CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Part 1: Estranged Parents Share Their Perspective

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

This is Part 1 of a 3 Part Series on Adult Child and Parent estrangement. In this episode, Whitney discusses the findings from a survey of 204 estranged parents. You will hear how this group of parents feels about their estrangement from their adult child, what they're willing to do to fix the relationship, and if therapists and social media really are the cause of it all. The responses from these parents reflect experiences and stories that resonate deeply with many who have faced the pain of family separation. They share their emotional struggles, expressing feelings of loss, confusion, and helplessness as they try to understand why their adult children have distanced themselves. These shared experiences highlight broader patterns in family dynamics, showing that estrangement is a complex yet relatable issue that touches many lives. We can learn a lot from the parents who were willing to share their experiences for this episode. What You Will Learn: [09:14] About the survey and how Whitney collected the data  [14:50] A breakdown of the findings from the survey of 204 estranged parents  [39:32] The responses and how they reflect our experiences and stories  [40:54] What to expect and look forward to in Part 2 Standout Quotes: "Adult children have a lifetime of experience under their parent care; for a minimum of 18 years, the parent has power over them, and this power differential never completely goes away.” [03:13] “Parents should attempt to be strong, steady leaders even when their children are adults.” [03:35] “Adults are entitled to have and end relationships with whoever they want to have relationship with, parents and adult children both have this right in adulthood, no matter how painful that is.” [03:41] Let’s Connect Have a question for Whitney? Call Home at 866-225-5466.  Join Whitney’s Family Cycle Breakers Club for further support and discussion on family dynamics at CallingHome.co. Follow the Calling Home community on Instagram. Click here to get “Toxic Positivity” on paperback.  Follow Whitney Goodman on Instagram or TikTok.  The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services, is not a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider, and does not create any therapist-patient or other treatment relationship between you and Calling Home or Whitney Goodman. For more information, please see Calling Home’s Terms of Service.  Mixing, editing, and show notes provided by Next Day Podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Calling Home Podcast. I'm your host Whitney Goodman. I'm a licensed married and family therapist and the founder of Calling Home, an online community for adults that want to improve their family relationships. As you might have seen, on TikTok, on Instagram, or if you're

a member of Calling Home, I have been collecting data about estranged parents and estranged adult children using a survey that I created. And now I'm sitting down to record all of the information that I found from that survey, and I'm going to break it up into a three-part series on the podcast for you. So today you're going to be hearing all about estranged parents and some of the information that I found from the survey data that I collected from those estranged parents. Then you're going to get an episode on Thursday about estranged adult children, and I'm going to go through the survey results on that. And then next week on Tuesday, you're going to get an episode from me where I'm going to compare and contrast the findings,

point out some of the biggest discrepancies between what we're hearing from estranged parents and what we're hearing from adult children. And I'm going to give you some feedback, some advice, tell you what surprised me, what didn't surprise me, and what I think we need to do moving forward to get these two groups on the same page or at least working together to repair some of these relationships when that is what they want to do. So if you're watching this on video, you're going to see that I have a lot of notes here because I want to make sure that I do not mess up this episode. And I want to make sure that I get the percentage is correct and the data correct and that I really report back to you an accurate assessment of what we found with this

survey. For those of you that are listening, don't worry about that. You can also watch my episodes now on YouTube. So if you do like to watch video or have closed captioning, you can definitely go do that. All right, well, let's go ahead and dive into it then, shall we? So unfortunately, when I sent out this survey, I was only able to collect 204 responses from parents, which was significantly less than the number of stories that I collected from estranged adult children that we'll talk about on Thursday. Before we get into this, I want to get a couple of disclaimers out of the way. If you were an estranged parent who wants me to say something along the lines of all parents

are victims or no adult child should ever abandon their parents or all adult children are toxic, you're not going to get that from this episode. If you believe your adult child is evil, your life is better off without them, or that I'm a therapist who is hell bent on making your adult child hate you, I am probably not the right person for you to get information from. about adult child and parent estrangement. And that's not something that I'm going to do in this episode. I also want to tell you a few things that I believe and some of my philosophies that inform my decade of work on this topic and that inform the things that I am going to say in this

podcast. I believe that adult children have a lifetime of experience under their parents' care. And for a minimum of 18 years, the parent has power over them. This power differential does not go away overnight, and we must always consider it during these conversations. For many adults, the psychological power their parent has over them never completely goes away. I also believe that parents should attempt to be strong, sturdy leaders, even when their children are adults.

