You take them in. Is it possible the kid is lying about the situation at home? About the extent of the drug use? Do drug addicts ever lie? Do teenagers ever lie? They continue to use because they have a comfortable place to land. Authorities aren't involved at all because you're the cool mom, not a regular mom. Maybe, just maybe, despite what the kid said their parents are at home worried sick that their kid's habit is getting worse and aren't actually the evil people the kid has told you they are. Maybe the kid goes out one night and ODs, ostensibly on your watch as their new mom, but not really because she's just crashing on your couch.

Now imagine the parents really are evil and the kid has a serious drug problem because of abuse in the home. You take them in because again you're a cool mom, not a regular mom. You don't have any legal recourse or help for them because you can't involve authorities. If you involve authorities, their drug use is exposed. You don't have any legal guardianship to get them help. You've just been nice to offer to support and encourage them through a crisis. What happens next? They are a minor. You've offered to be the mom they need.

Or imagine a 3rd scenario where the person who offers to fill the parental role is a predator and takes advantage of a strung out kid with parents out of the picture. Just an offer from the internet or a friend of a friend to give them support and encouragement. You can crash at my place. No strings. And no background check for the new parent.

Either way, the "I'll be your mom now" isn't the way to go in any scenario I can think of.* Replace the drug use scenario with any other mental health crisis. There is no way to know without involving people who can actually, legally sus out the situation. There's reasons we have whole government institutions called social services that have a hard time dealing with this stuff! It is bold beyond belief for anyone who doesn't live in the home to just take the kids' word and enable whatever is going on by offering to be their new mom.

So that is why it is toxic and dangerous. Any adult who really cared about a minor in a crisis situation would not do that in any kind of healthy, normal relationship. If we're talking about two adults and one of them offering to be the parent, that isn't any less creepy but at least consensual I guess. If you just want to talk about someone saying, "Good job on your varsity letter!" or helping change a flat, that isn't a parental role, it isn't being someone's mom and the connotation is weird to consider it that way. Parents have to do a lot more than just encouragement and support. There's offering advice, helping with self-discipline, teaching them executive function when they don't want to go to school, being honest when you think something is a bad decision. All kids need support and encouragement. That is not all kids need. I think a lot of us didn't grow up with the idea that when we got into a real-real fight with our parents and slammed the door we'd go online and just get total affirmation from really cool people that our parents are terrible and hey, if you need, just come sit by me. But what if, in that real-real fight the parents were holding a line that needed to be held for that kid's safety or long term well-being??

*I have to caveat this to say that I'm not speaking of actual adoption in any sense that happens via a legal process that is supervised by the courts and social services with multiple background checks and such.

Edited November 11, 2022 by BronzeTurtle

[Tanaqui]

Quote

I love all of this.  I too don’t get why it is seen as so enlightened to cut your parents off.  I think learning about boundaries is good for all of us but most families don’t require cutting off.  People are human, I mean give us a break.

Which is why most families don't get cut off, or even have their access to That One Person strictly restricted.

Quote

it has become a thing in recent years, MUCH more so than anytime I can remember.  

Lots of people on this forum will say with a straight face that they don't know any LGBTQ+ people or atheists. If you all knew more of those, you'd all know a lot more people who had to break from their families for their own well being.

Also... listen, I've got a family history of estrangement on both sides. On the one side, my father was mostly estranged from his mother and brother almost my entire life, and if it wasn't for my mom interceding he would have been *totally* estranged from both of them. Before he limited contact, his mother engaged in shenanigans like "give the four month infant a heaping teaspoon of honey after Mom said no" and "try to steal custody of the children to break up the marriage". He strongly suspected his brother was a child molester. These are good reasons to limit contact with your family!

But most people didn't know his reasons because hardly anybody knew that he was estranged from them. This wasn't something he talked about, and if he had had reason to talk about it he would have said to most people "We're not close" or something like that, something that can mean *anything*.

My mother's mother grew up never meeting her own maternal grandparents, even though she walked by their house to get to school every day. Lots of people actually did know about this estrangement, but I get the impression hardly anybody knew the full story, which does involve the sort of serious abuse literally everybody here would agree is a "good reason".

So maybe the neighbors thought that she just was being really weird, or that the husband was controlling, just like my neighbors growing up assumed without really thinking about it that *of course* my father spoke to his mother.

I'm not saying that I think that anybody on this thread acted like my grandmother or my great-grandparents. But I am saying that as far as society trends go, you just don't know if maybe lots of people years ago acted just like people today - they just didn't talk about it.

Quote

But If you get into a lot of online communities people are cutting off contact for a lot less than abuse, or classifying disagreements as abusive

Well, this is all online, so can you link to a few examples where you think the estrangement was totally because of "a lot less than abuse" or that people piled on to say a simple disagreement should be "classified as abusive"? The estrangement or advised estrangement doesn't have to include totally cutting off contact, it just should be a clear example of what you consider a not good reason.

