When the Parent-Child Bond Is Cut

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/opinion/parent-child-estrangement.html

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To the Editor:

Re “When Families Fall Out” (Science Times, Dec. 26): I have experienced the heartbreaking trauma that results when a daughter cuts off herself and her three children from her parents and her entire extended family, without a clear reason. One of the main pillars of our Muslim-Judeo-Christian heritage is forgiveness. When all communication is cut off, there is no opportunity for understanding, apology or a plea for forgiveness.

Our daughter was raised in a warm and loving family with all of her needs lovingly provided. There was no abuse, no addiction, no neglect. Right now it appears that my seriously ill husband and I will die without ever seeing her again.

It has obliterated trusting family communication because of the pain and hurt experienced by her immediate and extended relatives. Holidays become torture. Nine years have gone by without a word or a response to our many attempts to reach out. In some ways, a death would be easier: There would be no wondering or hoping that the separation might be reversed.

MARTHA R. BIRNBAUMTAMPA, FLA.

To the Editor:

Our cultural myths about motherhood — that all women are nurturing, that mothering is instinctual, that all mothers are loving — are the bedrock on which the myths about estrangement rest. The culture puts the adult child who initiates a cutoff or goes “low contact” on trial and labels him or her an ingrate, disrespectful or impulsive.

Over the last decade, I have interviewed hundreds of women for two books I’ve written. The decision to divorce an unloving or toxic parent usually takes many years, even decades. Estrangement is a last-ditch effort to stop the pain of abusive or neglectful parental behavior and to reclaim the self that was damaged in childhood.

PEG STREEP, NEW YORK

The writer is the author of “Daughter Detox: Recovering From an Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life.”

To the Editor:

Bravo for publishing “When Families Fall Out.” Millions of people around the world will be less judged and better understood as a result. As our assumptions about this phenomenon continue to be peeled back, I only hope that researchers will also begin to focus on the ways in which making healthy choices to separate from dysfunctional families can allow people to heal, grow and fulfill their potential.

KAREN DEMOSS, NEW YORK