As is customary of late, I asked Google AI "Is it possible that the trend of estrangement with parents has something to do with Gen Z and Millennials having to work multiple jobs to survive?" The answer I got was this (partial, in burgundy red):
Yes, severe financial stress and working multiple jobs can contribute to family estrangement by draining mental energy and exposing clashing values over economic realities, though therapists primarily link the trend to a broader cultural focus on mental health boundaries rather than job counts alone.
* Exhausted bandwidth: Working multiple jobs causes severe burnout and money-driven anxiety, leaving young adults with little emotional reserve to tolerate difficult family dynamics or criticism.
One reason I asked this question was because in forums, this fact of life for Gen Z and Millennials is often brought up as one reason they had to split with their family in addition to negative family dynamics. The common negative family dynamics include criticizing them for who they are, or who they are dating, or what their interests or politics are, or how they measure up compared to their siblings, or they are too often expected to endure invalidation of their feelings, thoughts and experiences. If the family dynamics seem a little too toxic, or are demanding, or the family is highly critical of them, that can add too much stress to the already stressful environment of working very long hours. They prefer to retreat into peer support and therapy, rather than seek out their family for comment or support.
That link also makes these realities known: Therapy is normalizing "firm relational boundaries" over continually enduring family dysfunction in society in the present time. That link also points to this reality: 60 percent of Gen Zs are estranged from a loved one, usually a family member or members.
Compared to older generations, these younger generations feel little obligation to parents who cannot accept them for who they are and how they conduct their own decisions and lives, or parents who cannot accept their limits and boundaries, and parents who are refusing to acknowledge them beyond highly critical judgements.
To me, these reasons seem fair, but I'm sure at a sixty percent rate of estrangement (and the creation of a "cancel culture"), some parents are being cancelled just because an adult child can do it without blow-back from their own generation, or others such as the Millennials and the younger half of Gen X, and even experience peer approval and support over doing it.
However, when I look at forums for adult children who have been abused, I see very little from members who do it "because it is a trend."
The last story I read was from a women:
As a little girl, she and her younger siblings were sexually abused by an older sibling. They felt that they had to take turns every night at staying awake so that if this older brother tried the door knob they could alert one another. Even after the complaints, the parents said they had talked to him, but it wasn't effective, and refused to intervene in ways that would stop him. As he grew older, he was labeled "a monster" by his siblings. Then the siblings all became estranged from the parents who enabled his behavior. The last comment she made was: "Sometimes parents don't abuse you directly, but they deeply enable a sibling to abuse you. I can no longer believe that our parents have our safety and well being in mind and I'm tired of being the target of my older brother. So I decided to 'go no contact' and to put my own safety in my own hands."
That, to me, seems like a justifiable reason to be estranged.
Can the family work through it? Maybe if there is recognition of what the younger siblings went through, a lot of therapy, and a lot of accountability and accepting that their children distrust the parents for enabling the sexual abuse to happen. But should these children feel obligated to end the estrangement or "to forgive and forget"?
This kind of situation is hard to forget, so pressures to forget are unlikely to happen.
And forgiveness cannot be forced for it to be genuine.
And it depends what "forgiveness" means - putting yourself in harm's way when it comes to this older sibling who appears to his younger siblings to "have grown into a monster" at this juncture?
In fact, I see almost no posts about being estranged for erroneous reasons. They are usually pretty dire situations like this one.
But apparently many parents are saying that they care or cared deeply about their children, or a child, and the child still wanted estrangement, and even for some, the permanence of it. I'll look into that in another post, which is to say I've seen parents have concerns that this trend is so widespread that it is sweeping up adult children who are not, and were never, abused, and instead who are, and were, deeply loved and cared for, where parents were devoted to them for life.
They say that the estrangement trend is giving younger generations power over older generations (creating a generational split based on "unreasonable boundaries" - as some of these parents see them). They are saying these adult children are telling parents to shut up about topics, even topics that aren't confrontational in the least, acting like what they say is of utmost importance while what older generations have to say is irrelevant, acting so narcissistic in conversation that the parents wonder if their child has this Cluster B disorder themselves, and is merely projecting his or her own personalities on to their parents, since narcissists project their own traits on to others).
In my own life, I have on a personal level (not-internet based) known three people my age who were estranged from their children, but in all of those cases, the estrangement only went on for two years at most, and ended due to therapy with the estranged child.
However, I have also known even more parental figures my age who feel threatened by the generational trend of estrangement, and what they say is along these lines: "My parents told me to shut up a lot, that only they had the right to tell us when we could speak on a certain subject, or bring up a certain subject, and now I have children who are doing the same thing to me! Are we some kind of 'sandwich generation' of silenced people? I think what we lived through in our generation is pretty interesting, but neither generation wanted to hear anything about it; they judge us instead. So just like my kids, I am closer to my peers than to them, or anyone from other generations. I feel like my own generation goes out of their way to understand each other, but that no other generation wants to be bothered to understand us."
That's a sad state of affairs, so I'm going to try to look at some other sides, though I won't have much compassion for adults who are "bashing" their children in forums as it seems that is what got their child to leave in the first place, or there was too much interference by the parent about how they were living, or even whether they measured up in terms of "parental approval". What adult child actually needs or asks for parental approval? Even when parents give it out of concern, or when asked, for instance, their child is either going to accept it, or reject it.