You're asserting a positive claim ("this is a thing that really happens - a lot!") which is a heck of a lot easier than a negative claim ("no it's not"), so you're the one with the burden of proof.  And if it's all online it should be easy to come up with a dozen or a hundred examples, or as many as you like - if it's really something common.

[Indigo Blue]

There are so many good, thought-provoking replies here that are opposing and opposite to each other. And yet, I think many of them are both true at the same time. 

[BronzeTurtle]

Quote

 

Again, not accurate. 25% of all children suffer abuse and or neglect. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470337/

 

I went back to read this to see how they defined abuse and what the methods were to get to get to the 1 in 4 stat, and the link you provided is a CE module, not a study. They do make this claim for the purposes of the training based on other studies. Their citations make it almost impossible to verify it though (one is about verbal abuse in pregnancy being correlated with flags on a newborn hearing screen, so if that counts towards their 1/4 number then how does that work? just for example). Just letting you know in case you meant to use a different link.

Edited November 11, 2022 by BronzeTurtle

[LucyStoner]

On 11/9/2022 at 3:55 PM, Tanaqui said:

There is no "going no contact fad". That's absurd, and honestly, I give a serious side-eye to anybody who thinks that there *is* such a fad.

You don’t know what you don’t know on this one.  I don’t think it is a fad as in trendy but it is certainly a widespread, far reaching practice.  

I have not experienced this but I have observed it.   

As someone from a very challenging family background who once had to get a restraining order against my brother and who changed my unlisted phone number multiple times back when phone books were a thing just so my grandmother couldn’t contact me, my bias would be to assume the kid going no contact has serious reasons to do so but I have observed otherwise more than a few times and heard young adults discussing this in a very flip matter.  To some people, any form or difference or disagreement is toxic, any limits or boundaries from the parent (especially if it’s mom) on their financial support means the parent is a narcissist.  

Some people really do significantly exaggerate or distort harm done to them while minimizing any harm they do to others.  It’s not just young adults, I see it with friends in my age group at times.  I have seen friends re-examine their childhoods and describe very normal family life as abuse or neglect.  A friend started going to Al-Anon and started describing her family as toxic and abusive.  I asked her why and she said it was because her mom drank 2 glasses of wine every night.  Did she every drink more?  No.  Did she ever not function for a night or longer due to alcohol or other substances?  No.  Did the money spent on wine mean the family went without?  No.  Same friend also thinks it’s “toxic” that her parents would prefer to pay out most of their estate for assisted living than have her take care of them, as though it’s not their own decision to decide how they want to live their last few years of life and how they want to spend their own money.  If I started typing out examples from other folks, this post would never end.  

Are there valid reasons for people to cut off family?  Yes. Do adults need a reason to cut people off?  No.  Is everyone who gets cut off and is described as an abuser actually abusive by any objective measure?  Not from what I have seen.  

Edited November 11, 2022 by LucyStoner

[Danae]

13 hours ago, Scarlett said:

To the bolded, I agree it isnt just the young….older people are doing it too…but it has become a thing in recent years….MUCH more so than anytime I can remember.  

I do think a big part of that is just that the expectations (and ability) to stay in close contact is so much higher.  It's only been what, 18-ish years since unlimited phone minutes and no long distance charges has been a thing?  Twenty years ago if you moved out of state a short phone call every other week and seeing family a few times a year (if within driving distance) or every few years (if you had to fly) was normal.  If you didn't want to see or communicate with your relatives often it was fairly easy to just not without making a public point of it.  

[BronzeTurtle]

Quote

 

Well, this is all online, so can you link to a few examples where you think the estrangement was totally because of "a lot less than abuse" or that people piled on to say a simple disagreement should be "classified as abusive"? The estrangement or advised estrangement doesn't have to include totally cutting off contact, it just should be a clear example of what you consider a not good reason.

You're asserting a positive claim ("this is a thing that really happens - a lot!") which is a heck of a lot easier than a negative claim ("no it's not"), so you're the one with the burden of proof.  And if it's all online it should be easy to come up with a dozen or a hundred examples, or as many as you like - if it's really something common.

 

Trigger warning for drug use, depression, and suicide. I think one is all I have time for at the moment especially when you read the comments and links and finding others echoing the sentiment of what happened to them as well.  You can even feel free to ignore the theme of warning against THC and lockdown complaints if that leaves you rolling your eyes. I've quoted a section below. What do you do if you're the friend she moved in with? What did she tell her friend about how awful her parents were being for cutting her privileges? The people she met online to go to the big city to hang out with? Despite how lengthy my post was I really don't have time to catalogue the hard stories I've happened to have seen on the internet and then link them here. Nor am I interested in sharing personal details.I am surprised you haven't seen any forums or FB where a parent will post distraught, unsure of what to do in a situation like this. What do you think is possibly happening on the other side of that coin? What do you think the kid is saying to the people they are crashing with? To me having been a teenager myself it is more incredulous to believe that kids who claim their parents are horrid and kicked them out for just being themselves are 100% telling the truth all the time.

