The rise of family estrangement
This news is both sobering and unsurprising:
Adult children vs. parents, siblings vs. siblings — calling quits on one’s kin seems increasingly common.
In a 2025 YouGov poll of 4,395 US adults, nearly 4 in 10 respondents said they “no longer have a relationship with” one or more immediate family members. An episode of the Oprah Podcast on the “culture of estrangement” brought the topic home to millions of listeners.
While polls, social media and news of high-profile celebrity splits highlight the prevalence and pain of family breakups, researchers’ growing but still limited attention has yet to quantify how much they’ve multiplied. There are, however, plenty of potential drivers in today’s divorce rates, political polarization, rising individualism, reliance on therapists and social media memes about toxic relationships, says Joshua Coleman, an author, researcher and psychologist in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area.
It all comes at a time when more Americans are prioritizing mental health — and when the internet is helping people find connections outside the family, he adds.
It’s mostly the younger generation cutting off the older rather than vice versa – also not surprising. They’ve been taught to label even minor disagreements “toxic” – and that they’re in need of withdrawing in order to protect their fragile selves from them.
I see evidence of this in real life and online. And of course I’ve been writing about familial estrangement because of political differences for my entire blogging career. It happens with long-term friendships, too.
Much of the younger generation wasn’t ever taught that “honor thy father and thy mother” has any particular valence. That Commandment is an interesting one, too; it doesn’t say to “love” parents or even “like” them. But to “honor” them would seem to preclude breaking off relations, unless it’s at the request of the parents.
The entire article is of interest and worth reading, especially if you’ve suffered from this sort of estrangement or know anyone who has. I consider the phenomenon tragic, for the most part. Of course, if parents are truly dangerous (blatant sexual abuse or something else of a very extreme nature, with no repentance or change on the part of the parent), sometimes breaking off is the only answer. But what I see online are almost always more minor complaints or political disagreements causing rifts, usually with the adult children feeling very self-satisfied and virtuous about their act of cut-off.
From the author interview with Joshua Coleman at the link:
A: Yet another strong factor these days is politics. In the Harris Poll, 42 percent said politics was the biggest factor driving family members apart.
Q: It’s the kids who are mostly initiating these estrangements, correct?
A: That’s true. We don’t have good research on the parents, but we know they are in the minority, and that it’s usually for religious reasons or they disapprove of the child’s gender identity or maybe the person that they’ve married, or their values.
Q: Why do you think parents are so much less likely to cut off their kids than kids are to cut off their parents?
A: Sociologists use the phrase “the intergenerational stake,” to convey the idea that when you’re raising your children you make a big investment, in part in the interest of furthering your genetic line. That can lead parents to assume that when they raise children, they will be close to them throughout their lifetime. Yet that’s obviously not how it is for most kids. This may help explain why a classic study in 1999 showed that parents of young adult children reported closer relationships and fewer problems than the children perceived.
We have two on-going rifts in our extended family that were initiated by the adult children (can’t really call them kids anymore, when they have children of their own), for reasons of interpersonal relationships that I’m not really privy too. We had one estrangement with a child for the same factor, since repaired I am happy to report.
Our families are working hard toward NOT cutting each other off for political reasons.
We don’t talk about Bruno — er — Trump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRpvIiz9G8A
When do you give up on friends?
I have a friend I’ve known for close to forty years. He lives in Israel. And the s*** he posts on Facebook about Israel is terrible. He is not just an “as a Jew” Jew, but an “as an Israeli” Israeli, and an “as a veteran of the IDF” IDF veteran. I keep reminding myself that there was more to our friendship than politics. He was always left of me, but now he’s so far left, that he’s disappeared beyond the horizon. Some of his Facebook friends chime in on his posts, telling him he’s wrong.
Lee Also:
Did the neighbor benefit from the new will in any way? Do a search for the legal term “undue influence.”
AesopFan: Our families are working hard toward NOT cutting each other off for political reasons.
This!!!
Politics is no where near as important as family.
I _have_ to have a family. I don’t _have_ to talk politics.
— AppleBetty
The problem is that politics has changed. When the disputes between the factions were about tax rates or whether voting age should be 18 or 21, or stuff along those lines, people could disagree and leave it at that easily enough.
But when politics turns on core values, on the basic foundational articles of faith, and/or personal identity, then it turns toxic almost by definition. If abortion is murder of children…if Trump is a threat to your own children’s future…if Israel is the last bastion pf cvilization in the Mideast/a parasitical tyranny that is the cause of the barbarity…if interference in abortion access is the first step toward the enslavement of women…this stuff goes the the foundational heart of who people are. Further, if this stuff is seen as being self evidently true, then what is wrong with someone who pretends to believe the opposite?
Even just not talking about it doesn’t always work, if you truly believe the other person has embraced literal evil.
Ever since the late 1960s, the elite classes have striven to make America, and the West, culturally diverse. They succeeded, and with diversity naturally comes anger, hate, and distrust.
