Why breaking up with a parent is sometimes the right choice

It was awful but also a fantastic thing to happen to me.” Cara*, a 25-year-old journalist from Bradford, is talking about an experience that, for many, would be unthinkable. Three and a half years ago, at the age of 22, she fell out with her dad – and they haven’t spoken since.

While the idea of reaching a point where you cut all contact with a parent might sound extreme, it is far more common than polite society would have us believe. Previous research by charity Stand Alone suggested around one in five families in the UK may be affected by estrangement; the Institute for Family Studies claims that 6 per cent of adult children in the US are estranged from their mothers. It’s long been such a taboo subject, though, that the hard data often simply doesn’t exist.

However, in the past few years, high-profile voices have tugged the issue blinking into the light. Actor Matthew McConaughey recently revealed that he had previously stopped speaking to his mother for eight years after she sold stories about him to the press (the pair have since reconciled). Davina McCall has spoken starkly and openly about the troubled relationship she had with her alcoholic mother following a nomadic childhood, while former child actor Jennette McCurdy made waves with her 2022 best-selling memoir, I’m Glad my Mom Died, soon to be an Apple TV series starring Jennifer Aniston. Earlier this year, editor-turned-author Eamon Dolan published The Power of Parting: Finding Peace and Freedom Through Family Estrangement, combining research, reportage and his own experience to explore the knotty issue of parental estrangement.

“I think it’s becoming more common as time goes on,” posits Cara. “As a generation we don’t put up with as much stuff anymore. We’re not eager to take on more trauma and hurt; it’s easier to prioritise yourself, especially as a young woman.”

Yet it’s unclear whether the number of adult children choosing to sever ties with a parent is actually increasing – there’s no firm research to back up this theory – or whether, more likely, people are simply able to speak about it more openly. There is more access to therapy, more language to define and process our relationships, and more scope to share lived experience via social media and other online platforms.

Estrangement can happen for all kinds of reasons. In Cara’s case, the relationship with her father had always been rocky. “He had sexist views… It had been building up and there had been more and more arguments,” she says. Things finally came to a head after he got into a physical fight with someone while on a night out to celebrate his daughter’s birthday. “He rang me later and tried to act like everything was normal. But something in my brain had switched; I thought, I am upset, I can’t just let it blow over.” After arguing on the phone, he ceased all contact. And Cara decided that she, in turn, would stop trying to have a relationship.

“It’s strange – it’s kind of like I’d always been looking for an out,” she recalls. “I’ve never had an instinct to ring him or to reach out. I had a gut feeling that I’d done the right thing.”

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It has been an undeniably “good thing”. “I didn’t quite realise what a negative influence he’d had on me until he’d gone,” Cara says. And people who are appalled by her decision “don’t have the context of the relationship beforehand – he wasn’t really a great dad. Where does that line between my happiness and family loyalty end?”

For Angel Cassin, CEO of Together Estranged, a non-profit dedicated to estranged adult children, the breakdown between herself and her mother was more dramatic. The daughter of a single mum, Cassin describes her upbringing as “chaotic, challenging. There were a lot of mental health issues, and that unfortunately resulted in some pretty extensive emotionally abusive behaviour.” As an adult, Cassin did her best to renegotiate the relationship and shift the dynamic – to no avail. “There were a lot of very exacerbating, challenging behaviours like stalking.” In the end, she was forced to involve the police. “It’s something nobody, especially a child, wants to do. But these things that you could never have imagined previously become necessary; you end up having to set really firm, clear boundaries that we now call estrangement.” Cassin has been no contact with her mum since 2018.

According to Dr Becca Bland PhD, a coach and researcher who is a leading expert on family estrangement, while each estrangement is unique, there are certain themes that repeatedly come up. Abuse, whether it be emotional, physical or sexual; a parent’s divorce and remarriage, which can lead to family ruptures; and polarised morals, values and beliefs. “We see this in the US right now; it’s a very divided nation in terms of values,” she says to this last point. “That impacts families, because we’re bringing our values, beliefs, and authenticity into those family networks. If it’s rigid, then we don’t really have the space to be ourselves and be validated for being ourselves.”

Sam Morris, an artist, writer and content creator from London, has openly shared his journey of estrangement with a nearly 350,000-strong TikTok following. He made the painful decision to cut ties with his mother after she became radicalised during the Covid pandemic, spouting ever more extreme conspiracy theories. “It’s been almost two years now since I’ve had any contact with my mum whatsoever, and I’m in an acceptance stage of grief – because I really had to go through it. It was horrendous,” he says in one emotive post from earlier this year. “I had to accept that the woman I knew was gone – I had to grieve her while she was still alive.”

Acceptance is a big factor for many of the members of the Together Estranged community who are also part of the LGBTQIA community; coming out has, in some cases, directly led to parental estrangement. It’s also not uncommon for people who decide to step away from religious groups or specific cultural norms to find themselves unable to continue a relationship with family members who no longer respect or recognise their decisions or lifestyle.