Most apps on the internet are designed specifically to suck your brain in and keep coming back for more. Kids with developing brains find this an even trickier situation to navigate with restraint and middle grade social situations that are already quite toxic pre-internet. I'm not going to bother to cite this as you can find this information really readily almost anywhere. It's not in dispute. What you're disputing is that this could lead to real life issues for the kid or that the relationships could become toxic and convince a kid they need to move out or find a better place to stay where they can really explore their true selves. Ok, that's fine. I do hope with all sincerity that no one who thinks this doesn't happen with any kind of frequency has to ever deal with it to any kind of degree. I'm not saying that to be sarcastic or self-righteous. I really do mean it.

 

"In the new year she was caught skipping school and had privileges taken away. It was the first time she had ever been in any real trouble. A week later she told us she was moving out. We were flabbergasted. Her older sisters were flabbergasted. All of us spoke with her, tried to figure out what was happening. She broke up with her longterm boyfriend and then was devastated that she had. We spent hours and hours trying to understand what was going on. We spoke. We listened. We struggled to find sense in a voice that didn’t even seem familiar. To all of us in our family, she insisted that she wanted to spend the last few months of grade twelve closer to the city, living with a friend, so she could have a more robust social life. She had always loved living in the country, loved the animals and nature, but now it was only “limiting”. She wanted out. It was so unusual and out of character for her. Of course, in hindsight, knowing that she was chronically using pens and edibles and her brain was no longer clear and concise, it makes sense. But then, none of us understood what was happening. 

She moved into her friend’s house and the drug use increased exponentially."

[LucyStoner]

34 minutes ago, Danae said:

I do think a big part of that is just that the expectations (and ability) to stay in close contact is so much higher.  It's only been what, 18-ish years since unlimited phone minutes and no long distance charges has been a thing?  Twenty years ago if you moved out of state a short phone call every other week and seeing family a few times a year (if within driving distance) or every few years (if you had to fly) was normal.  If you didn't want to see or communicate with your relatives often it was fairly easy to just not without making a public point of it.  

The idea of moving far away and spreading out and only living with your small nuclear family is itself a newish one in the arc of history.  Not too much before a long distance call on Sundays and an every 1-3 years visit was the middle class norm, the average circumstance was that people lived next door or in the same home with m some relative or another and down the road from most of the rest of their family.  Even now, the idea of an independent nuclear family living far from all relatives and having no interdependence on each other isn’t universal.  I run into my white middle class/affluent friends thinking it’s either nuts or angelic or a sign of no boundaries that I take care of my nieces and nephew and my 79 year old father.  It’s not any of those things.  It’s just how life is lived when you either can’t or don’t want to outsource things like elder care.  Individualism is one way of living, it’s not the only way and it’s not either morally superior or inferior.  

Edited November 11, 2022 by LucyStoner

[Corraleno]

I think a bunch of really different things are getting conflated here. There is a very broad continuum between teens complaining about (and exaggerating) parental restrictions and adults who have made the decision to go fully No Contact with their parents, with a whole lot of points in between.

Teens complaining about parental restrictions, even to the point of running away and being taken in by another family, or getting involved with a bad crowd and getting into drugs, are obviously not a new thing. I knew lots of kids like that, some of whom eventually returned home (including me) and some of whom never did. Some never really got into drugs (like me), some got heavily into drugs but eventually got out, and some never got out. At different times when I was a teen, my father and stepmother took in two kids who got kicked out; one was a 17 yr old who was called a whore and thrown out when her parents discovered she'd had sex with her boyfriend, and she stayed with us and continued going to school until she graduated. The other was a 15 yr old boy who had a really messed up family, and he shared a room with my stepbrother for about 6 months before moving somewhere else (not back with his family). This was 50 years ago!

My mother and stepfather were each estranged from one of their parents, although they would never have labeled it that way. If asked, they would just say that they didn't see that parent very often. I think a lot of the perceived difference between the "good old days" and now is that we have better labels now, not that the behavior is all that different. Maybe now people are more willing to not even put themselves through the misery of a Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas visit with someone who really upsets them, whereas in previous generations it would have been seen as a duty rather than a choice. And obviously there are a lot more opportunities now where people can demand contact, so more decisions need to be made to accept or reject that contact, instead of just having to come up with an excuse to skip that one Thanksgiving dinner per year. 

