<story><title>A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/01/why-parents-and-kids-get-estranged/617612/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hackeraccount</author><text>We&amp;#x27;re all living that Asian family joke.&lt;p&gt;Parents spend their whole lives waiting for their kids to thank you.  Kids spend their whole lives waiting for their parent to say &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m sorry.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;That said I&amp;#x27;ve never felt that way about my Mom and Dad.  I&amp;#x27;ve faults and problems a plenty but I wouldn&amp;#x27;t ascribe any of that on them; indeed the best things about me seem to clearly come from them and the worst are just as clearly things they suggested I not do.  What are you going to do though, even if all that wasn&amp;#x27;t true they&amp;#x27;d still love me and I&amp;#x27;d still love them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rogerclark</author><text>In therapy circles and attachment theory land, this is exactly what&amp;#x27;s supposed to happen when you receive &amp;quot;good enough parenting&amp;quot;. Good enough parenting means your parents actually tried and either worked through any of their issues preventing them from giving care to their children, or didn&amp;#x27;t have those issues in the first place. So the idea goes, you end up developing a relationship based on mutual respect, love, and level-headedness.&lt;p&gt;The problem is, not everyone is lucky enough to receive that kind of childhood care, even though it seems like it should be universal. Lots of people are massively fucked up and still have kids anyway, either accidentally or otherwise. And then their kids are put at a massive disadvantage in life and in human relationships.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s usually difficult for people with decent upbringings to even conceptualize why a child might willingly remain estranged from their family. But there are a lot of people out there with really good reasons to do that.</text></comment>
<story><title>A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/01/why-parents-and-kids-get-estranged/617612/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hackeraccount</author><text>We&amp;#x27;re all living that Asian family joke.&lt;p&gt;Parents spend their whole lives waiting for their kids to thank you.  Kids spend their whole lives waiting for their parent to say &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m sorry.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;That said I&amp;#x27;ve never felt that way about my Mom and Dad.  I&amp;#x27;ve faults and problems a plenty but I wouldn&amp;#x27;t ascribe any of that on them; indeed the best things about me seem to clearly come from them and the worst are just as clearly things they suggested I not do.  What are you going to do though, even if all that wasn&amp;#x27;t true they&amp;#x27;d still love me and I&amp;#x27;d still love them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>samatman</author><text>Yes, but for many of us in the West, without the tradition common to East and South Asians of reciprocal obligation.&lt;p&gt;This used to be nigh unto a human universal: your parents raise you up from a helpless infant to adulthood, and this obliges you to love and care for them for the rest of their lives.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m as deracinated Westerner as it comes, and yet I&amp;#x27;m fairly traditional in this regard. I can think of three acceptable reasons to estrange from parents: sexual abuse, severe physical abuse, and the parents disowning the child. Even the second one leaves a lot of room for reconciliation, since they can&amp;#x27;t hurt you anymore.&lt;p&gt;I mean, easy for me to say, my parents easily earned a B+ and I was able to work out my teen angst with my father by my mid twenties. Still: casually abandoning &amp;quot;honor thy father and thy mother&amp;quot; doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be working out very well for us.</text></comment>