The Epidemic of Parental Estrangement:

The Generation that Was Scared of Their Parents is Now Scared of Their Children

Experts report an epidemic of adult children cutting off contact with their parents. In one recent study, researchers found that twenty-six percent of young adults are estranged from their fathers, and six percent are estranged from their mothers. The parents report that these estrangements often happen without notice or explanation, leaving them feeling deeply hurt and in the dark. Being cut off by their children is often devastating to a generation that often idealized their children and devoted themselves to being closer to their children than they were with their parents.

Baby boomers were raised by parents of the “greatest generation,” the generation that lived through the great depression and fought in World War II. That generation as a whole tended to parent in fairly traditional, authoritarian ways, telling their offspring that “Children were meant to be seen and not heard.” Corporal punishment was still an acceptable way of disciplining children, and children were often afraid of their parents, particularly of their fathers. Mothers frequently threatened their children to “wait until your father gets home.” Children being afraid of their parents was not only normalized, it was often regarded as an essential strategy to ensure good behavior in children. When children misbehaved, it was commonly believed that the cause was insufficiently strict parenting. Many men of that generation have told me that being afraid of their parents was an essential part of becoming a disciplined adult of good character, and they frequently lament that their children are spoiled and lack ambition and resilience because they “had it too easy” and had no reason to fear their parents.

The children of those Boomer parents often parented their children in ways that were a reaction to their dissatisfaction with…