Also, this is not directed at anyone in this thread, but I think the tendency to frame the situation as "kids today" labeling "normal" behavior as toxic or damaging can seem dismissive to those of us for whom the behavior really was damaging — regardless of whether other people seeing it from the outside think it "should" have been damaging or think that the behavior would not have damaged them and is therefore an overreaction. I say that as someone with siblings who really do not get why I cut off my mother. My sister was  the "golden child" and was rarely hit or verbally abused, and although my youngest brother did get a lot of abuse, his way of coping with that was to just accept that getting the shit beat out of you with a belt was "normal discipline" that he probably deserved. My other brother was more like me, and he was actually taken in by another family although he continued to sleep at home most school nights. At least half the kids I knew were routinely beaten and/or verbally abused, and a lot of people did, and do, just accept that as "parents doing their best." I saw a lot worse than beatings, too, but abuse was just passed off as a private thing within families, not something that others should get involved in. There was a developmentally disabled kid in my neighborhood whose parents routinely made him sleep in an unheated porch and withheld food as punishment, and another little girl who did not seem to be allowed to eat meals with her family, because she was often sitting alone outside with a bowl while her family ate dinner. I knew several teenage boys who had the shit beat out of them (with fists) by fathers or stepfathers, including my youngest brother.

My point is that even people who live in the same house often don't see, let alone understand, the dynamics between other family members, and it's even more difficult (and IMO even more inappropriate) for people outside the family to decide that another person's choice to minimize or cut off contact is irrational or wrong or has no basis in reality. My siblings didn't hear most of the horrific things my mother said to me, they didn't see every nosebleed I got from being hit in the face repeatedly, they didn't see the welts on my body from every beating, and they certainly had no idea of the sexual abuse until just a few years ago (and even after being told, my sister doesn't really believe me because she can't believe my mother is the "kind of person" who would allow it to continue). So even when I hear about siblings agreeing with parents that the kid who cut off contact is totally out of line, I take that with a grain of salt. Maybe their perception really is skewed, maybe they've misremembered things... but maybe that person's actual lived experience really was different from the others and they really are doing what they need to do.

[Indigo Blue]

@Corraleno We have so much in common. I related to so much of that last post. 
 

One other thing to point out is that sometimes one sibling becomes a “truth teller”. They can see it all for what it really is. Others can’t always see it, and so the truth teller just ends up sticking out like a sore thumb in the family, going against the grain, and looking like a whiner who isn’t to be believed or listened to. 
 

ETA: Although I’ve never spoken up in my family about things. I’m just a quiet observer. But I know this is how it goes for some…they just get scapegoated. 
 

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Indigo Blue

[Indigo Blue]

2 hours ago, LucyStoner said:

Some people really do significantly exaggerate or distort harm done to them while minimizing any harm they do to others.

This is so true. 
 

“The tree remembers; the ax forgets”.
 

I read that online somewhere.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Indigo Blue

[Carrie12345]

2 hours ago, LucyStoner said:

 Individualism is one way of living, it’s not the only way and it’s not either morally superior or inferior.  

And sometimes your family just ups and moves far away when you’re barely a baby adult. 🤷‍♀️ 

[gardenmom5]

2 hours ago, LucyStoner said:

 .  Same friend also thinks it’s “toxic” that her parents would prefer to pay out most of their estate for assisted living than have her take care of them, as though it’s not their own decision to decide how they want to live their last few years of life and how they want to spend their own money.   

This.

My grandmother has been dead for 30 years - but she would harp on "when all the hogs died from the cholera" - and her father DIDN'T bail them out financially. even 50 years later she was complaining! (I think they ended up losing their farm and my grandfather went to work as a mechanic in town.  Eventually moved to Seattle to work for Boeing during "the war".) 

um, it was the depression, everyone had it tough.  Her father wasn't rich, but she expected him to bail her out and she was incredibly resentful he didn't.  

I do think she would have been a much happier person if they'd stayed in rural Missouri and was closer to her family.  There were two sisters out her, but they weren't her "favorite" sisters.

I've seen many cases of adult children complaining their parents didn't give them money.  Um - it's their money to do with as they please.

[Corraleno]

3 hours ago, LucyStoner said:

To some people, any form or difference or disagreement is toxic, any limits or boundaries from the parent (especially if it’s mom) on their financial support means the parent is a narcissist.  

Some people really do significantly exaggerate or distort harm done to them while minimizing any harm they do to others.  It’s not just young adults, I see it with friends in my age group at times.  I have seen friends re-examine their childhoods and describe very normal family life as abuse or neglect.  A friend started going to Al-Anon and started describing her family as toxic and abusive.  I asked her why and she said it was because her mom drank 2 glasses of wine every night.  Did she every drink more?  No.  Did she ever not function for a night or longer due to alcohol or other substances?  No.  Did the money spent on wine mean the family went without?  No.  Same friend also thinks it’s “toxic” that her parents would prefer to pay out most of their estate for assisted living than have her take care of them, as though it’s not their own decision to decide how they want to live their last few years of life and how they want to spend their own money.  If I started typing out examples from other folks, this post would never end.  