Adults are entitled to have relationships with whoever they would like to have relationships with, and they are entitled to end those relationships. Parents and adult children both have this right in adulthood, no matter how painful that is. I feel very similarly about divorce and adult child estrangement, and here's what I mean by that. There are benefits to working on these relationships. There are benefits to making a marriage work, and there are benefits to getting divorced. There are benefits to making a parent-adult-child relationship work, and there are benefits to estrangement in some relationships. I will never encourage an adult to remain in any type of relationship where they are being abused, harmed, or disrespected, whether that is a

relationship with a parent, a romantic partner, a friend, or another family member. We also have to remember that many domestic violence perpetrators and perpetrators of family violence and intimate partner violence will deny that they have been abusive. They will argue that their behavior was warranted or that someone made them do it. This is a well-documented phenomenon. With estrangement between generations, we may have different opinions about what abuse looks like. And we also have agreed upon definitions about what those terms mean within the psychological community, within the court system, and within child protective agencies across the country. I will expand on these terms more in part three of this series. So you'll hear

me talk more about the definitions of emotional abuse, emotional neglect, physical abuse, and things like that. Some adult children are disrespectful to their parents. I will never refute this. I have never refuted this. And we have well-documented reasons for why children may come to treat their parents this way. And I will expand on this in part three as well. I do not believe shame is an effective motivator for change. And nothing I say in this episode is meant to shame parents who are estranged. I know that you are in an immense amount of pain. And I think that's the one thing that we can agree on is that both sides on this issue, the parents and the adult children,

are experiencing pain. And both sides did not want it to have to end up this way. I will also refrain from speaking to or arguing with anyone who takes a hostile approach to this issue. And I've received messages from estranged parents who are extremely angry with me and have tried to use insults, et cetera, to discredit me or to make a point. And I've had a strange parents attack my appearance, my marriage, my mothering skills, my credentials, my abilities, my license, anything that you can possibly think of. And I want you to remember that I am not your adult child. I am not the person that you are estranged from. And I know that some of the things I'm saying might be quite upsetting, especially if you are triggered or upset or feeling

highly vulnerable around this issue. And I understand that. And you do not have to agree with me 100%. You are allowed to say, what she's saying doesn't apply to my situation and I'm going to move on. This is not a person that I want to listen to when it comes to my estrangement from my adult child. That being said, I will not argue with anyone in this episode who feels they have nothing to change or does not wish to improve their relationship with their adult child. This episode is for anyone who wants to further understand the discrepancy between what adult children are saying and what the parents are experiencing. If you do not wish to change, feel that you have nothing to apologize for, and insist that your adult child carries the entire

blame for what has happened in your relationship. This is probably not the podcast for you. But I also know that there are many, many parents out there who want to understand and learn, and this is for you. Also, if you are an adult child listening to this episode, please keep in mind that some of the parents reported that they did not wish to repair the relationship or that their lives had improved since ending contact with their child. And this may be difficult to listen to later on in the episode. If you listen to this entire three-part series and say to yourself, this does not describe my situation at all. This does not describe my adult child. This does not describe what's happening in our relationship. That's okay too. I am not your estranged adult child.

I have not met you. I don't know exactly what is going on in your life, but I have talked to thousands of estranged adult children over the last decade, and I meet with hundreds of them every week in our groups at Calling Home, and there just might be something I say that can help you see this issue from a different angle. So in this episode, I am going to break down the survey results that the 204 parents completed. I also received some long-form stories from parents of adult children, and over 50 of those parents asked if they could call and speak to me rather than completing the survey. Several of them cited not wanting to put their story in writing as a reason for speaking via phone. I did not personally speak with anyone who contacted me, and I want to

thank everyone who is willing to complete the survey or share their story with me for this episode and for the next two episodes. A couple of notes about this survey, so you can understand how I collected the data and what the survey was like. This is not an academic survey from an academic institution, and I am not researching for a specific study or project. This is simply data that I wanted to collect. I am a therapist, and the majority of the information that I report and that I discuss for this podcast is based on my clinical work and the personal storytelling of the thousands of people that I have interacted with and spoken with over the last 10 years. And I am using that same approach to this three-part series.

