My perfect little grandson at birth
Years ago, I published an essay about the anguish of our estrangement from a few of our adult children. I titled it My Big Happy Illusion, because one underlying issue in our particular estrangement story was my powerful illusion that we were perfect. I had a perfect family.
Guess what? There’s no such thing as a perfect family. And there’s probably no such thing as a perfect family member (except for the possibility of perfection at the moment of birth).
You’d think I would have been smart enough to know that.
Parental estrangement is common today. According to a list made by ranker.com, numerous famous actors, actresses and musicians have been estranged from their parents, among them Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie, Eminem, Kate Hudson, Drew Barrymore, Christina Aguilera, Demi Lovato, Adele, Tracy Morgan and Kelly Rowland. Their stories have made the headlines.
Most of our stories aren’t told. Dr. Joshua Coleman, my guest on this week’s podcast, and author of When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don’t Get Along, calls parental estrangement a “silent epidemic” because so many of us are ashamed to admit we’ve lost meaningful contact with our grown children.
I was ashamed.
I never imaged it could happen to me.
Our estranged children were good people in the world outside of our family. And despite mistakes we surely have made as parents, we are unaware of having committed any serious crimes against them. Dr. Coleman describes parental estrangement this way. “This is not a story of adult children cutting off parents who made egregious mistakes. It’s about parents … who made mistakes that were certainly within normal limits.” I would add that it also isn’t usually a story about evil adult children.
Why then the epidemic?
Demographers Strauss and Howe point to potentially telling generational features. Many of our children are Gen Xers, born in the 1960s and 1970s, during arguably the greatest anti-child phase in modern American history, underscored by legalized abortion, the availability of the birth control pill, absent fathers, working mothers and latchkey kids. Sometimes cast as perpetual adolescents, they have frequently turned to social media to find their voice, especially Facebook, where according to Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist on Fox News, they “can fool themselves into thinking they have hundreds or thousands of “friends.” They can delete unflattering comments. They can block anyone who disagrees with them or pokes holes in their inflated self-esteem.” Have we as a society failed this generation, and now wonder why they block or even delete us from their lives?
I also wonder, are we, their aging parents, living too long? Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal, describes the impact that increased longevity has had on the relationships between parents and their adult children. “Traditionally, surviving parents provided a source of much-needed security, advice, and economic protection…But once parents were living markedly longer lives, tension emerged…the traditional family became less a source of security than a struggle for control.”
As I replay the e-mails and conversations that led to my family’s breakdown six years ago, I catch glimpses of my role in that struggle for control, a woman desperately holding onto a seemingly stable system to keep it from falling apart. It is only now, after seeing it shatter, that I begin to understand the burden my big-happy-family-illusion placed on me and on other family members. No one could live up to that illusion. Not they. Not I. As one of my teachers Richard Rohr has said, “Perfectionism … makes ordinary love largely impossible.” Is it any wonder I came across as threatened and insecure every time a crack appeared in the image of my perfect family?
Thankfully, we are gradually rebuilding the broken trust with our children, and we’ve all learned to be more compassionate about and tolerant of each other’s numerous flaws. Our imperfections.
I am an imperfect mother of an imperfect family. Knowing this truth is powerfully freeing.
As an aging parent I am clearly no longer needed to play the traditional roles performed by prior generations. We no longer live together. In addition, the world is changing so rapidly and information is so readily available that our kids don’t need our antiquated advice to live successfully. Hanging on to old roles certainly creates challenges.
Estrangement in a family is not easily admitted. There is a sense of shame in having to face our friends and colleagues in what we feel is one of our greatest failures. My own sister and I have been estranged for over five years. I’ve tried every way possible to reach out to her, open all available doors, only to be continually shut out. The experience has been incredibly painful because she is a good person and we share many positive memories. Not having her in my life is not something I easily admit to others because i can tell they think…wow…what happened? I have since moved on and accepted we no longer have a relationship. This letting go process was not easy and took a good therapist to accomplish.