In Bland’s own case, she was raised by her grandmother as both her parents were addicts. “It was incredibly difficult to have a consistent experience of love with them; they were not emotionally available at all in our relationship,” she says. It led to abusive behaviour, neglect and “all sorts of toxicity.” At the age of 24, she tried to have a dialogue with them about it; the relationship swiftly broke down.

Despite the fact that estrangement is fairly commonplace – after all, rare is the family that doesn’t have some sort of “aunty Karen isn’t talking to aunty Sharon” situation – there is still a huge stigma attached, particularly when it comes to children who have voluntarily extricated themselves from a relationship with their parents.

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“There’s that typical societal deification of a certain value, right?” says Bland. “Like, Family Togetherness is really important. But if you’re an exception, you don’t really get a voice, and you don’t get a space, and you certainly don’t get a place for support or grief.”

A frequent knee-jerk response that adult children encounter is, ‘Oh but it’s your mum/dad/sibling. You only get one family! Pick up the phone!’ “A lot of the stigma comes from this misguided or misinformed sense that every family is safe and that every parent knows how to love their child,” says Cassin. “But we know that parents abuse their children. People need to understand what a nuanced, challenging, complex issue it is.”

There is particular judgement when it comes to mothers. If a father-child relationship deteriorates, particularly after divorce, it’s more socially accepted; the very fact that the term “deadbeat dad” exists where there is no female equivalent is, perhaps, telling. “That stigma is really strong,” says Dr Lucy Blake, an academic specialising in family estrangement and the author of Home Truths: The Facts and Fictions of Family Life. “I think some of that comes from how custody arrangements happen, with shared parenting often still being less common than mothers having custody. Then there’s paternity and maternity leave – family policies right from the start of life often favour mother-child relationships over father-child ones.”

Psychology research reflects an inherent belief that mothers are the primary caregiver and parent, such as British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott’s concept of the “good enough mother” or John Bowlby’s attachment theory. “There are lots of archetypes about the maternal bond,” explains Bland. “It’s something that is so conditioned by society – that mothers will always be loving. There’s a very high expectation for women to be the ‘perfect’ mother; but some women just haven’t got that capacity.”

As well as being an incredibly difficult decision to come to emotionally, estrangement from a parent or parents provides a unique set of barriers for adult children. And our society, with its continuing emphasis on the nuclear family, is not set up to offer support.

Blake points to different issues that arise at different life stages: students often struggle to meet basic needs for food and housing when they head off to university, for example. “Sofa surfing is common in that population,” she says. “They also suffer from not having anyone to call for practical advice around money and all the challenging, difficult aspects of becoming an adult.” Lots of policies aren’t set up for this cohort either, from accessing a student loan to having a guarantor for housing.

Cassin has dubbed the unspoken, practical difficulties the “admin of estrangement”. She gives the example of, when she got married, having to negotiate a way of accessing a version of her birth certificate that would be accepted.

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When adult children become parents themselves, they face additional obstacles by not having emotional support or help with childcare. “There is a societal expectation about the role of grandparents,” adds Blake. “The experience of raising children while you’re estranged from parents is a silent one that’s often overlooked.”

And that’s all on top of the in-built disadvantage of feeling guilty and judged in a society still predicated on moral tenets that originated from the Bible, such as “Honour thy father and thy mother.” “There’s a very English value about respectability,” as Bland puts it. “And having a good relationship with your family equals respectability. That’s what the research says. That becomes a massive value challenge in terms of, can I be a respectable, shameless human being and not have a relationship with my addict parents?”

Ultimately, despite the many hurdles and negative side-effects, estrangement can have a net positive impact for individuals who feel forced to go down this route. Sam Morris has said on TikTok of the decision: “I’m genuinely so at peace. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.” Cara speaks of the benefits after a childhood in which she had “so much happiness and so much confidence robbed from me”.

Many people have described finally feeling “safe” after ending parental relationships, according to Blake’s research, while a lot of people in the Together Estranged community have spoken about the “lightness” they experience after stopping contact – despite the devastating grief and hardship. A common reaction is, “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I’m so glad I did it.”

For those going through estrangement, sharing their experience and finding connection via a support group can be helpful; both Bland and Together Estranged run regular groups. “It gives you a social space to process the grief of losing someone who’s living,” says Bland. Therapy can also help individuals work through the myriad issues raised by a family breakdown.

And for those of us lucky enough that parental estrangement remains the unthinkable? Save the judgement and consider responding with empathy instead. “We need to be a kinder society and understand that people don’t make these decisions because they’ve fallen out over something minor,” as Cassin puts it. “And we really need to support people and look after them, because they’ve probably made a really healthy decision in a really unhealthy situation.”

*Name has been changed