Children who are told to do things over and over again for parental approval are less likely to listen to their parent after a while. And "adult children" who are told to do things over and over again for parental approval are less likely to listen to their parent too. What the latter link reveals is that it is seen by most adult children as a power struggle, or a parent who is unwilling to give up control when the child becomes an adult. That link also says that it is far more effective to give validation and respect for a child's independence than to harp on issues that the parent sees as negative or too independent.
One thing I learned when I taught Head Start was that children respond much better when you talk about their positive qualities than their negative qualities and I took that lesson with me when I taught school aged children 6 - 12, and teens 13 - 18. Instead of saying "Don't do that!" unless it is a grave issue or mistake, I'd distract the child and focus on something they were good at: "You're good at building castles. Would you like to help 'so and so' build one?" They get attention from misbehaving, and if you can get them to get 'better attention' from being helpful, they tend to put their focus on that instead of on misbehaving.
With school aged children and teens who were misbehaving enough to keep them after school, I focused on what they were good at when they were in class: "Why would you want to do this when you're so talented in (that)?"
It definitely works a whole lot better in terms of behavior than constantly giving negative attention to bad behavior, and quite a bit better than trashing their self esteem. Narcissists feel they cannot afford to do this because it means their child becomes more "independent" (fear of the child's independence from the parent is what really triggers narcissistic injury and narcissistic rage), but for those of us who are not narcissistic, and do not feel narcissistic rage over a child's independence, we can afford to focus on any child's better qualities than their worst ones.
In my experience, misbehaving tends to slowly disappear when positive assessments get more focus than minor misbehaviors, in teenagers and young adults. For 3 - 4 year olds, the behavior gets better much faster.
It also gets them looking at others in positive ways. Modeling positive thinking towards others and in them means your child will probably be looking at others, including you, the parent, in positive ways too. It just makes sense.
I also talk about how to avoid estrangement with your kids in this post. And remember that patience, patience, patience is always necessary when you want positive, or an enlightened, or a compassionate discussion with underage children and adult children. If they have been taught "negativity and intolerance" you have to be patient with them "unlearning it". It can be a habit, and may take as long for them to unlearn as it was to learn it.
When you teach in a classroom, your students may still be learning how to get attention from misbehaving, but you can give them a counteractive experience where their best qualities can shine, where acceptance rather than rejection is more of their experience, and where all children's feelings make a difference.
So since I have an open mind, I'll be exploring what non-narcissistic parents are going through with this trend. We already know that narcissistic parents are trying to hurt their children more when the child chooses estrangement, and I've already covered that, so for another post, it will be about parents who are fine with their childrens' independence, and who are trying to make up with their estranged child or children.
In the meantime, some understanding that this issue may be partly attributed to over-work and economic woes may help a little in terms of understanding that generation and how much stress they can realistically deal with in their day-to-day lives.
Why Millennials and Gen Z are Going NO CONTACT with Their Parents - by Kati Morton (licensed mental health professional, USA) for her channel You Tube
Why adult children go no contact, according to science - by Dr. Ana (psychologist) for her channel on You Tube
THE CRASH: The devastating consequences of permissive parenting - by Dr. Ana (You Tube)
What this estranged mom's book reveals about forgiveness - by Dr. Ana (You Tube)
I read another estranged parent's book... and oh boy - by Dr. Ana (You Tube)
This is what happens when you go no contact with a parent - by Dr. Ana (You Tube)
This is what happens when you repeatedly invalidate a child - by Dr. Ana (You Tube)
How estranged parents tell on themselves in the comments - by Dr. Ana (You Tube)
What Brooklyn Beckham just revealed about family estrangement - by Dr. Ana (psychologist) for her channel on You Tube
"No Future?" Why Gen Z Feels Doomed | EP517 | The Dr. Phil Podcast - by Dr. Phil (You Tube)
Why People Cut Off From Family? Here's What Psychology Says - by Mind Decoded (You Tube)
What Happens When Narcissistic Parents Lose Their Scapegoat - by Jerry Wise (You Tube)
Cutting Off Family: Why So Many Adult Kids Are Going 'No Contact' | Dr. Phil Primetime - by Dr. Phil (You Tube)
Psychology Of People Who Cut Off Contact With Their Families - by Apex Psychology (You Tube)
The Psychology of People Who Have Endured too Much Trauma - by Solentis (You Tube)
Toxic Parents? Gen Z Cuts Ties for Good | Dr. Phil Primetime - by Dr. Phil (You Tube)
Narcissistic Family: 9 Signs It's Time to Go No Contact - by Jerry Wise (You Tube)
The psychology of people who cut off contact with their families - by Koo Psychology and Pax Psychology
11 Signs You Have Traumatic Intelligence, The Rarest Form of Smart - by Turn Wiser (You Tube)
Psychology Says These 6 Habits Are Signs Of Childhood Neglect - by Mind Decoded (You Tube)
Anti-estrangement therapists are wild, dude - by Dr. Ana (psychologist) for her channel on You Tube
If Your Child Has Cut You Out of Their Life, Watch This | Jefferson Fisher Clips - by Jefferson Fisher (You Tube)