I shared this survey from September 22nd, 2024 to October 1st, 2024, and I received 204 responses from estranged parents and 2,382 responses from adult children. I will cover the adult child's response on Thursday in part two of this series and in part three, I will compare and contrast the estranged parents' responses with the adult child and offer my interpretation and any relevant advice. This is a self-report survey, meaning that the survey was available, people could log on, and they could fill it out. There is a chance that people did not complete the survey honestly or that they made mistakes while they were completing the survey. Please note that these responses and the data I collected are purely informational, and I do not want

you to take them as fact or as something that you need to 100% apply to your situation. This information should not be taken as a representation of every single estrangement between adult children and their parents. And it is purely being used to help us open up a broader discussion and see different perspectives about this issue. I asked the same questions of estranged parents and adult children. And something I did notice is that I received messages from two parents who said, these questions are highly biased against parents. They're only the adult child's side. You know, something along those lines and I responded saying that I asked the same exact questions of adult children and their parents. So there were not questions that were tailored

specifically to parents to shame them or to make the situation look worse. And you'll see. that as I read through these questions. The only thing that was different was that the parent survey did contain three additional questions that were specific to estranged parents that were specific to the parenting role and how they felt about their adult child. And I did change some of the language of the questions because I had to ask it from the adult child's perspective and also from the parents' perspective, but they're ultimately getting at the same theme. And you'll see that when I share the data with you. I asked all the respondents to confirm before taking the survey that they are a parent who is

no contact or estranged from their adult child. And the survey was completely anonymous. Of those responses or emails that I did collect from parents, because I initially asked for stories to be shared with me before I created this survey and I realized that collecting stories was not the most effective way for me to create this series, a lot of those stories were very long and detailed, which I think there's often a criticism of parents for being very vague and not specific in their stories of estrangement. And I did receive a lot of very detailed stories from parents. And so I thought that that was interesting. And I mentioned that I also did receive a lot of requests to speak via phone. And the estranged parents who reported that

they were hesitant to share, shared that they were afraid that this was going to paint parents in a bad light, and I understand their fear around that, and I'm being very cognizant of that fear. And I want you to know that this is strictly me reporting the information I was given by a group of estranged parents. And the only side that I am on is really attempting to create dialogue between these two groups of people and create healthy, reciprocal, respectful family relationships. And I know that we are going to have findings from both sides that are going to challenge some of the ways that both of these groups think about this issue. All right. So let's go ahead and dive in and examine those 204 responses that I got from estranged parents. And I want to

remind you, I am just going to be reporting the data that I got from estranged parents. Okay. And we will analyze it later. But remember some of these questions because you're going to want to go back to them when we talk about the differences or when you're listening to the episode about adult children. Okay, so the first question that I asked everyone was who initiated the estrangement and 89.7% of parents reported that their adult child initiated the estrangement. And then we have some other just small pockets of like, you know, 4.4% are not sure, 3.4% said it was a mutual decision and 2.5% of parents in this grouping said that they were the ones to initiate the estrangement with their adult child. I also asked parents how long they had been estranged from their adult children

and the majority have been estranged for 1 to 5 years at 58%. 25.2% have been estranged for under one year and 13.7% have been estranged for 6 to 10 years, 3.1%, 11 to 15 years. We had no estranged parents report being estranged for 16 plus years. When I asked parents how old their adult children were, I was really trying to find out if this truly is just a young people thing. I think that's something that we hear a lot among estranged parents. And I wanted to find out is that actually what's happening among this group. And interestingly enough, 37.3% of parents said that their adult child fell between the ages of 26 and 32. So these are not 18-year-olds, but certainly younger people. 30.2% said that their child fell between 18 and 25. And so definitely, you know,

we have around 70% here, close to 70% saying that their adult child is between the ages of 18 and 32, which would definitely be considered on the younger side, right? Then 26.2, percent said that their adult child between the ages of 33 and 39, 5.6 percent have a child between the ages of 40 and 46, and 0.8 percent have a child that is 47 and older. So it does seem that the majority of parents who completed this survey definitely have children that are on the younger side, and the data they're reporting is consistent with that belief that this is definitely something that's happening more among younger people. We'll see when we look at the adult children who filled this out if they also fall into that same

age grouping. This is a very interesting question that I want you to remember when I bring up the adult children. How would you describe your adult child's childhood with you as a parent? 51.7%, the majority reported mostly good. 21.2% said challenging. 14.3% said amazing. 10.3% said fair and only 2.5% said poor. So we have 51.7% saying mostly good and 14.3% saying amazing. And then we have these other small groupings that said challenging, fair, and extremely poor. I thought that was super interesting. And I asked adult children this question as well, but on their own self-report of what their childhood was like with the same option. So we'll get into that on Thursday. I then asked parents, are you estranged from more than one of your children?

