How do we define and maintain family in the modern age? Do we owe something to our families of origin?
Proponents of a more traditional view of family see that children and parents have mutual obligations to each other. People who believe in a democratized version of kinship believe family can be found, rather than born into.
How should mental health professionals handle familial disagreements? Are ideological differences grounds for cutting ties with family members?
Today on All Sides, we are discussing family estrangement, also known as “going no contact.”
Guests:
- Elizabeth Bernstein, columnist, Wall Street Journal
- Rin Reczek, author, Families We Lose: A New Explanation for Family Estrangement
- Noelle Mering, author, No Contact
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. Families are complicated ecosystems. Some people are dealt better hands than others when it comes to their family of origin. Cutting ties with family members and forming other relationships is a shift from traditions of the past. The focus now in some mental health circles is more on the individual person and their right to autonomy over the bonds they form. But is cutting ties the best solution? When should estrangement occur? And how do we define and maintain family in the modern age? This hour on All Sides, we're talking about going no contact with family, also known as family estrangements. And joining us now is Elizabeth Bernstein, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Her column focuses on social psychology and human interactions. Welcome to All Sides Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Bernstein: Thanks for having me.
Juravich: So you wrote about family trauma recently, and the headline for your piece asked the question. Are therapists to blame for the rise of adults cutting off their parents? So let's start with, I mean, who typically initiates cutting off ties with loved ones? Is there a certain type of person who is prone to this nowadays?
Bernstein: You know, we see it across, this is something, a topic I've covered quite a bit, and you see it cross all ages, but really a lot of young adults, primarily it's young adults and it is the young adults. The adult children who are doing the cutoff, almost always.
Juravich: Does the person decide to do this on their own or are they led to this decision with the help of a therapist?
Bernstein: Well, it varies. I mean, I think there's many different ways, there's different influences on these adult children, but many times over and over, I'm seeing in my reporting, therapist reporting, families and adult children are reporting that a therapist was involved. That, you know, obviously if you have problems, you tend to go to therapy. So, but there was a therapist involved in making that decision and making the boundaries and then the cutoff when that happened.
Juravich: And why do some therapists believe that cutting ties is the best option? I feel like there was a trend for many years urging families better communication work on issues family therapy became a trend So talk to me about this idea of therapists recommending cutting ties
Bernstein: There's a lot of reasons, you know, therapy, you're right. Therapy for a long time, making stronger families is a big part of what therapists see. But therapists, individual therapists, when you go to an individual therapist, as opposed to a marriage or a family therapist, they're trained to support the individual. So if an individual is coming to them and saying, I'm having severe problems, they're looking very focused at that. They're taking that narrative, they're listening, taking it verbatim what that person is saying, and they're... Going to try to support that person and their choices. Where the problem can be is they're not really trained in family systems always, so they aren't thinking of the family. They're not bringing in outside voices, other people, the parents and the family to hear both sides, but also what is going on to get a fuller picture.
Juravich: Is that the therapist's job? Are they supposed to just be with their client or should they maybe ask, like, maybe we should invite your mom in? Or like, do you know what I mean?
Bernstein: Yeah, a skilled therapist should know. A skilled therapist, yeah, should be looking at all, this is what therapists tell me, this is my reporting, not my opinion, but a skilled therapist would be looking, trying to get a full picture, trying to assess whether their client has some mental illness, some vulnerability, trying to really understand and also knowing when to refer out to a family. System, a family therapist. So it should be. There's a lot of, you know, there's been a rise in therapy over the last few years. There has been a rise in therapists who are not trained as well, maybe. So there's a mental health crisis with everybody, but young adults. You know, the pandemic didn't do anybody any favors. So, there are just a lot the things that play. Yeah.
Juravich: In your reporting and in your writing about this, I mean, are therapists jumping to cutting off ties too quickly in recent years? Maybe they want their client to be happy in the quickest way possible, so they make a dramatic suggestion like that.
Bernstein: I think there's been a shift, you know, that they are, in fact, this is something that is, there's a shift here, where we are seeing more therapists doing this. Maybe, you now, we're also, there's so many factors at play, like, look, we've got a generation of young adults who's the most surveilled in history, right? So it's very hard for them to set boundaries. And they, some of them, when I talk to the young adults, they say, look we're trying, we've set it over and over. You know, maybe, you know... This is something that mom, dad, this is something that I don't like, whatever's happening. This is, I want to address it. And this is, you know, this is the age of helicopter parenting. This is the cell phone. They've been tracked, you know, constantly. So it may be harder too, for them to set the boundaries.
