Call Your Mom

    A few years ago, a family therapist by the name of Joshua Coleman wrote a piece in The Atlantic on a distressing phenomenon he was witnessing more and more frequently: generational estrangement. I only ran across this article because I did a search for essays, podcasts, whatever, about this issue as I wanted to see if other families were just as dysfunctional as mine! And they are! Parents and adult children are cutting ties more than ever before, usually because one party decides unilaterally that a relationship with the other is no longer wanted. More often than not, it’s the kids who break the link. 

    Is anyone really surprised by this trend? As the nation polarizes and culture fragments, individuals have become very good at building child-like (and I can’t emphasize enough the phrase “child-like”) “safe spaces” for themselves, in which their own views, preferences, and personal choices are continually affirmed. Anyone unwilling to play by the rules of their personal fiefdom are usually told to “get the hell out.” So much for a diversity of thought and ideas, huh? 

    Much has already been written on the political implications, but during the holidays especially, it’s worth thinking more about the personal costs of this approach. The holidays can be a joyful time, but it can also be deeply painful for people estranged from loved ones. And there is ample evidence that Americans are suffering enormously from loneliness, isolation, and a lack of human connection. I find it sadly alarming to see kids slamming the doors on their parents, because it’s hard to see how a culture can sustain itself when it places immense burdens on parents without recognizing any reciprocal obligations of piety on the younger generation’s side. A healthy life involves both chosen and given relationships, and kids should learn from a young age how to navigate both.

    Surprisingly, not everyone agrees. Coleman, in the above Atlantic piece, did present family estrangement as a sad phenomenon, but some people view it as a mark of modern liberation. We didn’t choose our family, right? So why do we owe them anything? A more recent piece in the New Yorker documents a sustained effort on the part of advocacy groups to normalize family estrangement, treating it as a perfectly legitimate choice for anyone who finds their relations more burdensome than supportive. Happy “Effing” Holidays, America!

    Now, don’t get me wrong; there can be serious reasons for refusing to see a family member...or two. Hell, I’ve got mine in alphabetical order! Perhaps they are violently abusive, or they deliberately undermine children’s moral or religious formation. Some people have addiction or dependency issues, and demand that their relatives act as enablers. Or perhaps they’re just awful human beings. In our time though, it’s far more common for people to cut ties for interpersonal reasons. This key quote from Coleman should terrify all of us:

    “Deciding which people to keep in or out of one’s life has become an important strategy to achieve...happiness. While there’s nothing especially modern about family conflict or a desire to feel insulated from it, conceptualizing the estrangement of a family member as an expression of personal growth as it is commonly done today is almost certainly new.”

    Ponder that for a moment, dear reader. People today tend to see “the estrangement of a family member as an expression of personal growth.” And this is “almost certainly new.” Narcissism to the utmost degree.

    People have always disagreed with their kin about questions of importance to all concerned, such as politics and religion. It’s painful when loved ones don’t support your life choices. And sometimes people just don’t get along! That’s life, and it’s not new; nearly everyone has experienced that to one degree or another within their clan. If you need help with that...ring a Gnostic! I’m on call! Moron.

    But when a therapist explains that it is now common to see “the estrangement of a family member as an expression of personal growth,” that’s something far more perverse. Instead of valuing relatives as people, some want to instrumentalize them as part of a personal narrative, severing relationships as an expression of their own identity. Of course, if that’s permissible, it could presumably happen to any parent, no matter how loving or conscientious. And this is exactly what Coleman has found. Though he agrees that parents sometimes find it difficult to understand or acknowledge how they’ve hurt their kids, or burdened them with unreasonable demands, he also writes, “My recent research—and my clinical work over the past four decades—has shown me that you can be a conscientious parent and your kid may still want nothing to do with you when they’re older.”

    “Bad childhoods” now appear to be responsible for an enormous share of the world’s problems, and who might we blame for THOSE? Really, Boss? The “Broken Home” excuse? Are you kidding me? You’re gonna go there?! Hey, my little quadruped elf, scarred me for life!! You’re an idiot!!!

    It’s a strange thing. Modern parents invest massive time, energy, and resources into their offspring, probably more than at any other time in history. But the kids, once they’ve grown, are more likely than ever before to decide that their parental units or their grandparents have failed so spectacularly that they don’t deserve even the occasional phone call. Trust me...I’ve seen it happen. 

    Maybe it’s not so strange, though. On further consideration, this is broadly consistent with the modern approach to all human relationships. The data I’ve read suggest that twenty-first-century Americans are increasingly likely to cut ties with people who vote differently from them, or disagree on significant moral or cultural questions. One study from a few years ago found that a remarkable 41 percent of young Democrats claimed they were unwilling even to patronize the business of someone who voted Republican in a presidential election. Really? Grow up! And it’s not just about the family reunions anymore; apparently there are people (and not just a few) who claim they won’t even buy a sandwich from someone who votes differently from them. (Young women appear to be particularly intolerant in this regard, especially if they lean left.) 

    I’m guessing most people don’t really follow through on that, because the required research would be exhausting. But we do tend to know the views of our nearest kin, and they bother us a lot more than the butcher’s, baker’s, or candlestick-maker’s. In fairness, even among people who earnestly want to do right by their elders, it can be genuinely difficult in these chaotic times to agree on appropriate expectations, boundaries, and roles within families. Time has eroded many of the rules and customs that used to help people navigate familial relationships. We aren’t sure what we owe each other anymore, and that uncertainty opens a lot of ground for misunderstanding, resentment, and a general fraying of said relationships. Still, it’s one thing to feel some angst in the lead-up to Christmas dinner, and another thing entirely to refuse to come.