59.7% said that they have multiple children and they are only estranged from one of them. So they are completing this survey about one estranged adult child. 17.9% said I only have one child and we are estranged. So the majority of people here, close to 70%, are completing this survey about one estranged child. They either have one child or they have multiple and they're only estranged from one. Then 13.4% said they had multiple estranged children, and 9% said they were estranged from all of their children. So I thought that was very interesting, that we're seeing estrangement really from one child in a lot of these situations and not all of the children in the family, or it's an only child. This is a question that I did not ask adult children

because it was specific to parents. I then asked, did Child Protective Services, a department of children and families or another child protective agency get involved with your family while your children were under the age of 18. 84.7% of estranged parents said no. 14.6% said yes and 0.6% said, I do not remember or I'm not sure. I asked them, is there any valid reason for an adult child to not have a relationship with their parent? 68% this really surprised me. 68% of of respondents said, yes, there are many valid reasons like emotional neglect, different beliefs, etc. 19.2% said, I'm not sure. 8.9% said yes, physical abuse is the only valid reason. And 3.9% said, no, an adult should maintain a relationship with their parent through adulthood,

no matter what. And I do want to point out a mistake that I made here is that I also asked adult children this question, but I included one additional response option where I said any reason is valid. And I did not give parents that option. This was an error on my part, but I would assume, and maybe this is an incorrect assumption, but I would assume that those parents probably chose the response of, yes, there are many valid reasons, like emotional neglect, different beliefs, et cetera. And so I think we would have kind of seen the same breakdown here except with maybe some parents choosing between those two options with the additional option that I gave adult children. Do you understand your adult child's reasons for going

no contact or becoming estranged? Forty-six percent said, I kind of understand, but I'm still confused. 35.6 percent said, no, I do not know why they became estranged. And 18.3 percent said yes. So I thought this was pretty interesting. The majority here, more than half are saying, I kind of have an idea, either yes or I'm still confused. And then we have 35% saying, no, I don't know why. We became a strange. So I think that kind of contradicts a lot of the discourse that we hear. And that was pretty fascinating to me. I did not ask adult children this question because it was a question that was specific to parents. Has your adult child attempted to set boundaries with you. 43.3% said no. 22.7% said yes and I understand their boundaries.

19.2% said yes, I kind of understand, but I'm still confused. 7.4% said, I'm not sure. And 7.4% said yes. And I think they're bound. The new Mitsubishi Outlander brings out another side of you. Your regular side listens to classical music. Your adventurous side rocks out with the dynamic sound Yamaha. Regular U owns a library card. Adventurist U owns the road

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My adult child's relationship or spouse slash partner did not play a role in our estrangement. 30.2% said true. I do not get along with my adult child's spouse or partner. This contributed to our estrangement. 24.8% said false. My adult child is not married or partner. Their relationship did not play a role in our estrangement.

So this is also very interesting. And I need to stop myself from giving so much commentary. I'm going to save that for part three. But this is something that I did receive a lot more detail about in the emailed long-form stories that I got from parents. A lot of them included references to the adult child's boyfriend, partner, spouse, being a reason for the estrangement, but this was not reflected in the same way in the survey, which I thought was interesting. Is your addiction and or substance use one of the reasons for your estrangement

from your adult child? The overwhelming majority, 87.7% said no, addiction and or substance use did not contribute to our estrangement. 4.4% said, yes, I struggled with addiction and or substance usage during their adulthood and childhood. 4.4% said, yes, I struggled with addiction or substance use during their childhood, and 3.4% said, yes, I struggled with addiction slash substance use during their adulthood. Is your adult child's addiction and or substance use one of the reasons for your estrangement? The overwhelming majority, 83.7%, said no, addiction and or substance use did not contribute to our estrangement. And 16.3% said, yes, my adult child struggles with addiction and or substance usage, and this has contributed