Juravich: Yeah, and what you're basically saying is, you know, like, therapists are supposed to support their clients, but are therapists supposed to believe their clients 100% of the time? You know, if they don't get the other family members out of the story. You wrote in your piece that some patients are not reliable narrators. A therapist should know that, right?
Bernstein: Exactly. It goes back to the skilled. Exactly. You're right. It goes back to the skill therapist, you know, so yes, they should, you know, maybe understand take some mental health assessments, know a full story. And obviously, there's always two sides to every story. So knowing when to say, can we you know maybe we could bring mom and dad in or knowing when again, to refer out to somebody who does work with families, you know, and does do that kind of work is something important. Social media is a big part of a lot of this because both the adult children are seeing more estrangement content on social media and so are the therapists. So they're watching the trends as well.
Juravich: Yet later in the hour, we're going to talk with an author of a book who says that the rise of estrangement and going no contact is also political, ideological. It's happening more because of our divided political times. Have you seen that at all? Because there's the case of like if there's abuse in the family, you know, maybe estrangemen is the best solution if there is an extreme case like that. But what about this more ideological, like you don't agree. So let's cut, let's cut ties.
Bernstein: Yeah, I agree a hundred percent with what that person's going to talk about. You know, we should probably, I should give the caveat that of course there are situations where cutting ties is warranted, you know, there are families, as you mentioned up front that, um, not every family is a, you know, perfect family. We didn't all get the family, um who might've been the most supportive, but there are times when there's, you know, reasons for cutoffs, but There is a huge trend right now. We're seeing it, I'm tracking these numbers on social media, the people talking about it. It is striking and the people reaching out after I write a story, it's striking. And I've covered families and relationships for a long time at the journal. But yes, I see a lot of different pieces of it and the ideological part of it is there because it is being fed on social medias. So, you know, this is also a young generation, these young adults. That is very identity focused, different than their parents maybe, different than older generations. And so that identity can come first for them now beyond the family. That's the big shift we're seeing, you know, and it is being pushed in the divided country. I mean, nobody knows how to talk to each other. So maybe we shouldn't be surprised now. Kids don't know how to to talk their parents, but we also separately in those political divides. You're seeing the cutoffs as well. So, you know, kids who don't agree with the parent's politics or the parent feel the parents don't affirm or, you now, understand their politics.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about family estrangement with Elizabeth Bernstein, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. You wrote another piece for the wall street journal about therapists putting their own ideologies onto their clients. The term in psychology for when therapists project their own emotions is called counter transference. Could this phenomenon also apply to increased family estrangement, do you think?
Bernstein: Absolutely, because again, it goes back to the skill, the wisdom, but also the experience of a therapist. And so young therapists, anybody in any career, we all know, gets a little more experience as we get older. That's the big silver lining. But yeah, so if I feel that I had cut off this, honestly, I find it sometimes hard to find a therapist to interview who works in the estrangement world, who does not have some estrangements in their life. And that's again, striking. So that's not all therapists, that's a small pool, but if I had an estrangement in my life, then I do have a sense of what I think might work, right? And so I have to be very skilled to keep that out. That's where the countertransference can come.
Juravich: So do you think that if a therapist suggests that a client cut ties with a family member very early on in the therapy session, like maybe they've only done a few sessions and suddenly we're going no contact, could that be an indication that the therapist is biased? Like, is that maybe a warning sign?
Bernstein: Well, I would think so. I feel a little sketchy going out and saying that. Certainly, you want to know a lot. That would be the same as if they gave a diagnosis a few times in. I've met you two or three times, and now I think you're bipolar or a narcissist or whatever. You'd hope that they would get more of the story, learn more about their person, their client, more understanding. The full story and if there might be holes in it. But also, one of the issues here is sometimes in suggesting a cutoff or encouraging one or asking do you think about this? Because that's how it's presented, it's never a directive. But they may not be serving the client best because sometimes those parents are the people who really love and support the child the most. They may be annoying, they may have problems, there may be, you know, somewhat serious problems in that family. But they still may be the best support for that client, especially if there's mental illness with the client. Yeah.
Juravich: Can you talk to me about important terms like abuse and trauma and how they've been broadened? I feel like the word trauma is used a lot.
