The Hidden Costs of Familial Estrangement Across Generations

By Brian Keith Shrewsbury

Pop and Grandson

      There is a growing trend among younger people today to cut of their not so perfect parents. Adult children being estranged from their parents for years in no longer uncommon. Grandchildren grow up not ever knowing their grandparents, that in the past were a great support to adult children, but not so much these days. The lack of connection with adult children and their children is a profound loss to the parent, who in most cases did the best they could. There are cases of course where parents needed strict boundaries or no contact, but that is not the norm these day. When the ties are broken it affects three generations. This trend could disrupt families for decades and cause each generation to look at family as expendable and not really need in their lives.

      The Loss of Shared Life and Daily Presence is to say the least heartbreaking. The absence of milestones like birthdays, holiday and graduations. Grandchildren taking their first steps or their first day in school, are missed by the grandparents and the children do not experience having grandparents like other children. The weddings, the anniversaries and all of the conversation of life milestones that are not shared.

     There are no traditions like most families have passed down through the family. No rituals or cultural heritage, the recipes and the stories from the past never get passed on are lost to the ages. Families missing out on the day to day presence of the people that were once so critical in their lives, not just strangers. The school pick ups, the Sunday dinners and just dropping by that builds the long lasting bonds are never realized so they do not miss them, because they never knew them.

     The loss of family memories and the families legacy dies with each passing year. The loss of photographs and videos to share when the older generation is gone, the laughter, the travel and adventures are not recorded or remembered, they are just a void. The stories that are left untold to grandchildren and the family history that isn’t explained. There is no chance for them to get to know the parents that their parents had and what made them the way they are. Everyone has a broken narrative, an incomplete history and a void of anything for a generation.

     The emotional impact of the estrangements is akin to having a children taken from you; you know that they are still having a life, but you are to a part of that life. The grief and loneliness and the longing to resolve and forgive is an every day reminder of guilt and shame for the parents.  Being cut off from everyone and everything in their children’s’s lives is about the hardest thing to cope with, and I pray each night for them to open their heart and forgive and remember there was good in our lives too. I would never want my adult child to experience what they have put me through, it hurts too much and I would not want that for them.

     For the adult children it must have consequences that are not seen but felt in their own memories of childhood. Their memories must need to be pushed back and they must have to convince themselves that they are better off. When act a certain way, or do a certain thing and it reminds them of their parents, do they push that memory aside? To walk around with hating your own parents so much that you would never speak to them again and not allow your own children access to their grandparents must come with some shame and guilt. I hate to thing that these children that I have loved and watched grow up have to deal with the pain of hate and shame and anger. It is no what to live a life, and especially to teach that to yet another generation that may turn on them from learned experience. Only to start yet another generation on the path of loss and estrangement.

     The Loss of Opportunities alone for the family and for the children is devastating. Things that are unique to family elders will to be taught, and the values and the skills will be lost to time. There will be no lessons learned or emotional anchors made. No support system if there should be a family crisis. The door is permanently shut as far as the parent is concerned, but their heart is open and hurting for years to come.

      These broken bonds become patterns teaching children estrangement is normal and forgiveness and family is unimportant. Estrangement creates a cycle of disconnection and fractured family identities very similar to divorce and loss of custody. The cost to everyone is a future unknown, and a past that does not exist.

      Estrangement often arises form real pain, real hurt and family trauma, and the family carries a heavy invisible cost. I pray each day for grace for our entire family. The hurt that I have caused I ask for forgiveness each and every day from God. Reconciliation would be a godsend and a miracle for our entire family, and each day that passes our family drifts farther away from each other. I do not know if healing is possible, I do not know if my own estranged children even want that opportunity. I have left it in Gods hands and have not moved on with my life, and not an easy thing to do.