“Their Childhood Was Full Of Trauma And I Was At The Helm” — Parents Whose Kids Are Estranged From Them Are Sharing What They Think Went Wrong
In a post shared to r/AskReddit, site user u/youngGod928 asked, “Parents with grown children who no longer speak to you, what do you think led to the estrangement?” Here are some of the most-upvoted answers:
1. “My kids still speak to me, but not much. I’m better than I was, but I was a crap parent. Poverty was part of it. Bad chemical decisions.”
“I got myself cleaned up, got out of debt, and got rid of the guy who was harassing my son and acting like our daughter could do no wrong.
My parents were atrocious, and I really thought I was much better. Actually, I was much better, but I wasn’t better enough. It was hard for me to show love because I never experienced it myself. There were times I didn’t hear from my boy for years, and honestly, I know I deserved that. I wrote him a long letter, apologised for my faults, and honestly have tried to be better. We have a much better relationship now, and while we are not super close, we have something, and I’m grateful.”
2. “My daughter doesn’t talk to me as much anymore. She moved out when she was 22. I suddenly had severe mental health issues for five years (no history of mental illness like that, just your old run-of-the-mill anxiety and depression), and after dealing with the aftermath of a tragedy, I had to be hospitalised. It traumatised her.”
“I understand why she pulled away, even if it was for something I couldn’t help, and I don’t blame her. My last attempt was in November, so I hope with time we will be able to be close again. I text her every few days to tell her that I love her, and she responds in kind. We text about life a few times every few months, but we used to be best friends before the tragedy that upended her life and then mine. It altered the course of our lives.”
3. “I was an asshole, a shitty parent, and an alcoholic. My son stood over me during an argument when he was 18 (he was 6’4 and I am 5’6) and scared the sh*t out of me, so I kicked him out. That was 14 years ago and he hasn’t spoken to me since.”
“I have not been able to apologise, to show him how much I have changed for the better and how different I am with his younger brothers (who are also adults now, teenagers at the time). I miss him every single day, however, it’s his choice and I have to live with that. Thankfully his brothers and I have a wonderful relationship, it took a lot of hard work and tears, but I am so grateful they are a huge part of my life, along with two grandchildren now.”
4. “I was estranged from my adult daughter for quite a while. I know where I f*cked up. I wanted all of the control so she couldn’t make the same bad choices in life that I had. I thought that only I knew what was best and forced my thoughts/opinions into every conversation. I tried to steer her clear of the ‘hard road,’ but she took the exit anyway.”
“I was a total ‘pick me’ mom. I was jealous of her relationship with her deadbeat father and resented them both.
I had to learn to let it go! This was way before Frozen by the way!
We have a pretty good relationship now. We have not gone to counselling, but we have spontaneous chats about her childhood/young adulthood. I can see things much clearer now and have done a lot of ‘crap, I didn’t know that,’ and heartfelt apologies for my honest failings. She’s a mom now herself who asks me for advice.
I don’t think she really forgives me for everything, and that’s okay. There’s some stuff I don’t forgive her for either. We have a truce and try to work through the hard stuff together. Hopefully, we will come out on the other side with a better understanding of each other.”
6. “My daughter cut me off because of masks, vaccines and politics. My grandkids live 10 miles away and I haven’t seen them in three years.”
7. “In my case, the catalyst was January 6th. We had a family group chat and we were exchanging information about what we were watching with our own eyes. My oldest son started chiming in saying it wasn’t that bad and the news was overblowing things. Up to that point, I had no idea how far gone down the conservative hole he had gone. Of course, he waited until after I moved him into a new apartment in the middle of July, cosigned for the apartment and paid the security deposit before he decided to cut contact.”
“He has gone no contact with the entire family with the exception of a conservative BIL, which we get along with fine. I thought we had shown all of our children how to get along with others even if their opinion differs. I guess that lesson didn’t sink in.”
8. “My daughter hasn’t spoken to me much in the last two years. She’ll come to see family (her grandparents’ aunts/uncles/cousins) but only replies to anything I say with one or two-word answers. I wish I could say I don’t know why. But I do. Her mom said she feels I put our daughter second after her mother and I divorced. I keep trying to rebuild that bridge. Hopefully in time.”
“The takeaway is this. It doesn’t matter how you perceive things, it’s how your child does. Don’t ever let them doubt how you feel about them.”
9. “It’s 100% my fault, or maybe 95%. My high school girlfriend got pregnant while we were in the process of breaking up. There was a real question as to whether or not the baby was mine. She was.”