More than any other factor, Marxism in all its manifestations has created the conditions that have led to the increase in family estrangement in the West. At base, Marxism rejects the reality of God’s creation, which includes human nature itself. But most of all Marxism embraces Satan’s declaration in John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost; “Better to rule in hell, than to serve in heaven.”
The idea that “you can’t choose your family, so you just have to deal with them” used to be more widely accepted. You see it in a lot of family sitcoms, in which the younger adults still spend time with their aging parents, who were so overbearing, critical or self-involved that some people today might just cut them off — and it’s played for laughs. (I would start that list with “Roseanne,” “Everybody Loves Raymond,” “The George Lopez Show,” “Two and a Half Men,” “Schitt’s Creek” and “Arrested Development.” Even on today’s “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” Mandy’s mother is written as awful, but they all live together.) And of course, there was an enormous political divide on shows like “All in the Family,” but they still spent lots of time with each other.
Q: It’s the kids who are mostly initiating these estrangements, correct?
A: That’s true.
Well, who forms the opinions of the young? The MSM. Overrun by leftists, who adopted the Gramsci doctrine of seizing the information high ground
I wish to thank, and commend, the many wise voices I encounter here.
Thank you, ALL.
Is estrangement by our generation’s offspring sometimes (usually?) one of their efforts in a desperate struggle to individuate? Do mental health professionals endorse estrangement in support of that effort?
It seems like individuation for our generation’s children is either more valued or more difficult to achieve (or both) than it was for us in our day. I have plenty of things I could have used as an excuse to estrange my own parents, but it never entered my mind. My counselors over the years would have been appalled had I suggested it, I believe.
Estrangement between siblings and between friends often seems more of a result of sifting—separating wheat from chaff. It’s much harder for me to consider this to be the case between me and my own children. I shudder at the thought.
CICERO,
You going somewhere, you alright?
Sennacherib:
Thanks. Got some health probs but got going anywhere. I just wanted to acknowledge the many sound comments I read here.
Jim Melcher:
It really depends on the therapist, I think. Some seem to advocate it quite easily, which I think is a huge mistake. But in general it is advocated more often these days than in the past, with a lot of it driven by online stuff.
We have such a range of options for our attention these days, we’re spoiled for choice. It didn’t use to be that way, and I think this huge range of options places family at a disadvantage. Plus, younger people are trained from birth to indulge in gratification, instantaneously. Not getting it? Get rid of the thing, then, and get another.
I also find that when your child enters family life themselves, gets married, has kids, starts raising them, it suddenly brings a sense of reflection into the picture. They start to think about themselves as kids, then as you as their parent, when they were kids. They suddenly start to relate, to understand. Gratitude starts to become a thing.
But today’s generation isn’t getting married as much, or having kids as much. So we’re seeing a change.
Last weekend I saw my kid remind my grandkid that the reason a toy had been taken away was due to bratty behavior toward the younger grandkid. At which point I commented to that ‘family always comes first’, whereupon my kid repeated it and said ‘listen to grandpa. Family first.’
Hmmm. This website might be of use in considering the children who have broken over for “minor” issues.
https://issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/
And friends and family members can also just drift apart, without actually being “estranged”. Whatever the initial ties or attractions are, they may perhaps no longer be as strong or needed.
Part of this observed family disconnectedness can also be attributed to people just moving around and away from each other due to job prospects, interests, or other opportunities. Americans are famous for this. If grandma and grandpa, uncle Joe and aunt Sally and cousin BIlly are not around to baby sit, or join weekly dinners, etc. then family ties can easily weaken on that score, too.
Neo — i don’t know the terms of the new will. My guess is the neighbor likely does. Our lawyer told us “undue influence” is sketchy to prove and the lawyer the neighbor procured is wise enough to deny it. (I think our lawyer was too nice and trusting — we hired a guy who specialized in working with the elderly. He called the other lawyer and asked her if she thought there was possibly any “undue influence.” She told him no. I told him that she has a vested interest in there not being undue influence: if there had been, as a lawyer facilitating it, she’s part of it.)
R2L
Correct as to moving. My family is from New England but my father moved to Detroit for work, and raised us there. Our vacations always involved a trip to see each side of the family, a week each. One of his brothers was ‘around” as his job required, ending up in Florida. My Mom’s side also went south, in part.
Growing up, pretty much everybody on the block–speaking generically–had relations out of state.
However, the serious break up results in part, imo, from the assigned moral wonderfulness of various political positions. For example, the guaranteed, inevitable, impeccably predictable result of raising fast-food wages (massive job loss) was dismissed when the “just want them to be able to get a living wage” (dramatic sniff) gave one the moral high ground and self-congratulation. After which, one blamed “greedy businessmen”.
Feelz trump facts and feelz demonstrate one’s moral superiority. Therefore, don’t talk to me about no practical stuff, you fascist.
Neo — i also should’ve added that the general attitude of the state where this happened has been that the elderly — unless there pretty much in a coma — make their decisions and that’s that. “Undue influence” gets rarely proved there. Probably related to that is that it takes a lot of money to even start the bask rolling.
