Estranged: You Must Have Done Something Terrible

There is a thought floating around that I've seen pop up over the years that if you are estranged you must have done something terrible, way beyond the pale. In some cases that may be true, for the majority it is not.

I don't think about estrangement as much as I used to, and it's been de-sensitized for me when I do think about it. It's been seven years. Life moved on. As Aeschylus said memory is the mother of all wisdom. That's the gift of accumulated and evaluated experiences in later midlife. That's the place that I'm coming from.

As far as the blanket, flip, no insight, response to estrangement, my response to that is there is a dangerous arrogance in believing you can sum up a parent's entire story in one assumption. Yes, some estrangements happen for valid reasons - abuse in either direction, harm, trauma, etc. No one denies that. But not all do. The abusers generally don't give a damn but the rest of us have had our hearts ripped out and that fundamentally and profoundly harms and changes us.

Estrangement is not one size fits all. Some estrangements happen because of influence, because of unhealed pain, because it's easier to rewrite the past than to confront uncomfortable truths. And sometimes it's because it's a parent's job to guide with boundaries and to know where their kids are and to correct the course through adolescence. And sometimes from an adult child's double standard. Silence is more manageable than accountability.

Some assume the child is always the victim, and the parent is always the failure. But that's not insight - it is bias.

Those passing judgement did not see the sacrifices, the unconditional love, the boundaries crossed in silence just to keep peace. They don't see what parents held together until they couldn't anymore.

Parents are not asking for pity. Parents are asking to stop being erased. Estrangement is more complex than the "you must have done something terrible" narrative.

Sometimes the wound did not start with the parent. Sometimes it's an assault from someone else. Sometimes it is the natural disintegration development stage. But the parents are the ones who got buried under it.

In our world of self over others, which breeds entitlement, where schools, television, entertainment, the internet, a radically shifting society, and sometimes one of the parents, told our kids that THEY are the center of the universe and only THEY matter at the exclusion of all others, they react violently through action or deed to a firm parent who expresses their own feelings, dreams, wants, and desires to live their own life and pursue their goals - like humans are supposed to do. 

Parents who protect their own value, worth, and dignity and demand respect from these entitled grown toddlers are seen as cruel, selfish, and narcissistic. We are told respect is earned, from in my case a nasty ex who encouraged my kids to be disrespectful and patronizing, even though it was us who did all the parenting work. A multitude and I have earned respect but receive none.

It is a Catch 22 for parents. The parent who refuses to be a doormat is perceived as aloof or overbearing to the grown child's needy demands and is labeled as uncaring, unloving, and selfish. And the world says to them, "you poor little helpless child." How dare anyone take a stand in opposition to your center-of-the-universe self-seeking entitlement. If you do what they want and become a doormat at their beck and call then you will lose yourself, your dignity, and will be subject to ever changing demands. Or you will be banished. Forget about it.

I'd rather be where I am with my non-estranged adult kids in my empty nest life.

#estrangementblame #estrangement #estrangedparent