But didn't you also know people like that years ago?  I knew a kid in HS whose parents bought him an AMC Pacer (remember those?) for his 16th birthday and he was absolutely furious that it wasn't the car he wanted, and accused them of purposely humiliating him. I was good friends with a girl who was angry at her parents for "ruining her life" by refusing to send her to boarding school, and they eventually caved and she went away for 11th & 22th grade — which totally pissed off the older sister, who felt like she'd been cheated, so she moved far away and continued to have hard feelings towards both the parents and her "spoiled" sister; she even skipped her sister's wedding.  My now-ex has complained for decades about his mother "wasting" money he believed should be part of his inheritance — just like MIL complained about her mother wasting money she hoped would eventually be hers. There are lots of stories in MIL's extended family about kids trying to get control over parental finances, siblings refusing to speak to each other over perceptions of favoritism, etc.

Self-centered, entitled people who think they are being cheated out of what they deserve have existed since the beginning of time, this is not a new phenomenon. The difference is that in the past they were less likely to use labels like "toxic" and "NPD" and more likely to just complain about "mean" or "selfish" parents who wouldn't give them what they want.

OTOH, I can think of lots of people I've known who really did have horribly toxic parents but didn't go no contact because they didn't feel like it was something they had a "right" to do. I dated a guy who grew up in an incredibly violent home with an alcoholic father who would often come home drunk and drag him out of bed and beat him up and then beat his mother. They moved a lot and every time they moved, his father would kill the family pets rather than take them with them! I know so many people who were physically, emotionally, or sexually abused (sometimes all three) as kids, who still dutifully showed up for family events and endured continued abuse because "that's life." And for a long time, I did too. Then when I was in my 20s she sent me an incredibly vicious letter and something snapped. That would have been around 1987 or 88, and I would not have thought to use terms like "toxic" or "NPD" or "no contact," but the effect was still the same.

So now people who really do have toxic or NPD relatives may be in a better position to label it for what it was, and to feel like they have permission to distance themselves. And the selfish entitled people, who have always felt like they deserved more than they got, use the same labels and the same excuse to distance themselves instead of just whining about not getting what they deserve.

I don't think that either of those categories has suddenly increased among "kids these days," I just think people are using different vocabulary than they used to.

 

[LucyStoner]

2 hours ago, Corraleno said:

But didn't you also know people like that years ago?  

I don't think that either of those categories has suddenly increased among "kids these days," I just think people are using different vocabulary than they used to.

 

I knew some people like that but not as many as I see now.  I also don’t think this is a “kids these days” thing as I see it in many age brackets.  

There’s a lot of privilege and selfishness wrapped up in redefining any form of disagreement as “abuse”.   My mother was rendered physically disabled from her mother’s abuse and neglect.  I don’t think it’s reasonable or responsible to use the same set of terms for what happened to my mom or the guy you dated and behavior/opinions/ways of living that someone just doesn’t like.  

I know a woman who wanted her mom to be her babysitter for free.  She decided it was “selfish” and “toxic” for her mom to not *quit her job and be a free source of basically FT childcare*.  Not long after, she made a deal about how she was going NC with her mom.  But if her mom is so toxic, why did she want to leave her kids with her for free?  Same friend’s big complaint every year was that her mom didn’t get her kids the gift she wanted but instead picked out things herself.  Let’s not forget that manipulative and abusive people can throw around therapeutic lingo just as much as anyone else and they are often much more conversant in it because they want to make it seem like they are the injured party.  
 

 

Edited November 12, 2022 by LucyStoner

[Scarlett]

13 minutes ago, LucyStoner said:

I knew some people like that but not as many as I see now.  I also don’t think this is a “kids these days” thing as I see it in many age brackets.  

There’s a lot of privilege and selfishness wrapped up in redefining any form or disagreement as “abuse”.   My mother was rendered physically disabled from her mother’s abuse and neglect.  I don’t think it’s reasonable or responsible to use the same set of terms for what happened to my mom or the guy you dated and behavior/opinions/ways of living that someone just doesn’t like.  
 

 

Agree.  I don’t see it as ‘kids these days’ but rather what is happening these days.  Across the board.  

[Tanaqui]

Quote

What do you think is possibly happening on the other side of that coin? What do you think the kid is saying to the people they are crashing with?

"I don't know if I should send my mom a text on her birthday. There's every chance I'll get a mean response back about how disrespectful I am, how mad and sad she is, and that her heart is closing to me."

And that's what I took from the top post on this thread, a post that I assume OP made hoping to gain sympathy from people. If this is what people say when they want other people to agree to them, then I wonder what they say and how they act when they aren't putting their best face forward.