to our estrangement. You will see that with these questions, I asked the parents about their own behavior and the behavior of their adult children, because that's something I often hear a lot from parents, is that I am estranged because my adult child has an addiction. I am a strange because my adult child doesn't want me to enable or wants me to enable them. I'm estranged because my adult child's mental health. So I wanted to see this from both perspectives. I did not do this with the adult children. You'll see that difference when I go through those results. Is your adult child's mental health one of the reasons for your estrangement? 54.5% said yes, my adult child struggles with their mental health and this has contributed

to our estrangement. Forty-five point five percent said no, my adult child's mental health did not contribute to our estrangement. Is emotional abuse one of the reasons for your adult child's estrangement from you? No, emotional abuse is not one of the reasons for our estrangement, here at 54.2%. 23.7% of parents said, my adult child says I was emotionally abusive and I do not agree. Remember this for part three. 13.7% said, yes, I was emotionally abusive to my child in childhood.

And 4.6% said, yes, I was emotionally abusive to my child in childhood and adulthood. And 3.8% said, yes, I was emotionally abusive to my child in adulthood. So I gave the parents the options to choose when these behaviors were happening because I really want to look at are most of these issues coming from childhood, adulthood, or both. And we'll talk about that more in part three. Has your adult child described you as emotionally immature? Remember this question as well for part three. 44.1% said, I'm not sure if they've described me this way.

40.6% said no. 15.3% said yes. So yes, they have described me as emotionally immature, or no, they have not described me as emotionally immature. Majority are not sure. The other 50% almost say no, and we have a small percentage saying, yes, I've been described this way. Do you believe your adult child's other parent has contributed to the estrangement?

41.2% said yes. 40.2% said no. And 18.6% said, I'm not sure. If you have multiple children, do you believe sibling rivalry contributed to the estrangement? 57.3% said no, 29.9% said yes, and 12.7% only have one child. Is physical abuse one of the reasons for your estrangement from your adult child's? No, physical abuse did not contribute to our estrangement. 90.2% of parents said that. 6.9% said my adult child's says I was physically abusive and I do not agree. 2.5% yes, physical abuse in childhood and 0.5%

of parents said physical abuse in adulthood. No parents selected the response, yes, physical abuse in childhood and adulthood. Have political differences contributed to your estrangement with your adult child? 88.2% said no, different political beliefs did not contribute to the estrangement and only 11.8% said yes, different political beliefs are a contributor to the estrangement. If you and your adult child have different religious beliefs, did this contribute to your estrangement? 95.1% of parents said, no, religion did not contribute to our estrangement. 2.5% said, yes, I am upset. My adult child left our religion. 2.5% said, yes, my adult child is upset that I don't follow their religion. And zero parents selected the option, yes, I am

upset. My adult child follows a different religion. And what I was getting out there was maybe they had converted or something like that. Is sexual abuse one of the reasons for your estrangement from your adult child? Ninety-eight percent of parents said no, two percent of parents said yes. Is your child's sexual identity or gender a contributing factor to your estrangement? 97.5 percent, no, it is not a contributing factor. 2.5 percent, yes, it is a contributing factor. Is emotional neglect one of the reasons why you are estranged from your adult child. 59.1% of parents said no. 17.7% of parents said, my adult child reports emotional neglect as one of the reasons for our estrangement.

I do not agree. 13.3% said yes, emotional neglect in childhood. 8.4% said yes, emotional neglect in childhood and adulthood. And I want to comment here that it's very difficult to mark some of these things off and to take accountability and responsibility for that. So every parent that was able to do that on this survey while reading through this, I commend you for that because I think that can be really triggering and overwhelming. Do you believe your marital issues or divorce contributed to the estrangement with your adult child? No, my marital issues or divorce did not contribute to the estrangement, 51%.

15.7% said, yes, my marital issues contributed to the estrangement. 15.2% said their divorce contributed to the estrangement. 15.2% said marital issues and divorce contributed to the estrangement. And 2.9% said, my adult child reports, my marital issues and or divorce are a reason for estrangement. And I do not agree. Number 25, if you remarried or repartnered, did this contribute to the estrangement? 60.2% reported that they did not remarry or repartner, so this is not a factor for them. 25.4% said, no, I remarried and repartnered, and this did not contribute to the estrangement. 11.4% said, yes, they have a new partner and it contributed to the estrangement. And 3% said, my adult child believes my decision to repartner or remarry

has led to estrangement, and I do not agree. I then asked parents, do you believe a therapist is responsible for convincing your adult child to become estranged? 47.5% said, I'm not sure what role their therapist played in their decision. 27.7% said, no, they did not attend therapy before deciding to become estranged from me. 11.4% said yes, they were likely contemplating estrangement and working with their therapist ultimately led them to that conclusion. 9.9% said, no, their therapist did not play any role in their decision, and 3.5% said, yes, it was their therapist idea, and they followed their advisement. They did not want to become estranged, and the therapist convinced them.

