Mental Health and Estrangement

On differing sibling reactions to childhood experience

Last year I had a rather uncomfortable conversation with an older gentleman, concerning the growing family estrangement epidemic in the United States.  He said something like this:  If the parents have more than one child, I look to see how many of their adult children are estranged from them.  If it is only one, most often it is a mental health issue for that particular child.

I had to stop and think about this.  At the time, my response was:  If you are correct, what role did the parents have in the now adult child's mental health issues?  Was there some type of abuse that caused or contributed to these issues?

I am afraid that this was the end of our conversation.  But of course, this troubled me.  I have two siblings, and to my knowledge, both seem to get along with our parents just fine.

But we can see his argument:  If your siblings are not estranged from your parents, most likely you are the problem.

But I would argue, using my family as an example, that both the mental health issues suffered by adult children and the inflection point of an estrangement, are directly related to the degree of abuse they suffered as children.  Because I can promise you this, all three of my parents' children have suffered from mental health issues as a direct result of my parents' behavior and attitude when we were very young children.

So would the degree of abuse not explain the dichotomy?  I guess it is an open question.

My parents abused their children, all three of us, in several ways.  Primarily lack of concern for the development of self-esteem and the never-ending beatings.

But, and I think this is the important point concerning my siblings and their relationship with my parents as adults, my parents did become less awful in their role as time went by.

I have little doubt that my siblings just do not see it as bleakly as I do.  Simply because I was the oldest.  And their abuse was less consequential than my own.  Like so many, starting in my early twenties, I suffered depression and other problems that thereafter affected my every relationship and every endeavor.  And to be clear, I hold my parents directly responsible for this...impairment.

Now my parents and siblings may believe that this is merely an excuse for failure.  And perhaps they are correct.  But okay then fine:  I hold my parents, and the way they raised their children, directly responsible for my failures.

They can, and no doubt do, blame nature.  It is a convenient excuse which nicely displaces their responsibility.  It is a shameful excuse for their derelictions.  But whether or not nature played a significant role, in no way could it nor did it, outpace nurture.  Take some responsibility.

It took most of my adult life to come to this understanding.  And yes, I am angry about it.

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The Narcissistic Appeal of Obsequious Children

When I was young, there was a type of parent, particularly in the south, who wanted nothing more than obsequious children.  These parents, and it was always the fathers, were easy to spot.  They were the ones who insisted, no demanded, that their children give them the Yes Sirs and the No Sirs, that more relaxed and confident, and most often more educated, parents knew to be unimportant, and in fact counterproductive.

What I noticed about these men is that they all seemed to come from low prestige, low education backgrounds.  They got little or no respect in their work and social lives.  The logger may get no respect from his colleagues, customers, banker, or wife.  But by God he could demand respect from his children.  And so he would.

As if genuine and legitimate respect can ever be demanded.  Real respect does not arrive with a feigned Sir.

This requirement also seemed big with formerly enlisted men of not the brightest variety.  As they were taught in the military, respect is given whether deserved or not.  These men were not smart enough to distinguish between respect for the rank, which is given, and respect for the man, which as always and as ever, must be earned.

My father was one of these men.  He was a bit different, as he was not in a low prestige job or social standing.  Though he did like to think of himself that way.  And certainly his cronies were; and he needed and wanted their respect.  This requirement was also big with my grandparents and my parents' siblings.

As an aside, my father once came into possession of an actual logging company.  One of the principals could not pay his bills, or some such, and my father ended up as one of the owners.  Thereafter he relished telling people that he was a logger.  Particularly on any formal application, he loved filling in employment with logger; rather than the attorney he was.  It gave him a man-of-the-people vibe that he so wanted to project.  It was both true and a complete fraud at the same time.  And he loved it.

So early on, my parents were big on the Yes Sirs and No Ma'ams.  It fit their view of themselves, and importantly, who they wanted to project themselves to be.  Far from the worst of their behavior, but quite telling about their attitude.  Their attitude about their children and their attitude about themselves.