[Carol in Cal.]

On 11/10/2022 at 6:00 AM, Faith-manor said:

It isn't a fad. This isn't bell bottoms vs boot cut. Millennial and GenZ are taking mental health a hell of a lot more seriously than Boomers and Gen X ever did. They are recognizing unhealthy relationship patterns and embracing the fundamental truth that they do not have to engage in relationships out of obligation. It is a generational shift against unhealthiness. That isn't a fad. It is a meaningful, cultural change, and it is okay even if the older generations do.not.like it.

(SNIP)

It is really minimalizing and just sh*tting on the younger generation to call this a fad. Just because parents don't like it, doesn't mean it isn't legitimate. 

Maybe the word ‘trend’ would be a better, less fraught one than fad, but it’s certainly that.  

I have not been all that impressed with what I have seen as the Gen Z or late Millennial ‘s mental health trends.  As a group their resilience is lower than previous generations, allegedly, and that fits with my observations about a ton ton of depression and anxiety and a kind of unconscious entitlement that seems noteworthy.  I’m very sympathetic, but I am not sure that it’s fair to characterize their cutting people off as a sign of better mental health.  Sometimes it is, but it is so normalized now that it doesn’t seem like it’s being reserved for cases that warrant such a drastic reaction.  It can be helpful but it also can be horrendously selfish and entitled.  Honestly, I’ve seen both, and seen them in families that I know well enough to confidently distinguish between the two.

However, I don’t think the OP can influence this for good, just make it worse or at best influence it to stay neutral, by what reaction she demonstrates.

[Carrie12345]

NPD parents and super entitled kids are two extremes, with a huge, complicated world in between them.

 I’m a person who is low and no contact with a shocking number of people, and usually only mention an extreme end, because that is the one that impacts my life and mental health the most. In the context of this post? I want to mention two instances that don’t fit into the extremes and may be more relevant.

I haven’t had a relationship with my father since I was 18ish. Today, I could list the examples of his NPD traits, but he was never abusive or manipulative. He was just… unaffected by his kids’ needs. I’m not talking cars or college or spending money. More like time, connection, and perhaps even some child support checks now and then. But badmouthing our mother was a hard line for me, and he wouldn’t stop. My sisters went very low contact, and every interaction to this day stresses them out, because it’s still all about him +/-25 years later. (So this was well before today’s terminology.)

I also slowly went no contact with my grandmother. Before understanding what boundary setting was, I begged her for years to refrain from bringing up conversation about my father. Every time, she accused me of trying to make her turn against her son. She couldn’t hear what I was telling her, even when I told her I was going to have to stop calling.  
(And then she kept commenting through dh’s FB page until he changes his settings.)

They didn’t “abuse” me. They just didn’t have or show any respect for me as an individual, independent, whole human being with feelings and relationship needs. And, frankly, neither ever seemed torn up about it, so I suppose it was good for everyone.

From where I sit now, and without anyone else’s specifics known, I’d suggest looking back for “asks” that may have seemed small, stupid, unimportant. etc. and thinking about how many times they came up.   
Or maybe nothing was ever said out loud, but the mood changed around certain things.

Small, repeated hurts take a toll. Technically, it’s on both people to address them, but they may not be ready at the same time.

[Laura Corin]

2 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

NPD parents and super entitled kids are two extremes, with a huge, complicated world in between them.

 I’m a person who is low and no contact with a shocking number of people, and usually only mention an extreme end, because that is the one that impacts my life and mental health the most. In the context of this post? I want to mention two instances that don’t fit into the extremes and may be more relevant.

I haven’t had a relationship with my father since I was 18ish. Today, I could list the examples of his NPD traits, but he was never abusive or manipulative. He was just… unaffected by his kids’ needs. I’m not talking cars or college or spending money. More like time, connection, and perhaps even some child support checks now and then. But badmouthing our mother was a hard line for me, and he wouldn’t stop. My sisters went very low contact, and every interaction to this day stresses them out, because it’s still all about him +/-25 years later. (So this was well before today’s terminology.)

I also slowly went no contact with my grandmother. Before understanding what boundary setting was, I begged her for years to refrain from bringing up conversation about my father. Every time, she accused me of trying to make her turn against her son. She couldn’t hear what I was telling her, even when I told her I was going to have to stop calling.  
(And then she kept commenting through dh’s FB page until he changes his settings.)

They didn’t “abuse” me. They just didn’t have or show any respect for me as an individual, independent, whole human being with feelings and relationship needs. And, frankly, neither ever seemed torn up about it, so I suppose it was good for everyone.

From where I sit now, and without anyone else’s specifics known, I’d suggest looking back for “asks” that may have seemed small, stupid, unimportant. etc. and thinking about how many times they came up.   
Or maybe nothing was ever said out loud, but the mood changed around certain things.