This one was surprising to me. I'm interested in comparing it to the adult children's next week. Do you believe social media posts about estrangement or going no contact influence their decision to end the relationship with you? 57.4% of parents are not sure. This was very surprising to me as well. 20.8% said yes, social media posts helped them feel less alone and like they were allowed to make this choice. It had an influence. 12.4% said no. Social media content about a stranger played no role in their decision to go no contact. 6.9% said no. They did not view any social media content about estrangement before they made the choice to end the relationship with me. Bankmore on course when you switch to a Scotia Bank

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Also very, very confusing results here. 90.1% of parents said, no, my adult child did not ask me to attend therapy. 8.4% said yes and we went together. 1.5% said yes and I refused, meaning they refused to go to therapy. Before becoming estranged, did your adult child ask you to attend therapy independently? 57.8% said no, they did not ask. I made the decision to attend therapy on my own. 22.1% said no, they did not ask and I did not go to therapy. 16.2% said yes and and I went, 3.9% said yes, and I did not attend therapy. Did your adult child explain why they are going no contact or ending the relationship with you? 64.5% said no. 22.2% said they

tried, but I did not understand their explanation. And 13.3% said yes. Before ending the relationship with you, did your adult child ask you to apologize for something specific? 79.9% said, no. 13.2% said yes, and 6.9% said, I'm not sure. Have you ever apologized to your adult child? 85.3% of parents who completed this survey said yes. 6.4% said no, and I have nothing to apologize for. 4.9% said I'm not sure. And 3.4% said no, and I believe I need to. Do you need to change any of your behavior in order to have a healthy relationship with your adult child? This was an interesting one. 47.3% said, I'm not sure.

39.4% said yes. And 13.3% said no. I also asked parents if they were estranged from a parent to try to see how much of this has been passed through generations. 60.4% said, no, they were not, they're not currently estranged from a parent. 20.3% said yes, they are estranged from a parent. 12.4% say I was never estranged, but my parent is deceased. So we have around 72% saying that they were never estranged from their parent or they're not right now. And 6.9% said I was estranged

and my parent is deceased. So 70-30 split about here. Has your adult child prevented you from seeing grandchildren as a result of your estrangement? 44.1% say they do not have grandchildren. And 41.7 percent report, yes, their adult child has prevented them from seeing their grandchildren as a result of their estrangement. 14.2% said no, they have not been prevented from seeing their grandchildren. And I'll say more about grandchildren in a little bit. Do you feel your life has improved since becoming estranged from your adult child? 55.7% said no, it has gotten worse. 26.1% yes, it has improved. 18.2% it has stayed the same. I then asked parents, in a free response box, what are you willing to do to repair this relationship? And when I read through

all of these responses, I noticed that they fell into three different categories. One was, I'm not changing. I don't want to reconcile. There's nothing I can do. The middle one was stuck, like confused on what to do next. And then there was ready, a lot of parents who were ready for change. And I actually found that it was split pretty much like into third. across these three groups. So I'll give you a few examples of things that I classified in this like not changing category. I don't feel I have to do anything. My daughter's boyfriend stole $20,000 from me and she took his side. I've done all I can do. Her diagnosed psychotic narcissistic dad turned her against me. I'm not sure there's anything. Nothing at this point. Things were said that

I cannot recover from. I don't want to repair the relationship. She appears to enjoy hurting me. It's up to them to repair based on what they did to create this. I need therapy with my daughter, and she needs to hear my side of how her behavior impacted me and her youngest siblings. I have absolutely no idea if it can be repaired. I feel I am disposable and worthless of any validation whatsoever. My child stated I did not validate enough, yet I am not validated at all. Nothing because my child is the problem.