I commend Marlena for her courageous admission that there is estrangement and distancing with some of her adult children. This great reveal opens her up to public judgement…which can often be unfair and harsh.
Currently my husband and I are not experiencing distancing with any of our adult children but that doesn’t mean there have not been issues that have not challenged our sacred bonds. Families crack…they have weak spots …relationships strain and get messy. We adore our adult children they are gratifyingly wonderful human beings but none of us are wonderful every minute. There are bound to be rubs.
Marlena mentioning perfectionism hit home for me. I feel as if she held up a mirror. Growing up in my family was both great fun as my parents were highly entertaining and funny people but also challenging because they were authoritative and opinionated. My parents fought continuously with my older sister once the 60s hit and she developed new controversial ideas. Every visit she made coming home from college and beyond usually ended in major arguments and resulting estrangements. I hated the turmoil. I felt divided loyalties between my parents and my sister on a continual basis. I was deeply saddened by their inability to communicate with one another and was left with scars.
As a result I raised my own children with a determination that our family unit would always get along lovingly. I promoted constant communication between all of us and fostered strong bonds of love and loyalty between siblings. It was a lot of hard work and took a good amount of parenting energy. This truly did pay off for many years and we are a close group who deeply love each other.
However, adult children’s belief systems expand as they age and varying relationship strains appeared a few years ago in our family. I never thought I’d see such discord arise since we’d worked so hard to keep an open mind and safe space mentality as the core of our family support.
Through this chapter of challenge and growing pains I learned a lot about my role in parenting. I had to finally admit to myself that I’d carried unrealistic, perfectionistic goals. I’d thought if I just tried hard enough I could keep our family unit protected from the splintering I’d experienced in my own family. I had assumed by my efforts we would all always get along and stand by each other.
Unknowingly I made it challenging for my adult children to confront each other if they had problems between them. The bar that we all get along hung high above them. This unspoken rule made it hard for any of them to express any disappointment they may have in me or their father. Once cracks showed up in our communication I then woke up to the realization no family is immune from discord, differences and disenfranchisement no matter how hard I tried to keep the channels open. It wasnt like we hadn’t experienced issues as our kids grew up, all families do…I just never expected some strains to become major fissures until they did. I learned an important lesson…no matter what we try to control as parents…families can teeter on the edge for awhile. They can appear to break apart or experience deep hurt and pain. But if enough love and foundation are there…siblings and parents can work on healthy change and find their way back to each other. I for one…have accepted the fact that I cannot fix every problem or mend every crack. I’ve learned to step back and let certain family members find their own way to understanding each other better. If things remain messy for awhile so be it. What in life isn’t? I no longer believe I can protect us all from the times we may be unhappy with each other. It’s not my job. Good times come and good times go. Through it all we will survive.
Robin, your post takes my breath away. You honored my vulnerable sharing with the greatest gift you could possibly give – your understanding, and your honest exploration of challenging issues in your own life. Thank you so much for your authentic presence in my life!
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to express my feelings about estrangement. I rarely do. You offered a safe platform and I took the plunge. It is not an easy topic is it? I identified so much with your very vulnerable sharing. We are all humans, doing the best we can…with the tools we have…at any given time.
Stay safe and well both of you!
Are we more likely to separate as families as society has become more affluent and we no longer need to live out the old patterns?
As part of our writing research I just read a note recorded long ago by Marlena’s mother. It lamented that it had become much more difficult to recruit voluntary workers to come to the leprosy compound Marlena grew up on as the Mennonite colonies they came from became more affluent. Did their behavior change because they simple had more choices?
My father (in frustration) once told me that he and my mother stayed together through tough times when they couldn’t afford to get a divorce.
As our society has become more affluent over recent decades are parents and their children more apt to go our own ways simply because they can contributing to today’s silent epidemic?