Small, repeated hurts take a toll. Technically, it’s on both people to address them, but they may not be ready at the same time.

This is interesting to me.  Maybe I have low expectations.  My interaction with my mother doesn't sound very different from yours with your father: for thirty-five years, after I left home, she only ever called if she needed to perform a duty - it would have felt wrong to her to omit sending a birthday gift to the children, even though she otherwise made no contact with them, for example.  She never called me just to make contact, but complained if I didn't call several times a month.  In almost every call, she complained about her situation following her divorce when I was a teenager, and about my father.   When we came to visit my home town from overseas, she refused to have us to stay in her two spare bedrooms, because that would require her to tidy up and cater to us.  As a mother she had done her duty - although the affair she had when I was a teenager might not have been the best thing at a time when I needed whatever stability I could grasp - but she was very stuck in the parenting style of her Victorian parents (she was born in 1924 and I was her last child), so it was a fairly distant relationship.  I just got on with my life, made my calls, laughed with my husband, carried on. She was who she was.

I've had my ups and downs with her - many of which I have talked through here (thank you, everyone) - and there was a crisis when I felt I needed to take her into my home after she ended up in hospital.  But it never occurred to me to just stop communicating.  She's a flawed person, as am I.  Now that she is very old, I visit her once a week and take pleasure from a duty done.  She's also nicer now than she has ever been before - as her memory fails she loses a grip on past resentments.

Thinking about my father too: very distant.  For example, when I schlepped across the world with two young children to stay with him, he would take us to a museum or something, then go off and do something else, rather than spending time with his grandchildren.  Chilly and distinctly odd.  But we kept in touch.  ETA: he had horrendous teenage years while an evacuee in Canada, so making connections continued to feel unsafe for him, I think.

I'm not in any way saying that people shouldn't put barriers - that's their own choice.  Just that there may be different ways of seeing and reacting to similar situations.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Laura Corin

[Carrie12345]

47 minutes ago, Laura Corin said:

m not in any way saying that people shouldn't put barriers - that's their own choice.  Just that there may be different ways of seeing and reacting to similar situations.

Absolutely!  
What is tolerable for some is intolerable for others, and nuances aren’t always relatable.  
Like my sisters, who each have different degrees of contact with our father. I don’t personally understand why they do, as he hurt them worse and longer, but that’s how they want it and good for them!

I don’t feel like he was ever a real father, and I don’t feel obligated to continue the disappointment just because of DNA.

And from that, I work to be a human my kids want an actual relationship with, not just an obligation of biology.   
Not perfect relationships… we’re all obnoxious in our own ways, lol, but we love each other and express it frequently, even when we’re tackling very hard things. A relationship is a two way street.

[pinball]

In years past, people became estranged from family. In some situations, a child no longer talked to or had any interaction with a parent, for instance. The language used was just that: Bill doesn’t talk to his dad. Mary doesn’t get on with mom and they never see each other.

Now, with people particularly using the phrasings of no contact, low contact, very low contact, it equates with narcissism and abuse. The phrasing wasn’t used years ago and in many cases, it didn’t even apply. 
 

But today, people DO use it when it isn’t referring specifically to narcissistic abuse. No contact was not intended as a catchall for any reason a person stops speaking to another person.

i suspect the phrasing is going to be continued to be used so much in any situation that the original usage (for narcissism and abuse) will be left by the wayside.

such is language evolution.

but since that hasn’t happened, yet, I suspect most people will associate no contact with abuse. IOW, if a person says they are no contact or low contact with a family member, that family member will be seen as a narcissistic abuser.

[SKL]

Agreeing that there is a no-contact fad and that it isn't necessarily healthy for each individual who is drawn into this.

People tend to forget that it can also be unhealthy and dangerous to reduce an individual's options when they need someone to talk to / run to.

And also that going back to a relationship one coldly or abusively ditched isn't as easy as just going back.

[SKL]

15 minutes ago, pinball said:

...

... if a person says they are no contact or low contact with a family member, that family member will be seen as a narcissistic abuser.

I would add that the range of things people designate as abuse has exceeded rational bounds also.  For example, a mom dares to admit that her beliefs are abc when her daughter has decided xyz is the truth.  Mom is horrible, intolerable, and undeserving of contact with her kids and grandkids.  When I was young, grandma was absolutely wrong about abc/xyz, but it wasn't a relationship issue.