And then here's some quotes from what I would consider to be the more like, stuck section. And I want to remind you, these are exact copy and paste quotes from parents who completed the survey. I have gone to therapy. I have offered to put my daughter in touch with my therapist. I have apologized and offered to go into family therapy. I have respected her boundaries and tried hard to have a positive, loving relationship to no avail. I am willing to do just about anything. I'm just not sure what else I can do. I'm not sure what they want me to do. I have tried visiting and she won't see me. I send gifts and they get sent back. I tried to call and my number is blocked. What else can I do? Not sure.

what to do. I'm willing to do almost anything. I've worked on myself, taken responsibility for being a bad parent while she was growing up. I'm actively working on being a better person each day. Gain understanding of the cause, then work to find solutions. The estranged one has caused greater damage over time in the unknowns. So it's hard to say what the solutions could be. And then there's some parents who seemed really ready for change. They said therapy with my child, listening, taking accountability for anything I did that harmed him. Anything he wants. Right now I've stopped trying to contact him but I am in therapy. I'm willing to do family counseling. Listen to where they are at. I don't believe there's any benefit in trying to get them to understand my story.

I think as their mom, it is my role to listen and hear their story and journey. Anything and everything. Almost anything to work toward a healthy relationship with each other. Neither of my daughters have wanted to tell me exactly why. My youngest is not estranged, but I feel she is going in that route. I have asked, I have offered to go to therapy. I do anything. Anything with healthy boundaries. I am willing to do therapy together, even with the therapist who he said told him that I am a narcissist. I want to help him understand. I never meant to hurt him. I was a single mom in constant survival mode. I did not realize it right away if I only knew how to make sure everyone was getting what they needed. Anything I'm in therapy and learning what I need to do and how to change my approach and thought pattern. I will work to be as ready as I can be to show up for her when she is ready to work on our relationship. I think some of those responses were really great and showed signs that they do want to work on things. The last question that I asked parents is what has been the hardest part about being estranged from your adult child? And this is super interesting. And I think

I wasn't surprised by this, but 18% of the people who completed this section, so 18% of the respondents, mentioned that not seeing their grandchildren was the hardest part. And a lot of them wrote about their grandchildren and did not mention their adult children. Many others said, I miss them, not knowing why they cut me off, the guilt and shame of knowing he's walking around this world living with pain in his soul that I inflicted, missing family events like birthdays, holidays, and social events, that they can't see the work that we have done in and out of therapy. Also, there is no middle ground.

Either I believe exactly how they believe or I'm wrong. I'm not allowed to have my own thoughts or feelings about politics or anything. anything in the world, I don't believe like they believe I am wrong. Grieving someone's still alive, knowing how much I contributed to his pain. My heart is broken because of my grandchildren. I haven't seen them now for four years. Only when my husband died, I saw them at a funeral a year ago. So I want you all to kind of take a moment and just think about the responses that you heard. You know, if you're a parent and you're a strange from your adult child, were you surprised by some of these responses? Can you relate to some of them? Do you feel that the people who took this

survey, that their responses are reflective of your story? What do you think you would have selected if you took this survey? Do you feel like you would have aligned with some of the majority responses, or do you fall into some of those minorities? And if you're an adult child who's estranged listening to this, what do you think about some of these responses? Do you agree with them? Do you hear your parent in some of these responses. Do you wish that your parent sounded more like some of these responses? I think it's important for us all to kind of take in this information and just consider how it aligns or doesn't align with what we have experienced if you are someone who is estranged from your parents and using the metaphorical we there. Some of you that are listening might not be

estranged from your parents and you might not be even considering estrangement. Maybe you're trying to think about how to prevent it with your own children. And so thinking about how some of these dynamics played out can be really important and really helpful to listen to. I hope that this was interesting to all of you and that you got some different new insights from this episode. Like I said, on Thursday, I'm going to be releasing the episode about adult children and their survey results. I had a lot more adult children complete the survey. So we have a much bigger data pool, but I think you're going to be interested to see how the results compare from the two surveys. Thank you again so much for completing this survey for those of you that

contributed. I really appreciate the parents that trusted me to be good stewards of their information. And I look forward to seeing you all on Thursday for the next episode of calling home. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast on Apple or Spotify, especially. Leave us a review. That's what helps get this podcast out there. And if you If you want to watch the podcast on video, it is now on YouTube. For those of you that are watching on videos, so make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel as well. Thank you all so much.

I appreciate you, and I'll see you all next week. The Calling Home Podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist-patient or other treatment relationship between you and Colin Holm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Holmes Terms of Service linked in the show notes below.