Cancel Culture’s Division of Parents and Adult Children

You may be aware that recently, a firestorm of controversy erupted and two generations collided, when I posted on Facebook about the epidemic of adult children canceling their parents. I wrote about how this new trend is encouraged by societal forces, and that the Millennial generation seems far more angry at their parents than previous generations.

Since then, in the many resources that have been shared with me, I found this article by psychologist Joshua Coleman, in The Atlantic to be objectively helpful to both parents and adult children affected by the penetration of Cancel Culture into parent-child relationships.

He cites a study in 2015 showing that 11% of parents were estranged from one or more children, but an even larger number talked to their young-adult child less than once a month.

It is my sense that some waves in the culture of the younger generations has popularized “canceling” parents much more since that 2015 study, and that the number is likely to be far higher than 11% now.

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Otherwise it’s hard to explain the hundreds of parents commenting on my FB post that they, too, have been canceled by one child or more.

One of the most heartbreaking stories that has been laid at my feet in recent weeks since that blog post (which I had to close down to all but “friends only,” after a woke-mob “troll” invasion of close to 1,000 angry Millennials I do not know)--

–was shared with me by a gentleman I met here in Florida.

His son died of a fentanyl overdose about 7 years ago. Their only remaining child, a daughter, in the aftermath of the funeral, somehow canceled her parents over a minor disagreement. One would think that when you’re newly an only child, with your family deep in grief, that your strong relationships with your parents would be of great importance to you.

More, this canceling daughter is a single mom. In the years of the silence and distance from the daughter, in fact, she has given birth to another child whom her parents have never met. You can imagine how devastated the grandparents are, by this. (Will this child grow up to think her grandparents didn’t care about her?)

Unfortunately, this story gets even more tragic. A few years ago, the daughter was in a car accident and critically injured. As she lay in an ICU, attached to tubes and machines and in and out of consciousness, for weeks, her parents flew all night to sit bedside, holding her hand and tending to her every need.

At the end of the hospitalization, which had a happy ending in that the daughter has recovered, she has retained the complete distance from her parents.

It has now been a few more years, with no contact from the daughter.

It may appear that I wish to lay all the blame for the epidemic in “canceling parents” at the feet of the younger generation. Dr. Coleman says children blame “toxic behaviors” of parents, and parents blame “entitled children.” If you commented on my FB post, while I was blocking trolls marking the comments of parents in pain, with laughing emoji’s (one lady’s comment got 78 laughing emoji’s from the troll army) – you may have noticed that literally hundreds of Millennial children used the words “toxic” and “narcissistic,” referring to parents of Gen X whose parents have canceled them.

I did not counsel families dealing with alienation from teen and adult children like Coleman does, when I was in both public and private practice as a psychotherapist, though I dealt with many broken families, including families whose children were taken by CPS and some were institutionalized.

Coleman alludes to a cultural shift in which, unlike, for example, Latino families where respect for elders and filial responsibilities have great importance and emphasis–the cultural shift seems related to how modern children hold their parents accountable for their happiness (or lack of same).

But something parents must consider is the fact that they, too, seem to take responsibility for their children’s happiness. This may not have been the case in previous generations, that parents tried to provide SO MUCH for their children, even taking responsibility for their long-term happiness.

Coleman says some very dysfunctional parents lose their children to alienation, but a significant majority of competent, loving parents do, too.

Coleman says fathers are less likely to be willing to beg the child’s forgiveness, where mothers are more apt to do so.

(This may be related to an additional cultural difference between men and women. Deborah Tannen’s book You Just Don’t Understand is a great work that informed my understanding of what research shows us about male/female communication styles. In male culture, particularly when a man is communicating with another man, but also when communicating with women: a man loses “status” by stating that he is wrong or asking for help–for instance, in having to stop and ask another man for directions, when lost.)

