Why are so many adult children cutting off their parents? It is one of the most common problems Dr. Ray hears on the radio and in his office: faithful parents shut out by their grown kids, sometimes kept from their grandchildren. In this audio blog he lays out the chain of events he sees again and again.
“Common, so common, so very common”
If you’ve listened to this program at all, or ever sat in my office invisible, you would know that one of the far more common problems I deal with is parents who have been estranged, shut off, excommunicated by their young adults or even their middle-aged adults. Common, so common, so very common.
A couple of weeks ago on this program I had an article that talked about this from a secular psychology perspective. It said a lot of young adults are writing off their parents. “Rightfully so!” was the tone of the article. Because, it said, what used to be looked at as just faulty parenting, struggling parenting, or just human parenting, we now realize is a lot more pathological. That was the tone of the article. It was awful.
The chain of events behind estrangement
These are generalizations, but here’s how it typically goes.
1. The parents believe; the kids don’t. The older generation is more religious, and that’s borne out by the stats. Something like 40 percent of Gen Z, up to about age 27 or 28, are “nones.” Not sister nuns. They are nones of no religion. That has plateaued, and there are even little spurts of younger people embracing the faith, young men more so than young women. So the folks I hear from are by and large more religious, and their young adult children by and large are not.
2. The kids aren’t content, and they look for someone to blame. To the degree that these young adults are not content in their lives, they make bad decisions. Especially in their thirties and forties, there is often a history of relationship problems, life problems, struggle. They’re not settled individuals. They’re unhappy, they’re discontent, they’re anxious. And of course they look for someone to blame, and the easiest target is their parents. “You did this to me.”
3. Discontent leads to therapy. The percentage of adults in America who have at least tried therapy is over 50 percent. So it stands to reason: the more discontent, the more likely you are to approach a therapist.
4. The therapy focuses on the self. In general, therapists practice a very secular type of psychology: it is most important that the individual feel at peace in their existence. If anybody is rattling that peace, then we have to consider separation from those peace disturbers, which oftentimes are parents.
So we start out with religious parents who raise the kids pretty much in religion. The kids shed religion and want no part of it. They’re shaped by the culture, and they look at their parents like throwbacks: I don’t like your religious views. I don’t like your morals. I don’t like your politics. I don’t like the way you look at life. And you screwed me up.
They go to therapy, and the therapist, listening to how they describe their parents, says, “Wow, you need to put some distance between you and those folks. From what you’re describing, they sound toxic. Have you set boundaries? Maybe for your own mental well-being you need some distance from them.”
That’s where individual therapy goes. It focuses on the self, whereas Christianity focuses on the other. So there you have it: a confirmation that I’m not the one who needs to look at myself and what I’ve done to my parents. My parents have done this to me, and the therapist says so. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across that chain of events.
“Unprecedented in human history”
It’s only slowly starting to become apparent. I noticed this years ago. Dennis Prager was talking once, before his accident, about how many calls he got from older parents who said: I have no relationship with my young adult or middle-aged kids. I can’t see my grandkids. They don’t want me in their lives. I’ve tried to reach out. I’ve tried to apologize for whatever, but they don’t want to hear it.
I read a column by Dennis Prager about this, and I thought: finally, somebody in the secular world is noticing that this is happening. I believe it is unprecedented in human history, that the next generation, in such huge numbers, looks back on the generation that raised them and says, “Ew! You’re pathological!” An interesting, interesting generational dynamic.
Facing this in your own family? Dr. Ray answers parents’ hardest questions about faith and grown children in Family Faith Under Fire: Practical Answers to Everyday Challenges.
Transcript of Dr. Ray’s audio blog, lightly edited for reading.