A Young Pastor's View on Estrangement

Do you wonder what the adult children think about their parents?

I read in a private group about a woman and her husband who were talking to a young pastor and his wife in their congregation. The conversation included talking about children and the trend of disrespect, verbal attacks, and manipulation. Basically, the behaviors leading to estrangement that parents often face before ghosting actually occurs.

The 36-year-old pastor says that he sees this type of behavior from his generation often. He acknowledged that it is a generation of "me" and that they struggle to see issues through other people's eyes. In my opinion, that is a lack of empathy and grace towards others that he is describing. While I don't like rash generalizations, there is something to look at there.

That has me thinking back and wondering if I (or my generation) was perceived like that. I know my generation was labelled slackers even though we were hard workers in a difficult economy. But did our parents' generation see us as disrespectful and difficult? Most of us wouldn't have dared. In our time it was be seen and not heard. We may have over corrected as parents. But we thought we were doing better by being different than our parents.

The pastor followed that with that he sees many people of his generation's parents walking on eggshells in order to have a relationship with their adult children. He says many of his generation expect their parents to continue to help financially, babysit their children - sometimes even raising their grandchildren. He's found if a parents of these adult children try to establish boundaries, the relationship goes south. We know that's when the accusations start leading to the path of No Contact.

Both the pastor and his wife said, "We see it all the time with 'our' generation."

This may help parents understand what's going on, without the caveat of defined abuse or neglect, which the majority of the current discarded parents don't fall into.

Child abuse is the physical or psychological/emotional mistreatment of children. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver that results in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm to a child.^[20] Most child abuse occurs in a child's home, with a smaller amount occurring in the organisations, schools or communities the child interacts with. There are four major categories of child abuse: neglect, physical abuse, psychological/emotional abuse, and sexual abuse. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse for an in depth read and links to resources.

It is mortifying to me to think that is the way my child views me, as personal accusations have been thrown. My youngest once said to me and wrote on social media that although my actions/inactions do not fit into any of the categories, that they felt abused anyway. And, it hasn't stopped the character assassination of untrue things or true things out of context and spun into negativity with their realization and admission that it's not true.

I have learned that once someone sees you through a negative lens from perceived slight, parental alienation, or any other reason, all of your actions or inactions are going to be spun in a negative light, even if innocuous or good. This is true in any kind of relationship. Even if it's pointed out, often it does not change the perception, whether deserved or not. A change of heart is difficult to come by.

So, these are thoughts I share in hopes that it may help someone to possibly stop blaming themselves, stop wondering should of, would of, could of - and to realize this is more common that most people realize.

Does walking on eggshells and contorting to constantly changing unknown expectations, like walking on sand, always shifting, for the rest of your life sound like a good thing? At what cost do you want a relationship with your adult child? Do you want to walk on eggshells the rest of your life? Ask yourself what kind of relationship that is. In my opinion, it is not a healthy one.

It's an unfortunate situation. We will probably never know why - social media... influencers... affluency... shift in parenting styles... differing values... who knows. I'm not saying that the shift from corporal punishment is a bad thing as some suggest, though. I chose to avoid the authoritarian path. But did time outs, standing in the corner, or going to their rooms make them empaths? Seems not. Did discussions of actions and consequences, and of explaining the reasons for decisions teach them to give grace. Seems not. 

We've ended up with two generations of adults cutting off parents, being mean to everyone, expecting sometimes unreasonable accommodation and resources, sometimes abusive, and struggling in the world. Is this real progress? We'll see. We'll also see when the result of their parenting is in if their way is better.

Parenting is the long game. You don't know how well you've done for a couple of decades. And there's no perfect way of doing it. I hope I'm around to see their children as adults. Maybe they'll turn out better than ours did. We'll see.

I'm not telling you things you probably don't already know. I think it's interesting and wanted to share what a couple in their cohort think about their generation. While I'd like to think there are many good people among them, an unusually large percentage are choosing parental estrangement.

#estrangment #estrangedparent #socialmedia #influencers #ShiftInParenting #abuse #adulting #mothering #parenting #adultchildren #empath #GenerationalDifferences #AmbiguousGrief #reconcilliation #values