I have a suspicion this is a hoax generated by people hired to right trend stories.
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HC68 wrote: The problem is that politics has changed. When the disputes between the factions were about tax rates or whether voting age should be 18 or 21, or stuff along those lines, people could disagree and leave it at that easily enough. But when politics turns on core values, on the basic foundational articles of faith, and/or personal identity, then it turns toxic almost by definition.
Indeed!
But your examples, abortion and Israel, seem to be perennial issues, never resolved. In such cases I wonder if the purpose isn’t the issue, but the sturm und drang.
It’s that feeling, that the politics serves simply to stir people up, that let’s me say, I don’t have to talk politics.
Related (from Turley…on the SCOTUS family in D.C.)…
“…Justice Sotomayor Suggests Justice Kavanaugh Is An Uninformed Elitist”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/contempt-court-justice-sotomayor-suggests-justice-kavanaugh-uninformed-elitist
In my experience the family rifts are not usually political. More often they are intragenerational (among siblings), related to disputes over parental care or inheritance (or both).
The American family has been weakening since the sixties at least. When I was a kid, I was usually the only student from a broken home in my classes.
Now it’s around 25%. Of course, it’s more complicated than that.
Gradually, then suddenly.
The narcissist/borderline personalities are clustered in two groups:
1. Aging boomers. Many never built families, or trashed the ones they built under the influence of various social/political movements. Now they are railing against their own mortality.
2. Millenials (often raised in broken/blended homes) who are basically postmodern nihil-Marxists.
My guess is that normie children are setting boundaries with crazy Boomer grandparents, and normie parents are setting boundaries with crazy nihil-Marxist grandchildren.
You can certainly find a number of articles over time about family estrangement.
The one I remember best was about a book, and it covered a story from the book. A man brought his girlfriend home, and there was trouble. One of the complaints was that he would complain about how they treated the girlfriend. Finally he cut them off, and his mother says she doesn’t know what she did wrong, he should tell her, and she would apologize.
Ben David:
That’s not what I’ve seen at all, either online or in the regular world.
There are some cases of bona fide alcoholic or drug-addicted or otherwise extremely dysfunctional parents (or children) being cut off. But for every one of those, there are more who report cutting parents off for far more ordinary “offenses” such as not automatically approving of everything they do.
Plus, a ton of politically-motivated cutoff, almost always from leftist offspring to conservative parents.
Talk about rejection!
What I want to know is, how Kristi Noem ever got a security clearance, much less the Cabinet post of Director of Homeland Security, when her husband was such a freak?
I had a Secret security clearance when I was in the military, and the security investigators even went back and interviewed my grade school teachers.
According to the news story linked below, Noem’s husband, Bryon, was apparently doing some rather flamboyant carrying on on the Internet.*
How was his twisted carrying on not turned up?
* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/04/kristi-noems-husband-bryon-allegedly-discussed-leaving-her/
As reported by the children? Because there are certainly parents who *say* that their children cut them off for not approving all their actions, even while betraying that they expected the children to do only what they approved of.
Mary Catelli:
Yes, as reported by the children. Very petty nit-picky reasons they cut their parents off. Or politics, particularly leftist children with parents who voted for Trump, even if the parents don’t argue politics with the children. The children cut them off for just being on the right.
And no, it doesn’t go in the other direction very often.
You should check out that site I posted
Incidentally, do you have a link for the children side? Because the article you provided — assumes a lot.
“Suddenly, the adult child comes to believe he or she has had a long history of problems with the parent.”
Perhaps he has. Perhaps the new spouse — and new in-laws — reveal merely by contrast that the guff he has put up with is not simply families, it’s his family being abusive.
Perhaps he has. Perhaps the new spouse — and new in-laws — reveal merely by contrast that the guff he has put up with is not simply families, it’s his family being abusive.
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It’s not inevitable, but it is something you should expect – that your family compares favorably to your in-laws or your in-laws compare favorably to your family – and to a degree which trumps your preference for the familiar or your natural loyalties.
And of course, there was an enormous political divide on shows like “All in the Family,” but they still spent lots of time with each other.
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Mr. A. Bunker, warehouse employee, union member, and WWii veteran, accepted into his home his son-in-law. The son-in-law was in school the whole time (while the daughter worked) and extended to his father-in-law neither affection nor respect (and eventually started cheating on Mr. A. Bunker’s daughter). It’s indicative of Rob Reiner’s stupidity that he said 40 years after the fact that people like Mr. A. Bunker “should be marginalized”.
This really hits a nerve with me. My family is dwindling fast — our parents are long gone, as are our eldest and youngest brothers (one from complications of diabetes and obesity, the other from drug and alcohol abuse), so now only three of us remain. At 71 I am the youngest. Both of my surviving siblings have ghosted me; neither one has spoken to me in years. Yes, we have our differences, politically and religiously, but I’m perfectly able and willing to be friendly with people who don’t share my beliefs. Apparently they are not. It makes me terribly sad. You’d never know it to see us now, but we used to be a close family.