This went on until I was ten or eleven, maybe as late as twelve.  I do not remember the exact age, but I absolutely remember the event that ended this nonsense.  We were visiting our neighbors; the husband was my father's business partner.  This was back when they were still partners, and friendly if not exactly friends.  And it just so happened that this couple also invited another set of their friends to this occasion.  I cannot remember if they were other friends or some of their family from out-of-town.  It doesn't matter for this story.

In any case, this other couple also had two or three children and the father, too, was big on this Yes Sir/No Sir business.  Except he took it to an extreme that made my own parents seem downright relaxed.  The guy was a Nazi.  These men, yes I have met others, are always so proud of themselves, and even more proud of their children's unreserved submissiveness in front of an audience.  Yeah, they love that.

And by the way, I'm sorry, but I just have to add:  How does a father insure this level of submissiveness from his children, in front of an audience?  Tell me?

I will tell you.  He beats them.  No exceptions.

Anyway, later, when we got home, I remember asking my father what he thought of this guy's parenting style, particularly all the Sirs?

Here let me just say that I am still surprised I asked, and even more surprised by my father's response.  He said, yes it did seem like he, this other father, was demanding a level of obsequiousness from his children.  Of course, I had to go look up the word.

Peak irony.

But after that the strict Yes Sirs and No Sirs came to an end.  It was obvious, even to my father, that this would not and could not produce the kind of children he wanted.  This was not for the elite college bound children he envisioned, but rather for future enlistees who would never make it past corporal.

Also this:  If you are demanding obsequiousness from your children there is something seriously wrong with you.  It is shameful.  You are welcome to demand respect however you see fit.  But I can promise you this, ultimately, you will have to earn it.

Instead perhaps, just act the part responsibly.

So I'm not letting my parents off the hook for this nonsense.  These were smart, highly educated people who should have known better.  And if they had bothered to give it any real thought at all, would have known better.  But they let their desire to impress their families and their contemporaries get the better of them.  And bonus, it fed their narcissism.  Even if the Sir was insincere, it demonstrated their absolute power.  And I guess they needed that.

It was only this event, this slap in the face, that broke the spell.

That is no way to be raising children.

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Thou Shall Not Be Left-Handed at the Dinner Table

Absolute control and domination

My brother is left-handed.  And when we were very young, before our parents thought that it was appropriate to teach table manners, he held his fork in his left hand.  As all left-handed people do.

But this, our father just could not abide.  So as our parents introduced table manners and etiquette more generally, one very strict rule was that we eat with our right hand.  Our father was absolutely fine if the kid was left-handed in every other way.  But by God, that kid was going to eat with his right hand.

And we were even given an explanation, of sorts, as to why this was so important.  You see, when my father was a boy, he and his brother sat next to each other at the dinner table.  And as his brother is also left-handed, the two of them banged elbows at every meal.

And in his wisdom, my father's solution to this intolerable problem, is that everyone must eat with his right hand.  Problem solved.

Well, it is problem solved if you do not mind being a tyrant.

It was only years later that I asked myself, I wonder why his parents, my grandparents, did not simply allow their two sons to switch seats?  In fact, why did they not insist on it?  Surely that would have been the simple solution, right?

Yet, not only did my grandparents not do this, but this solution was also lost on my father.  Can you just imagine?

So even today, my brother eats with his right hand.  And of course, at this point it is no big deal.  I'm sure his wife must think of it as a charming family idiosyncrasy.  But she will never know the coercion involved.

Anyway, the point of this decades old story is, why?  My parents are not stupid people.  There can be no doubt whatsoever that they knew the obvious solution of switching seats.  Same with my grandparents; they knew.

So why did they not have their two boys switch seats?  And a generation later, why did my parents insist on their children only eating with their right hand?

It would be different if we were talking about really stupid people.  Or perhaps superstitious people.  Or people with some silly long-held tradition.  But none of that, or anything like that, applies.  Surprisingly enough, they were not adhering to some ancient hadith of Muhammad.

No, this was a choice made by highly intelligent and educated people.  And one must ask why?

And the unfortunate answer is this:  Absolute control and domination.  You will do it my way or else.  Their mantra was:  Because I said so.  It was a power trip.  Can you imagine being so insecure that you forced your left-handed child to eat with his right hand in order to satisfy your own narcissism?