    So even if you’re a fantastic parent, your kids might one day reject you in a gesture of triumphant self-actualization. But you probably won’t clear that bar anyway, because there’s really no such thing nowadays as good-enough parenting. Precisely because we now view attachment, nurturing, and education as crucially important to a person’s happiness and long-term success, parents are perpetually fighting an unwinnable battle. If your kids succeed in life, they’re free to leave you in the dust, but if they don’t, that’s probably your fault.

    It should be said that there are real upsides to the modern stress on attachment and close-knit familial relationships. Fathers today spend considerably more time with their children than in days of yore. Mothers, too, are more actively engaged, prioritizing homework help, outings, and read-alouds over housework. Is anyone really opposed to this? People matter more than dusty mantelpieces. But the dark side of this holistic approach to parenthood is that virtually any adult defects can now plausibly be blamed on parents. 

    It’s a losing game for parents. If “happy, successful adult” is the understood goal, there’s essentially no limit to the service and sacrifice that can be taken for granted, while any failure may be deemed unforgivable. Just think about the millions of miles parents put on theirs cars to get kids from one end of the state to the other, in the hopes of allowing the children to fulfill their dreams (or your dreams, Mr. and Mrs. Parent) of stardom. The problem is compounded by the fact that Americans, in general, are an impious people, prioritizing individual growth and opportunity over respect for ancestors or deference to tradition. At best, we tend to see our ancestors as the backstage crew who commendably laid the groundwork for our own existence. But we often take the immense work and sacrifice of earlier generations for granted, while hugging ourselves for shedding their benighted, shameful prejudices. Within that paradigm, generational differences are easily viewed as progress, while personal defects are relentlessly traced back to progenitors’ mistakes.

    In the midst of the holiday flurry, with presents to wrap, cookies to bake, and a zillion school concerts and pageants to attend, it’s hard for a mother not to remember those haunting words (“expression of personal growth”) and shiver. This time of year at the best of times is the year’s most stringent Mom Test, when mothers are expected to deduce and meet everyone’s expectations and emotional needs (including the ones they aren’t aware of themselves). She's thinking, which particular disappointment or moment of insensitivity might my kids be describing to a therapist twenty years from now? 

    Filial piety isn’t everything, nor should it be. Thinking back on my time in the preachers’ kid world, I can think of several friends I knew who made dubious life choices (entering careers they hated or marrying people they didn’t particularly like) out of deference to their parents or their church-belief system. I’m not sorry that American culture overall, rejects that kind of slavish obedience, especially because, in my albeit, limited anecdotal assessment at least, elderly people turn into petty tyrants when their every whim is appeased to that degree. Older people have their own blind spots, and it’s generally not good for anyone if adult children are hamstrung by an elderly mother’s nostalgic daydream, or an elderly father’s inflexible understanding of “how our family does things.” We expect prime-aged Americans to build functional lives for themselves, so we must allow them some room to make their own adult decisions, even at the cost of disappointing their parents. 

    Outgrowing a parent’s authority doesn’t mean outgrowing the relationship, however. If you can read these words, someone surely poured immense effort into feeding, clothing, and protecting you over the course of many years. They’re humans, which means they made, and continue to make, mistakes. But without them, you’d never have made it out of diapers.

    If the relationship is fraught, here’s some good news. Familial relationships don’t have to be perfect. For children as well as for parents, your best can often be good enough. This is the magic of given relationships: because they are rooted in something more than feelings, they can endure some hard ones. In a way, Christmas is all about a particular “given” relationship, and the lifelong effort to make the most of it. Perhaps that’s one reason why family reconciliation is such a common recurring theme in Christmas television specials and movies.

    It’s human nature to crave companionship and intimacy. But most people historically have taken for granted that they need to maintain many non-intimate relationships, for both practical and moral reasons. This is not outrageous. It’s not morally compromising. Sometimes it’s just necessary to get along with people you find difficult (or at least endure their company for a while).

    My reading experience suggests that women tend to find this more difficult than men. Women are more willing, in general, to sever familial ties. I also think it has something to do with the comparatively greater energy that women pour into “kin-keeping,” or maintaining the quality of familial relationships. Men are often willing to come to the family function, make some polite small talk, and move on with their lives. Women feel more compelled to soothe feelings and mend fences, and that can be a wonderful form of service, but if a relationship doesn’t seem fixable they may be more tempted to jettison it entirely. That’s often a bad mistake. Sometimes you just have to allow a thorny relationship to be thorny. 

    This is particularly true in a rapidly changing world, where people’s lives do tend to be quite different from the lives of their parents and grandparents. In an agricultural society, a boy was expected to grow into someone very much like his father, and a girl like her mother. I know that more than one person in my family thought that I should become a minister, like my forefathers. Imagine that! Today we have fewer cross-generational touchpoints, and that makes relationships harder even as our expectations for them grow more stringent. But we still need love and connection. We still have phases of life where we need other people to care for us. We still find life far more meaningful when we’re part of something bigger than ourselves.

    I know Christmas is behind us, but I felt this was a bit heavy for “right before Christmas reading!” Anyway, call your Mom...before New Years’ or at least as soon as you can—no matter who she voted for. Family can be difficult, but it’s not the sort of thing a person should outgrow.

Write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com