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from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/from-fear-to-intimacy/202405/unpacking-the-epidemic-of-parental-estrangement

Unpacking the Epidemic of Parental Estrangement
The generation that was scared of their parents is now scared of their children.
Posted May 19, 2024 | Reviewed by Tyler Woods

THE BASICS
A Parent's Role
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KEY POINTS
Experts tell us we are in an epidemic of parental estrangement.
Millennials have mostly rejected using fear as a parenting strategy.
The generation who grew up afraid of their parents end up being afraid
of being estranged from their children.
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Experts report an epidemic of adult children cutting off contact with
their parents. In one recent study, researchers found that 26 percent of
young adults are estranged from their fathers, and six percent are
estranged from their mothers. The parents report that these
estrangements often happen without notice or explanation, leaving them
feeling deeply hurt and in the dark.

Baby boomers were raised by parents of the “greatest generation,” the generation that lived through the great depression and fought in World
War II. That generation, as a whole, tended to parent in fairly
traditional, authoritarian ways, telling their offspring that “Children
were meant to be seen and not heard.” Corporal punishment was still an acceptable way of disciplining children, and children were often afraid
of their parents, particularly of their fathers. Mothers frequently
threatened their children to “wait until your father gets home.”

Children being afraid of their parents was not only normalized, it was
often regarded as an essential strategy to ensure good behavior in
children. When children misbehaved, it was commonly believed that the
cause was insufficiently strict parenting. Many men of that generation
have told me that being afraid of their parents was an essential part of becoming a disciplined adult of good character, and they frequently
lament that their children are spoiled and lack ambition and resilience
because they “had it too easy” and had no reason to fear their parents.

The children of those Boomer parents often parented their children in
ways that were a reaction to their dissatisfaction with how they were
parented. In contrast to what they experienced as their parent’s
uninvolved, hands-off (some would even say neglectful) style of
parenting, this newer generation of parents tend to be highly involved
in their children’s lives, leading to the term “helicopter parenting.” Fathers, in particular, are often determined to parent differently than
the men who raised them, and they have pioneered the acceptance of
fathering as an equal role in child-rearing.

These Millennial children of Boomers also strive to create more
egalitarian relationships with their children and have rejected using
fear as a parenting strategy. Rather than responding to bad behavior
punitively with punishment, these younger generations are often averse
to conflict with their children and hesitant to set firm limits they
worry would risk rejection. As a result, they are more likely to use
talking and reasoning as their primary disciplinary strategy.

The children of Boomers have been largely successful in their efforts to
raise children who are not afraid of them, but one consequence of this parenting style is that the generation who grew up afraid of their
parents is often now afraid of rejection by their children. Because of
their parents' conflict-avoidant style, the children of Millennial
parents have fewer opportunities to experience the kind of anger and disappointment with their parents that psychologists tell us is an
important part of learning about healthy conflict resolution. In
previous generations, the hierarchical, authoritarian relationship
between parents and children served as a governor to suppress some of
the expressions of anger and disappointment that children and young
adults naturally have about their parents' inadequacies and failings. In
the absence of those prohibitions, children’s rage, with nothing to push
back against, grew more expansive.

As the newer generations mature and individuate from their families, it
may be that their inexperience with healthy anger, disappointment, and
conflict resolution with their parents makes it more difficult for them
to accept their normal feelings of anger and disappointment. Cutting off
their parents may be a way of defending against the bad feelings they
are having difficulty tolerating in themselves, blaming their parents
for creating those feelings. In extreme cases, particularly if they have
not had many experiences of healthy conflict resolution in their
families, they may take the extreme step of cutting off their families completely, in an effort to extrude the challenging emotions they are experiencing.

Exacerbating these generational dynamics, experts tell us that it is not unusual for estrangement to begin as the result of an adult child
entering psychotherapy. Younger therapists, raised by Boomer parents themselves, may also be less comfortable with anger and less confident
in their ability to tolerate strong feelings in their patients. As a
result, they may be more inclined to advise their patients to act out
those feelings rather than being able to model embracing and containing
those feelings in the interest of healthy conflict resolution. When
these less-seasoned therapists work with parents who have been
estranged, they may unintentionally compound their patients' feelings of helplessness and hopelessness by counseling them to fear their children,
to bite their tongues, and not talk to their children about the impact
of their cutoffs.

And so, we arrive at a situation where a generation who grew up afraid
of their parents end up being afraid of being estranged from their children.

Excerpted, in part, from Hidden in Plain Sight: How Men’s Fears of Women Shape Their Intimate Relationships. Lasting Impact Press.

References

Coleman, J. (2021) Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties &
How to Heal the Conflict. Sheldon Press.

Marano, E. (2024). The Pain of Cutoffs. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/202401/the-pain-of-cut-offs

Weiss, A. (2021) Hidden in Plain Sight: How Men’s Fears of Women Shape
Their Intimate Relationships. Lasting Impact Press.

Avrum Weiss, Ph.D.
Avrum Weiss, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist and speaker who writes about
the internal lives of men and their intimate relationships.

Online: Avrum Weiss, Ph

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