I can still see my brother, sitting there at the end of the table, with no one to his left.  Even now, all these decades later, I wish I had the courage to say:  The kid is left-handed; leave him alone, you fucking bully.  But I would have been beaten for such an outburst, even without the profanity.

While this episode is far from the worst of my parents' behavior, it does illustrate a childhood dynamic between my brother and myself:  Thank God it is not me ...this time.  I can only wish that we had gone down a different path and been more supportive of each other.  Maybe we could have been close; maybe we would be friends today.  Same for my sister.

Here, for lack of a better place, I want to make two points concerning my siblings.  One, as the oldest, my memory extends further back than theirs.  And two, my parents did become relatively better (less awful) at the burden of childrearing as time went by.  That is to say, my siblings did not suffer as much as I did.  Thankfully.

Perhaps this explains their forgiveness.  I too forgave our parents for many years, so it is certainly understandable.  But the consequences of our parents' misbehavior have been unevenly distributed.  I never expected my siblings to follow my path; but I had hoped that they would acknowledge the reality of our childhood and at the very least affirm it.

I still hope for this.

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Reluctant Parents and Child Abuse

This is a follow-up to my previous post.  I just had a few more questions for Grok.

For people who do not really want children, or who are ambivalent about having children, why do they then have children anyway?

People who are genuinely strongly childfree, that is, I never want children, full stop, very rarely end up having them intentionally.  When it does happen despite that stance, it is usually due to extreme external overrides, contraception failure plus refusal/pressure against abortion, religious/cultural mandates that forbid contraception/abortion, or very controlling family/partner dynamics.

Far more commonly, the people who didn't really want kids / were ambivalent / weren't sure and then had them anyway fall into several overlapping categories. These are drawn from personal accounts, sociological patterns, psychological studies on parental regret, and common real-world reporting.

Here are the most frequent reasons:

1.  Partner pressure or relationship compromise

One partner, usually but not always the woman, is lukewarm/against, the other really wants kids, then the ambivalent/reluctant one concedes to keep the relationship/marriage.  Many people view having kids as a non-negotiable part of a lifelong partnership in their social circle.

2.  Accidental pregnancy plus it's too late to terminate

Contraception fails, they discover the pregnancy relatively late, or they go back and forth until past the point where abortion feels feasible, emotionally, legally, logistically, or morally for them.  Once the baby is born, abstract I don't want kids often turns into concrete love/attachment to this child.

3.  Societal/family/cultural/religious expectations

Strong pronatalist pressure:  You'll change your mind, Who will take care of you when you're old?, parents/grandparents begging for grandchildren, religious communities viewing childlessness as failure or sin, or simply it's just what people do.  Many people absorb this so deeply they override their own ambivalence.

4.  Ambivalence itself plus why not? reasoning

They are not strongly against children, they are neutral/fence-sitters.  Life progresses (stable job, house, age pressure, friends all having kids), so they think maybe it won't be so bad, everyone says it's different when it's yours, or I don't have a better plan for my life.  Biological clock anxiety or fear of future regret, What if I regret not having them?, often outweighs the current reluctance.

5.  Change of heart after the fact; sometimes genuine, sometimes post-hoc rationalization

A meaningful minority do report that once the child arrived, their feelings shifted dramatically and they became glad they did it.  Others say they love the child deeply but would not choose parenthood again if they could rewind.

6.  Lack of access to reliable long-term contraception or abortion

In many parts of the world, and increasingly in some U.S. states post-2022, people who would prefer to remain childfree simply cannot prevent pregnancy reliably over decades, or cannot safely terminate if it happens.

Regret rates among parents who were ambivalent or mildly opposed beforehand appear substantially higher than among those who actively wanted children from the start.  Studies and anonymous forums show recurring themes of burnout, loss of identity/autonomy, financial strain, and resentment, especially when external pressure, rather than internal desire, was the main driver.

In short:  Very few people who are truly certain they never want children end up as parents by choice.  Most of the cases you notice are people who were somewhere between meh and probably not rather than a hard no, and then life, love, pressure, accidents, or inertia tipped the scale.

Are the people who really did not want children, or even ambivalent about it, more likely to engage in child abuse?

Abusive Family Dynamics and Childhood Fear

Let's chat with Grok about child abuse

In families with abusive parents, is it common for the children, years later as adults, to have little or no relationship with each other?

Yes, it is quite common for adult children from families with abusive parents to end up with little or no relationship with their siblings, though it is not universal — some siblings become very close as allies against the abuse, while others drift apart or become fully estranged.

Several well-documented patterns explain why estrangement often happens in these families:

• Conflicting narratives about the abuse — Siblings may remember or interpret childhood events very differently.  One might recognize the parent's behavior as abusive and choose to distance themselves (or confront it), while another minimizes, denies, or rationalizes it to preserve a relationship with the parent.  This frequently leads to dueling family narratives, where parents encourage siding with them, pitting siblings against each other.  Research and clinical observations show this is a major driver of sibling estrangement, often as collateral damage when one sibling estranges from the abusive parent(s).
  
  
• Parental favoritism, scapegoating, or triangulation — Abusive or dysfunctional parents commonly favor one child, the golden child, while scapegoating another, or they triangulate by playing siblings off each other for control.  This breeds resentment, jealousy, and division that persists into adulthood.  Favoritism is repeatedly cited as one of the top causes of adult sibling estrangement.
  
  
• Trauma responses and coping differences — Growing up with abuse can lead siblings to adopt different survival strategies.  Some become enmeshed with the parent or repeat dysfunctional patterns, while others seek healing and distance themselves from anything reminiscent of the toxic environment — including siblings who remain tied to it.  This can result in emotional disconnection, even without overt conflict.
  
  
• Ripple effects from parent-child estrangement — Many cases of sibling estrangement stem indirectly from an adult child cutting off, or being cut off by, an abusive parent.  The sibling who maintains contact with the parent may feel pressured to align against the one who left, or loyalty conflicts make ongoing contact too painful.

Broader context shows family estrangement, including siblings, affects a significant portion of people — some surveys suggest around 27% of Americans are estranged from at least one relative — and abuse or severe dysfunction is a frequent underlying factor.  In abusive homes, sibling bonds can be complicated by additional layers like sibling abuse, which is surprisingly common and often overlooked, or simply the lack of a healthy model for conflict resolution and emotional support.

That said, it is not inevitable.  In some families, siblings bond tightly over shared survival and remain supportive into adulthood.  Outcomes depend on factors like birth order, personality differences, the severity/type of abuse, and whether any siblings pursue therapy or recovery work.

Regarding "Conflicting narratives about the abuse" is the problem that different siblings deny the abuse or is it that they deny the long term effects of the abuse?  Also, what about the problem that one sibling may have been abused more than others?

The Satisfaction of Estrangement

Wallowing contentedly in our self-indulgent satisfaction

Even if estrangement is well-deserved, and I know it often is, no one is happy about it.  I have read hundreds of pieces on estrangement from all sides involved.  And I have been somewhat surprised to learn that it is a bit of an epidemic in the United States.  Which of course means that sometimes there are good reasons, but more often than not, the reasons are, what?  I suppose questionable.

But here's the thing, good or bad, there are always reasons.  No one up and decides, nope I'm done with the family, time to cut them off, for no reason.  And further, the estranged must believe that their reasons are unresolvable.

So we have estrangement.  And there are unresolvable issues behind it.  And we are not happy about it.  Of course we are not happy.  Losing your family is not a happy ordeal or ongoing experience.

But if we are only unhappy, we could and would attempt to fix it.  Why be unhappy?  Why be unhappy, when we can do A, B, and C, to make ourselves happy, or a least less unhappy.

So why don't we?

Because it is not the question of happiness that sustains and maintains estrangement; rather, it is satisfaction.  We may not be happy, but we are satisfied.  We are satisfied with the status quo because the status quo ante was so much worse and we see no hope for a different or new status.

And notice this, everyone involved is satisfied.  If there is but one involved person who is dissatisfied, that person will work for reconciliation.  They may do so openly, or they may do so discreetly.  But they will make the effort.  It is only satisfaction that inhibits this.

So estrangement is a state of unhappy satisfaction.  Personally, I think that is so much worse, and more hopeless, than mere unhappiness.

We are all wallowing contentedly in our own self-indulgent satisfaction.  Many of us lack introspection and self-reflection; the worst of us are smugly complacent about the whole thing.

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Parental Comportment

Be careful with children

If you cannot bring the necessary level of care and comportment to the mission and responsibility of raising children, best not to attempt it.

I really have no patience for anyone who says, Well times have changed.  Or parenting has changed.  This is just common sense.  If you do not want to behave properly with children, fine.  Just don't have them.

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Damage

Consigned to a solitary existence

Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.

Thus far in my writings on this topic, I have focused on description and history.  For me, these writings have served as a sort of alternative therapy.  Long delayed and avoided, but finally engaged.  And they have helped me; the writing process has helped me.

But given the fact that I did not really start this journey of self-discovery until after the age of fifty, there were decades where the internalized and suppressed damage affected everything I touched.  Education, career, marriage, all other relationships, just everything.

Now, my family will argue that, with these writings, I have failed to take responsibility for my own actions and decisions.  Let me put that to rest here, in what I hope will be my final essay in this series.  Yes absolutely, I am responsible for my failures and shortcomings.  All of them.

I was unprepared and incomplete, and ultimately I am responsible for these shortcomings.  I should have and perhaps could have addressed this at a much earlier age.

I certainly could have distanced myself from my parents decades earlier.  It was a relationship that often appeared healthy and normal, but only because I forgave their past transgressions.  I thought that was the right thing to do.  I once read that becoming a healthy adult starts with forgiving your parents.  So I did that.  For more than thirty years.

It was a mistake.

In the long run, I struggled with the expected, my parents' expectations, which I never met, and they devalued me for it.  Their's was a conditional love.  The disapproval and disappointment and depreciation built up over the decades until it all inevitably burst.  By this time, I was fifty-two years old.

And that was just the start of my journey.  I still remember the date, Wednesday, 29 May 2019.  That was when, finally, belatedly, I asked...Why?  The writings in this collection have been my attempt to answer that question.  But by this age, the consequences were insurmountable.  So while my mental health has improved, I struggle everyday with the consequences.

I addressed the expected consequences in The Shadow, the very first essay in this collection.  It is the most important piece I have written on this topic, even though I have never been completely satisfied with it.  I never felt that it adequately captured the damage.

Maybe that is simply not possible.  I cannot fully elucidate the damage; it is just too bleak and depressing.  But my life today is a simmering synthesis of it all.  And today, my family looks down on me for my struggles and my failures.  My parents enjoy complete impunity for their unacknowledged derelictions.  As I have written previously, parental impunity is the hallmark of our family.

My siblings have shorter memories and benefited from marginally more reasonable parents.  This helped them meet the required parental expectations.  So their family unit remains intact.  Such as it is.

As a child I was consigned to a lifelong solitary existence.  And to this day, I struggle with depression and underdeveloped self-esteem and deeply-seated latent anger, and all of the failings I first described in The Shadow.  This is the answer to my Why.  These damages are still present, but at least today I recognize them for what they are and where they came from.  But they have cost me everything.

It was only after I began this journey that I was able to form just one altogether healthy relationship.  My wife's unconditional love sustains me.  It is all I have.  It is no exaggeration to say that she saved my life.  But my death would give my parents a final out.  They would say, as they surely do already, well he was always troubled.

No, I was not troubled.  I was damaged.

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Nails and Leaves

A short story

I remember once, in my early forties, I went to visit my parents, for the weekend.

This was before I was willing to admit what my father was.  I remember telling my sister, at some point, that our parents were terrible to their minor children, but decent to their adult children.  And pretty much, this was still my view that weekend.

There was nothing special about the time we spent together that weekend; I don't even remember it.  I only remember my departure.  I was gathering my things, loading them into the car.  My father was sort of waiting outside.  I come out, ready to go, and I find him picking up leaves in the front yard, one at a time.  No rake, no leaf bag, nothing.  Just one leaf and then another until he had a handful which he threw off to the side of the yard behind a retaining wall.

"Should I fetch you a rake?"  The garage was maybe twenty feet away.  He did not say anything.  We were waiting for my mother to come out to see me off.

Finally he said, "I once had a client..."  I don't remember the name he gave, but it was a name I had heard before.  So for the sake of this story, let's call him Charles Smith.

He continued, "Charlie once told me about an afternoon when he was visiting one of his construction projects."  It seemed Charles Smith was an extremely wealthy, self-made man with a portfolio of real estate assets.

Anyway, Charlie was visiting a construction site, and the workmen were finishing up for the day.

But Charlie was lost in thought, and one of the younger workmen, says to him:  "Mr. Smith, there's really no need for you to be picking up nails like that.  You are a busy and wealthy man, surely you know that we'll take care of that for you."

Now remember, I am standing in my father's driveway and he is in the front yard picking up leaves, one at a time, while he is telling me this story.

He continues, "Charlie only smiled at the young worker, but did not say anything."

It was only later when recounting this story to my father that Charlie added, "You know Reuben," my father was also Reuben...

"I just knew that the young man could never understand my thoughts."  Charlie was, after all, an intellectual, a man of the world, and very successful, and the young worker was just a young worker.  So while Charlie was picking up nails, one at a time, he was lost in thoughts only God knows.

The point is, Charlie did not want to explain this to the worker, maybe even could not explain, or maybe even thought that the young worker had no thoughts of his own.  Certainly nothing of substance.  In any case, the young worker could never understand a man like Charlie.  Obviously not.

But lost in his own ruminations, I doubt Charlie thought about any of this in the moment.  I would guess it was sometime later that he considered his encounter with the young worker.  Maybe only when he shared the story with my father.

The young worker just saw an old man shuffling around picking up nails.  And reacted accordingly.  Charlie did not correct him.  Why bother?

I mean, what does Warren Buffett think about while he's out walking his dog?  And what do the rest of us think about?  The answer to the second question anyway is:  Something less.

Now some people are smart enough to realize that this is not necessarily true.  Buffett could be thinking that it's cold in Omaha and his dog has yet to do his business.  And others could be thinking about their recent cancer diagnosis.

There's a smugness at the heart of Charlie's thinking.  Yes, Warren Buffett may be thinking about what to do with his real estate sales empire in the age of a mature internet.  And the rest of us are probably not.  But we all have our concerns.

So we are standing there, my father and me.  And my father is picking up leaves, one at a time, and telling me this story about Charlie and the young worker who could never understand.  Charlie, it seems, had the good grace, not to share his thoughts about the young worker with the young worker.  If for no other reason, I don't believe that Charlie had yet had any thoughts about the worker.

But by picking up leaves, one at a time, and telling me Charlie's story, my father was simply putting his own smugness on full display for my benefit.  As if I, like the young worker, could never understand the vastness of a great man's thoughts.  And further, I could never understand why someone would busy themselves picking up nails or leaves, one at a time, while lost in such vast contemplations.

It would be another ten years before I finally cut ties with the man.  I still remember the day, it was a Wednesday afternoon, two days after Memorial Day.  By then I was in my early fifties, thirty years too late to have any sort of meaningful impact.  And what kind of impact was I looking to make anyway?

No, I cut contact because I was just tired of it.  I had had enough.

See, mistakenly, I had forgiven my parents for the childhood abuse, and their active and willing, and ultimately successful, attempts to rob me of my self-esteem, at the age when it really matters.  The beatings and the humiliations.  And the shadow this casts over a lifetime; the depression.  It was unearned forgiveness; forgiveness without responsibility or remorse.  Because no one wants to lose their family.

But that smugness, that is what finally ended our relationship.  To return to that weekend's departure, was my father pondering some great question?  Or was he simply thinking about a quirky story one of his wealthy clients told him about distractedly picking up nails?  I will never know, but Charlie's understated hubris would have appealed to my father.

So at that late date, ten years after that weekend and one month short of my fifty-second birthday, I was finally willing to admit what my father was:  A smug brute who fancied himself an intellectual.

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