Coleman refers to a statement by Millennial NYT best-selling author of Educated, Tara Westover, where she relates the ironic but beautiful idea that when her mother told her that she knows she failed her children in some important ways, it was in that moment, that Tara finally saw in her mother what she actually needed.

This has not been my personal experience. I have no ego in the relationship with my eldest, who canceled me 8 years ago. I have begged forgiveness, for whatever he is angry about, I have absolutely no need for an apology from him, I just want him to rejoin his family, whatever that means I need to do. I was canceled just weeks after my son told me the reason I hadn’t met his new GF yet, was because she was intimidated because he was “such a mama’s boy.” As my son was turning 21, I acted on a threat I had made many times, as the holder of his car’s no-interest Mom Loan, and as the responsible party for his car insurance monthly premium as well as his cell-phone bill. When, for a couple of years, he was routinely late paying me those bills, I told him as he was turning 21, that I would help him find his own insurance plan and cell-phone carrier, but he needed to find his own.

That is the day he canceled me and never looked back. That day was the end of our relationship, barring a miracle, which I hope happens someday. I invited him and his later-wife on many family vacations, only to be ignored by my son, and told by his wife, “Robyn, you know you can’t BUY him, right?”

I think perhaps I enabled him, buying him a car when he turned 19, for no-interest payments to me. Perhaps I should not have carried his insurance and cell-phone bill on a “family plan.” Perhaps I should have let him go to a bank or dealership for financing, as most people do.

I’m not sure, looking back, that I could have seen that landmine in my path. My parents would never have allowed me to be on any of their plans, where they’d have to pay, and get me to reimburse. My own parents had 8 children, and I did a podcast episode with one of my little brothers once, about the almost comedic unwillingness of our parents to bail us out, if we got in trouble, even if that bailout was a simple as loaning us a box of tools.

I cannot argue with my parents’ track record: they have 8 entirely self-sufficient, successful, responsible children.

Perhaps when we ask our children’s forgiveness, we do not admit we are failures, so much as admit that we are human, leaving our need for validation behind us and seeking to simply love and forgive and seek peace.

We parents are now apparently tasked with the Herculean task of making sure our children have all their needs met; become productive, healthy adults; but hardest of all, happy adults. That last bit is the new part.

Perhaps in admitting we cannot make our children happy, we release ourselves from bondage, and we become more able to admit that while we did the best we could, with the tools and knowledge and experience we had, we cannot make them happy. Only they can.

I came to the conclusion, as the product of a very physically and emotionally abusive home, in which multiple times teachers or other extended family members took one of us to authorities to try to get us help (ultimately getting us none):

My abusive parent may have “made” me miserable and terrified for 18 years. But that parent is never going to be able to make me happy or whole. Only I can do that.

And the primary way I found to do that is by forgiving and letting go. Letting go of resentment, anger, and blame. Other ways I’ve found to heal and live a life where trusting others gives me happiness and fulfillment, are to develop myself in as many ways as possible, and serve in as many ways as possible.

And to recognize the “tender mercies” I found along the way: the family of a friend, who took me in, when I was 16 and kicked out of the house for wearing shorts to school.

The mother of my best friend, who was endlessly kind to me.

Two aunts, my Aunt Alita and my Aunt Sandy, who were deeply loving and accepting people, who were surrogate mothers to me. My Aunt April and Aunt Sue were further away, but also showed me what a loving mother could be. In the end, God provides what we need, even if it looks unconventional.

May all the canceled parents find peace, and may all the canceling children find space to forgive–if for no other reason than to be happy, themselves.

Read the piece in The Atlantic by Dr. Coleman who has specialized in Parental Alienation. And for a deeper dive, his book may give further insight. Please consider subscribing to my Substack, if my work has been meaningful to you. A paid subscription of $10/mo helps keep my staff doing our good work, though we make free subscription possible as well, as we know not everyone can afford to subscribe. And, please assume that some of the links I may share, compensate my small business.