The Estranged Cat is Out of the Bag and the Herd of Elephants in the Room is Being Acknowledged

Before I begin, I want readers to know that I have a lot of trepidation about posting this two-part article. Although I don't get too specific about my husband's and my experience with estrangement, it identifies us as members of the discarded parents club. The post has been sitting in my draft folder for several weeks and Larry and I have been mulling over it and praying. I spoke to my spiritual director as well. After serious consideration, I've decided to post it now during the month of the Sacred Heart uniting our sorrow to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Immaculate and sorrowful heart of the Blessed Mother. 

I'm not a fan of airing dirty family laundry in public. Larry and I do not talk about the divisions with the grandchildren, even the adults. However, we know they are aware of the painful situation and maybe silence about it is not golden since silence implies agreement. Will this post hurt them? I hope not. I don't think so. The truth can set you free and, perhaps discussing the painful reality of family divisions will encourage them to always appreciate their parents, their siblings, and other extended family members.  I hope it will inspire them to always act in charity and prevent them from ever going "no contact" with anyone in the family, especially their parents. A chain that loses its links one by one becomes smaller and weaker. If enough links are removed, it becomes useless. 

To be clear, we are not estranged from all five of our children. And not every separation is estrangement. As families grow in generational size, big holiday gatherings become impractical. That happened in my own family when children married and started their own families. My widowed mom used to have an annual Epiphany party at Fort Meade's Officers' Club that became the yearly reunion for anyone who could make it. What joyful events those parties were with all our children enjoying their cousins and seeing aunts and uncles. And what a gaggle of cousins there were with my nine siblings and their still growing families. 

But now my siblings all have their own families and big get-togethers are rare. In fact, today those big reunions are primarily weddings (and funerals). That's a natural occurrence as all our families expand. That is not primarily estrangement, although there is some of that in the extended family as well. With so many personalities and the impact of cultural, political and religious differences that's not too surprising. It's very easy to just walk away.

In closing this little introduction, I leave a final message for our grandchildren: Love your parents, dear ones, and always treat them with honor as the fourth Commandment demands. Love your siblings and repair relationships with them as quickly as you can when things break. They are your life preserver in troubled times. You won't always agree, but you can always treat one another with love and respect. Above all, pray for everyone in our large, beautiful family that we will love and respect each other always and stay connected. 

I hope, during this month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that exposing the heartbreak of millions of suffering estranged and discarded parents reflects God's timing and His will. I hope it will do some good. Please pray for all families suffering from estrangement. The attack on marriage and the family, as Lucia of Fatima said, is the devil's last battle.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.

The Estranged Cat is Out of the Bag and 

the Herd of Elephants in the Room is Being Acknowledged

For all you parents and grandparents out there who are dealing with the pain of estrangement or parental discard from one or more of your adult children, I recommend this post:

The Estranged Cat Is Out of the Bag: The Introduction of the Estranged Parental Voice in the Conversation

There's lots of talk about transparency these days and many people enthusiastically share with total strangers on social media the most intimate details of their lives and their family troubles. Older generations tend to do more suffering in silence and many aging parents have felt totally alone in dealing with the estrangement culture and loss of children and grandchildren. Imagine the pain of a parent hearing the words, "You are dead to me." Many parents think they are the only ones dealing with the pain and sorrow of losing their children. Listen up, parents! You are not alone. We all need to embrace one another in the loving heart of Jesus.

Parental silence has been deafening, lost in the noise of adult children's laments and accusations, but, thank God, that's changing. The growing herd of elephants in the room (estranged parents) is finally being noticed. One in four families in the United States is experiencing estrangement, 67 million (mostly parents) discarded by their children. And the numbers are growing. Rachel crying for her children continues. 

As for parental silence it is no longer a healthy or viable option. Parents have a right, and perhaps an obligation, to be part of the conversation. Bishop Athanasius Schneider in his Credo catechism workbook on the morality of human acts asks this question. Do I take sufficient responsibility for my actions? Do I do others the honor of expecting the same from them? Parents, of course, need to examine their consciences for the ways they contributed to the estrangement, but so do their adult children! Relationships are a two-way street. Yes, real abuse happens and actions to protect oneself and one's children are necessary in those cases, but many accused parents today are innocent of abuse. They are guilty of being flawed human beings who made mistakes, but never deliberately hurt their children. Sadly, many adult children adopt the narrative of “I don’t owe my parents anything.” They’ve sandblasted the fourth commandment off the tablets God gave to Moses. That is a sinful and serious problem.

It's important to realize that the estrangement/discard culture doesn't just affect the estranged parent and adult child. It pollutes all the relationships in the family. Adult children cut off siblings and make other members of the family persona non grata. Sometimes the adult child triangulates to draw siblings or extended family to take "their side." Cousins are cut off from each other without quite understanding why. Family gatherings take place in a strained and uncomfortable atmosphere where some people make a point of avoiding others. It's a tsunami of pain and grief rippling through the entire family circle.