[Not_a_Number]

4 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

This is interesting to me.  Maybe I have low expectations.  My interaction with my mother doesn't sound very different from yours with your father: for thirty-five years, after I left home, she only ever called if she needed to perform a duty - it would have felt wrong to her to omit sending a birthday gift to the children, even though she otherwise made no contact with them, for example.  She never called me just to make contact, but complained if I didn't call several times a month.  In almost every call, she complained about her situation following her divorce when I was a teenager, and about my father.   When we came to visit my home town from overseas, she refused to have us to stay in her two spare bedrooms, because that would require her to tidy up and cater to us.  As a mother she had done her duty - although the affair she had when I was a teenager might not have been the best thing at a time when I needed whatever stability I could grasp - but she was very stuck in the parenting style of her Victorian parents (she was born in 1924 and I was her last child), so it was a fairly distant relationship.  I just got on with my life, made my calls, laughed with my husband, carried on. She was who she was.

I've had my ups and downs with her - many of which I have talked through here (thank you, everyone) - and there was a crisis when I felt I needed to take her into my home after she ended up in hospital.  But it never occurred to me to just stop communicating.  She's a flawed person, as am I.  Now that she is very old, I visit her once a week and take pleasure from a duty done.  She's also nicer now than she has ever been before - as her memory fails she loses a grip on past resentments.

Thinking about my father too: very distant.  For example, when I schlepped across the world with two young children to stay with him, he would take us to a museum or something, then go off and do something else, rather than spending time with his grandchildren.  Chilly and distinctly odd.  But we kept in touch.  ETA: he had horrendous teenage years while an evacuee in Canada, so making connections continued to feel unsafe for him, I think.

I'm not in any way saying that people shouldn't put barriers - that's their own choice.  Just that there may be different ways of seeing and reacting to similar situations.

I do sometimes think it'd be healthier if people had lower expectations. 

I think some of it has to do with one's personality and one's sensitivity, too, though. I'm naturally fairly thin-skinned, unfortunately. And my childhood wasn't emotionally safe (my mom got divorced twice when I was a kid, for example), which made me more sensitive to stuff like that as an adult. And I can see in my own kids that some kids just ARE much more responsive to slights -- we've had to do serious work to make the house feel relatively safe to the kids, because everyone in here is overly responsive and prone to turbulent emotions. (Everyone in here is also gifted, which probably has to do with it, too.) 

I think, at the end of the day, it really benefits people if they can own their own feelings. Some of the things I see people claim as abusive are simply "not allowing yourself to be controlled by someone else." I will cop to thinking of my mom as abusive because she wouldn't let me change her behavior, too, and I recognize that this was maladaptive thinking. But then I wanted to change her behavior because I wasn't at all used to having ANY control of my environment (again, my mom explodes out crazy style if I criticize anything she does at all, because her mom really WAS a complete narcissistic and she's incredibly insecure.) 

So... it's all hard. I really do say both sides of this: I wound up feeling resentful and frustrated when I was feeling like people OWED me to change their behavior to what works for me, but it's also the case that there's a limit of how much I can take from family and it's hard to navigate the limits. 

[BronzeTurtle]

15 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

"I don't know if I should send my mom a text on her birthday. There's every chance I'll get a mean response back about how disrespectful I am, how mad and sad she is, and that her heart is closing to me."

And that's what I took from the top post on this thread, a post that I assume OP made hoping to gain sympathy from people. If this is what people say when they want other people to agree to them, then I wonder what they say and how they act when they aren't putting their best face forward.

I am not trying to be rude but just to lay this out in a straightforward way (paraphrasing):

In my first post to this thread I responded to someone talking about younger generations doing this for the benefit of their mental health. I mentioned a kind of toxic encouragement to leave home or go no contact for dubious reasons that it is happening with some frequency for a younger set in online communities and said it is not great.

You asked for examples and said because it is online it should be easy to produce them. You told me I had a burden of proof to provide this.

I linked to one example that contained others commenting that it happened to their family as well with, again, their younger kids.

Now in response to all of that context you're talking about the OP's daughter. In my original response to this thread I advised the OP to respond to with thankfulness and gratitude in a short text that didn't obligate her daughter to anything. I still think that is the case. I did not realize in our exchange that either of us was still talking about the OP, to be honest.

 

[BronzeTurtle]

15 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

"I don't know if I should send my mom a text on her birthday. There's every chance I'll get a mean response back about how disrespectful I am, how mad and sad she is, and that her heart is closing to me."

And that's what I took from the top post on this thread, a post that I assume OP made hoping to gain sympathy from people. If this is what people say when they want other people to agree to them, then I wonder what they say and how they act when they aren't putting their best face forward.

Also perhaps she was looking for sympathy but perhaps she really is upset at a loss of relationship and angry and scared and sad. Why wouldn't someone be all of those things in a situation like this? Even if you know your own faults and mistakes in relating to others you can still feel like you're only human and be emotional about the outcome and feel desperate to do something, even if it is the wrong thing. That's a pretty human reaction, actually. Instead of doing the thing in the emotional impulse, the OP posted here and got a lot of good advice.

Edited November 12, 2022 by BronzeTurtle

[Moonhawk]

edit: *Rethinking.*

Edited November 12, 2022 by Moonhawk