Perspective: The young adults who are going ‘no contact’ with their parents
Every week, The Wall Street Journal features an interview with a celebrity about his or her childhood home and, by extension, his or her childhood. Actress Heather Graham recently described how her mother was supportive of her decision to go work in movies, but her father was not. And then she explains: “I stopped talking to my parents when I was 25, and I’m estranged from them now. My friends are proud of me, and I’m proud of myself. I have really good friends.”
Even for a Hollywood celebrity, this level of narcissism seems shocking. Who brags about being estranged from their parents? And who has to add, “I’m so proud of myself.” Granted, it’s a short interview, but Graham doesn’t mention anything particularly terrible about her childhood — no abuse or neglect. Just that her family didn’t want to go to therapy and her father thought Hollywood was evil. How high should that rank on the list of family sins?
As it turns out, we should probably brace ourselves for more of this. A recent article in The New Yorker describes the rise in family estrangement or what experts now call going “no contact.” While the phrase makes it sound as if young people — and it is mostly young people — are some kind of spies going on an exciting undercover mission, the truth is that this article is one of the most tragic things you will read this fall. (Even sadder than the Journal piece about people who long to be grandparents but their children won’t have children.)
The New Yorker article, written by Anna Russell, centers on a young woman named Amy who grows up in a religious household, goes off to a Christian college and begins to question her faith. She argued with her parents about homosexuality and abortion. And then she went to law school. Later she spoke at her university and found out that her parents had secretly sent a letter to the university administration expressing their dismay at her transformation. Things go downhill from there — and in a not-very-surprising trajectory.
They exchange a lot of terrible emails and phone calls. She begins a relationship with a Jewish man. The pandemic happens. Amy doesn’t see her family for years. Her parents refuse to get vaccinated. She refuses to allow them to attend her wedding. Now they haven’t spoken in years, and her parents don’t even know where she lives. “Reconciliation, for me, would mean them doing a bunch of work, and I don’t think they’re going to, so I just need to move forward like it’s not going to happen.”
According to the article, while family estrangement is still “somewhat taboo,” resources and groups for people who are estranged have grown in recent years. A group called Stand Alone holds meetings for people in this situation. The founder notes that while society says “it’s good for people to have a family at all costs,” she believes “it can be much healthier for people to have a life beyond their family relationships and find a new sense of family with friends or peer groups.” Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive. One can have a life beyond family relationships without throwing family under a bus.
There are good reasons for people to cut off contact with their families, of course. But a lot of people seem to be cutting their parents off when good reasons are not present. As the article notes, the definition of what constitutes “trauma” has been reduced significantly to the point where general family tensions or fighting now qualify. Divorce is another reason given for the cutting of ties. Shifting allegiances or stories told by one parent about another can mean a child will pick sides — even or especially as an adult.
The stories of parents left behind are often heartbreaking: parents who don’t know what they did wrong, parents who would happily accept any kind of relationship with their children for just a chance at reconciliation.
But reading these articles makes me wonder whether there are other reasons for estrangement becoming more common in this age. One factor could be the 2 a.m. email. Modern technology allows us to communicate impulsively without any kind of careful consideration. And it is hard to take back some of those comments later. Political polarization has become a problem too for many families, leading to all the questions about how to carry on a civil conversation at Thanksgiving. It used to be that you weren’t supposed to talk about politics at the dinner table. But when everything is refracted through the lens of politics, is it possible to observe that rule?
Then there is the rise of helicopter parenting. It is possible that children whose relationship remains too close with their parents as they enter adulthood may react dramatically when they finally decide it’s time to live their own lives. How do you go from telling parents everything to sharing only certain parts of your life? The relationship becomes all or nothing. A low level of contact seems impossible. Amy, in The New Yorker article, demands to know whether her parents still think she is going to hell, for instance. A grownup might say: “Well, you have your views and I have mine, and maybe we could just talk about the weather instead.” Sadly, grownups are in short supply.
Naomi Schaefer Riley is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Deseret News contributor and the author of “No Way to Treat a Child: How the Foster Care System, Family Courts, and Racial Activists Are Wrecking Young Lives,” among other books.