To put it in a simple context I think of Dr. Seuss's story about the sneetches. The star-bellied sneetches are the best on the beaches. Those without stars are shunned.

In too many families today the members are divided between the first-class, star-bellied sneetches and the no star sneetches. Parents and other shunned members of the family circle are rendered invisible. Dr. Seuss ends his story happily with all the sneetches wising up. Sadly, that isn't the general result in the estrangement culture. In many cases the death of parents will be the exclamation point on the estrangement without finalizing it.  The living who have severed other family relationships with siblings and extended family may turn it into an on-going feud.

Accusatory labels may simplify the narrative for the aggrieved adult children, but they poison the situation. They describe  imperfect parents as narcissistic, boundary-violating, abusive, neglectful, immature, emotionally absent, toxic, etc. Estranged children fling these terms around about parents who tried hard to raise them well often sacrificing time and money to give them advantages they never had. 

Sometimes, encouraged by unethical therapists who know nothing about the parents, adult children go no-contact on their therapists advice. Since their parents weren't perfect, therapists (some who are estranged from their own parents) "connect the dots" for their clients. Instead of offering strategies for conflict resolution, they endorse no contact. Just walk away.

What happens next? The estrangement's impact filters down through the family creating divisions among siblings and cousins. Ordinary flawed parents are lumped in with drug addicts and alcoholics who battered or neglected their children or screamed obscenities at them. The estranged adults use the same adjectives for totally different life experiences. One of the worst aspects of this is that it trivializes real abuse like molesting or sex trafficking children. I read one post by a woman discussing her mom's emotionally controlling behavior, complaining her mom gave her a baby doll for her birthday instead of the Barbie she asked for. I was a parent pleaser growing up. I let my mom pick out shoes or dresses I hated. Was it her fault I was too timid to speak up? She also made me some beautiful clothes I loved. I prefer to remember the gorgeous pink dress she made for my graduation that I wore to dances all through college.

I don't want to be dismissive of hurt feelings. It's good for feelings to be acknowledged, but life is more than feelings and there comes a point when becoming a grownup means having your reason control your feelings. Forgiveness is also a grown-up virtue. Are 25-30% of U.S. parents really deliberately trying to hurt their children? I don't believe it!

The bar to be described as "good parents" has been raised beyond reach for many of us, millions in fact. How do estranged adult children define abuse? How do they define narcissism and toxicity? Parents aren't told, they are simply labeled. Was my mother abusive when she called me "scissors sharp and twice as snippy?" (I was, and sarcastic as well.)  Mom and Dad made plenty of mistakes, but I would never claim I was "abused." They lived through the depression and two world wars. I think they deserve some mercy.

With regard to the linked article, I don't know Marybeth's story, but I've heard plenty of others from parents and grandparents in my circle of friends and acquaintances. Some of the stories are so over the top it's unbelievable. Parents of large families whose sacrifices for their children filled their days (and nights) have been nailed to the cross. But, as Marybeth points out, the Oprah show on estrangement has drilled a hole in the dike showing the deep divide in the therapeutic community and finally lifting the veil of silence on parental and family suffering. And it's high time!

Here's a little of Marybeth's article, but don't stop there. Read the whole thing!

My first exposure to anything approaching an opportunity to hear the other side [point of view of parents] was the November 2025 airing of the Oprah podcast, in which a strong leaning adult child estrangement argument also included a short, barely tolerated attempt by Dr. Joshua Coleman to speak for parents and grandparents. It was disappointing at the time, but in retrospect, he appears to have made a breach in the dam.

There is a growing number of mental health professionals in various platforms on line who are pushing back against the cult-like, myopic movement of estrangement. I recently noticed a contributor by the name of M.F. Shaw or Parental Discard who is lobbying for a change in taxonomy of this rapidly growing tragedy. Shaw suggests that the DSM lacks formal diagnostic criteria for what she calls parental discard. Therefore, there does not exist a protocol for intervention. Thus the reason that so many “therapists” have gone rogue in determining their final solution (read Nedra Glover Tawwab, Lindsay Gibson). Furthermore, Shaw states that estrangement involves the slow, mutual drifting apart of parties in a relationship. It is bilateral. Parental discard, in contrast, is suggested as the more appropriate terminology as it reflects the unilateral decision by the adult child to rupture the relationship without any mutual contribution or benefit. Parental Discard is apparently collating research data from Cornell University.

This is spot on, but many parents who've been "discarded" don't talk about it for fear of making things worse. I think that needs to end. The Bible doesn't hide the story of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers. It records Ham's disrespect for his father Noah. Isaac and Rebecca weren't perfect parents and Cain and Abel and Jacob and Esau sure weren't perfect brothers! The Bible tells the stories of estrangement and sometimes of reconciliation. 

At this point, I believe the painful truth needs to be exposed. The same adult children who tell their story to anyone who will listen and slander their parents and other family members to all their friends and even encourage siblings and other relatives to take "their side" (triangulation) should not own the narrative. It's time for parents to speak up in truth and in charity. We love our children, but their version of family history is often very one-sided.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW