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[quote=Anonymous]NP here.  if we're sharing.  i really liked this post.

http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/reasons-for-estrangement.html

Members of estranged parents' forums are simultaneously obsessed with learning why their children are estranged, and resistant to analysis of their children's reasons for estrangement. Members not only reject the reasons their children give them, they ignore hard reasons like their children's addiction or mental illness. Their preferred explanations are designed to soothe the parent's pain: "This generation is narcissistic." (It's the culture's fault. My child turned out like this despite my best efforts.) "My child expects me to be perfect." (The things he accuses me of are little mistakes that any human being would make.) "Estrangement is genetic." (And the genes are probably from her other parent's side. Even if they're from mine, I'm not responsible for the DNA I gave her. She's responsible for what she chooses to do with it.)

The result is that estranged parents' communities lack community wisdom about dealing with adult children who are mentally ill, addicted, abused by their spouses, etc., all problems that by the members' own accounts contributed to a substantial number of estrangements. In place of the missing knowledge is a rich and varied body of knowledge about how to self-soothe: how to stop obsessing over the estranged child, and how to feel less guilty, rejected, and worthless.

Don't get me wrong, estranged parents need this knowledge. They need it like clean water and pure air. But their approach relies on a false dichotomy: Feel better about yourself OR develop a better understanding of the estrangement. Undermine your child's reasons for estranging so you don't have to take their criticism to heart, OR suffer the pain of seeing yourself as flawed and your actions as hurtful so you can figure out what you need to do to heal the estrangement.

This dichotomy is at the heart of estrangement. If a parent was at fault and she could truly hear her child's reasons, she wouldn't be estranged. If the fault lay with the child and the parent could approach the problem from a perspective other than, "How does this make me feel?", her understanding of the problem would be so different that she wouldn't need the kind of support estrangement forums provide. And until a parent can see the relationship in different terms, she's going to keep insisting that her children won't talk to her because she was such a good mother to them that they're spoiled, entitled brats who can't handle conflict, expect perfection, and tell lies to their rich in-laws.[/quote]

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