“I moved back to my podunk hometown and tried to be a good father. My ex-girlfriend was looking for a boyfriend/husband, I was not willing to do this. She got pregnant two more times. I tried to be a father to my daughter, but I felt constantly shut out.
So I left and did not do nearly enough to keep in contact with my daughter. She did not like me because of my absence, and because of constantly hearing from her mother what a piece of sh*t I was. But again, I chose to leave. I was an adult and she was a child. I was immature and did not see any way out.
I email my daughter every month or two and she emails me back every year or so. This failure is the great regret of my life.”
10. “My ex-husband and I were going through a pretty ugly divorce. At the time, our daughter was in her freshman year of high school. She was treated unfairly by both parents. It was an incredibly stressful time for her and I was an emotional disaster. It took me five years of weekly counselling to dig myself out of the emotional hole I was in. During that time, I took responsibility for my behaviour and treatment towards my daughter and apologised with sincerity.”
“I try to keep the lines of communication open with her and remind her that I love her and am open to meeting up/talking if she ever feels ready.
Sometimes I hear from her, but most of the time it is silence.
She is an adult and has her own beliefs, which I respect. She is going into her senior year in college and I could not be prouder of her. She will always be my everything.
I miss her dearly, but it has been seven years now. I have moved on with my life. I will always hold space for her and have faith that someday she will be open to taking a step towards reconciliation.”
11. “I was gonna say a whole bunch of personal stuff, but I’ll cut it at ‘don’t lie to your children then, perpetuate more transparent lies while trying to reconnect.'”
12. “My mother did her best to provide for our needs but she was cold and distant. No hugs. I hated the way she acted and vowed I would do things differently when/if I had children. Well, I had children. While I did attempt to change my behaviours from what I’d experienced, I slowly added my own ingredients to this soup.”
“Essentially, I ran our home as a military installation. My girls were quickly and harshly disciplined for even the most minor of offences. The discipline evolved into very binary rules. For instance, you are expected to get this minimum score on a test at school or you can’t go to your friend’s house on the weekend. You didn’t make that grade, you were not going. If you cried and begged and pleaded, you were still not going but now I would restrict/remove some other thing you wanted for not accepting your fate. And so on.
When they did things that were good, I would more or less dismiss this as me not rewarding them for what they should have done anyway.
Basically, they couldn’t win.
I believed at the time that I was building strong girls into strong women. It feels as though I’ve done the exact opposite.
On the rare occasions I do hear from them and the subject of the past comes up (this is very rare), I get the ‘I don’t hate you but I don’t want you in my life’ speech. It’s deserved but that doesn’t lessen the sting.”
13. “I am one of those moms who always felt that providing for my kids, taking them on vacations, and buying them what they needed was enough. I didn’t realise love and nurturing were essential ingredients. Now my daughter is 28 and struggling in some areas. She made me realise (therapy helped) how my actions, and behaviour might make a child feel they are not valued or loved. I am remorseful and regret all my actions but unfortunately cannot undo the damage they caused.”
14. “My son went no-contact with me because he feels that it’s best for his personal growth and his peace of mind not to be around people who behave badly or have negative attitudes or dysfunctional ways of relating to each other, and yes, those things have been true of me. I believe that he and I may have differences in our sense of proportion, but it’s really only his perspective that matters because it’s his happiness at stake.”
“I don’t want to be the reason that his life feels any more fucked up than it already is. It makes me sad in a way that I can’t even express. I can’t change the past. I was trying so hard to change the present. It’s so fucked up to know that the best thing you can do for the person you love the best, is to leave them alone.”
15. “I am/was a terrible parent. I rarely spent any time with my children. I deserve my children going no contact with me.”
16. “I was trying to raise children when I’d never had a good role model for how it’s done properly. I had untreated and misdiagnosed mental illnesses. I was a shit parent. Their childhood was full of trauma and I was at the helm. I thought I was doing pretty well given the circumstances of our lives but I wasn’t at all. I was a baby with a sick brain and no support system trying to raise babies.”
“I believe I did my best but unfortunately sometimes our best simply isn’t good enough.
I don’t know how to make amends with my kids, but I know that the best course of action is to respect their autonomy and their wishes to not interact with me. I just love them from far away now. And I can absolutely say they are the most amazing, kind, compassionate, and beautiful people I’ve ever seen. I’m so proud of all of them.”
H/T to r/AskReddit and u/youngGod928 for having this discussion.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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