Bernstein: Exactly. So psychologists who track this, and it is researched and documented very carefully, over decades. And there's something called concept creep. And this is this idea that trauma, and maybe an older generation, the generation of parents who are in their 40s, 50s, 60s now, they would consider, they would have considered trauma, they grew up with trauma being something very severe, very emotional, psychological, sexual abuse. But now, trauma, this term has really been broadened out to be so much more than that. And in fact, sometimes it can be criticism, you know, it's trauma, you know, any difficult conversation. You didn't, you didn't agree with my beliefs. Well, parents, you know, there's generations of parents that, you know, that's what parents do, they don't, talk to anybody who grew up in the 60s. But I So, there is this broadening of this term, it's called concept creep, the broadening of the term trauma to be a catchall for so many things that are surprising, I think.
Juravich: To older generations. Is the same thing true with the word toxic? It seems like everyone who has someone disagree with them is toxic for their emotional state.
Bernstein: Exactly. Everybody's toxic. Toxic's again the same. And then there's others, you know, there's narcissists. So a lot of, you, know, this is another problem in therapy. I mean, look, I think therapy is wonderful. It works for many people. It's a wonderful thing. I've written about it for many years. But like anything, there are problems. And when a therapist is saying, your mom's a narcissist, you're diagnosing somebody not in the room, again, who you didn't speak to. And one thing that's striking about these adult children is when they, one thing that the parents are reporting that's very striking is that the script is the same. The children are coming to the parents almost with the same script all the time. You're a narcissist. Like you said, this is a toxic environment for me. I need to take my space. This is important for my mental health. You know, look, it may be important for your mental health, but it's striking that there's a script. It's across.
Juravich: The board. Just to end on, how does someone know if they're seeing a therapist who is good for you, who's going to truly give someone good guidance? What if you don't realize that you're not seeing a good therapist?
Bernstein: That's a very hard one and a story I want to attack. You want to look for credentials. You really want to look for somebody who has credentials, you know, as a psychologist or a licensed clinical social worker, anybody can hang up a shingle and call themselves a psychotherapist. So you really want to look for the credentials. You know, maybe you want to get some recommendations from other people, maybe other people of other ages, not just your friends So we're doing the cutoffs. Um, you can ask them about themselves. Like, do you have a cutoff in your family? You are allowed to ask. They can say they don't want to answer, you know, but you can ask questions. What do you view? Do you, do work with whole families? Would you like to talk to my mom? So you can asked some questions. You shouldn't be shy about asking the questions you might like to know. And then you can trust your gut. If you feel like, wow, they just, you know, I came in and I've talked to adult children who say I came in and wanted to set boundaries with my folks. I never imagined I'd cut them off, but somehow in this therapy that led to that. So you can trust your gut when you feel that it maybe is going too far for you.
Juravich: We've been talking about family estrangement with Elizabeth Bernstein, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Thank you so much for your time today, Elizabeth. Thanks so much for having me. And coming up, we are going to talk about setting new expectations for families with an author who says that going no contact can be a path to healing. That is when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides, I'm your host Amy Juravich. When miscommunication and trauma are present in families, what is the appropriate response? In cases of severe physical and mental abuse, it makes sense for individuals to cut ties with their families of origin. But where do we draw the line? What do we owe to the people who raised us? Can chosen families truly replace our biological family? Today we are discussing family estrangement, which is also known as going no contact. And we continue our conversation with Rin Reczek, author of "Families We Lose, A New Explanation for Family Estrangement." Rin is also a professor of sociology and the co-director of the Center for Aging Families at Ohio State University. Welcome to All Sides, Rin.
Rin Reczek: Thank you for having me.
Juravich: So we are talking about family estrangement and I think it's important to define what a family is because family has evolved throughout the years. Chosen family has become a popular thing that people talk about, especially for those who grew up in dysfunctional households. So to start, how do you define a family?
Reczek: It will surprise no one to know that sociologists and demographers and family scientists have been asking this question for decades. So one of the ways we can define family is its form. So we can think about families as a household. That's typically how the US census defines a family, who lives in your household. We can also define families legally. So who are you married to or who are you biologically related to, which is a legal, often legal bond between parents and children. And then we can also ask, and I think this is really where some of the conversation goes, what is the function of family and the content of family? So for people that I talk to, often we might recognize that we are related to people, but they might not be our family if the content those ties does not meet the standard of what a family is. So who provides you support, love, guidance, right? Food. Clothing, all these kinds of things. That might be another way we would define family.
Juravich: So in your research and your interviews you did for this book, what are some of the reasons people told you for deciding that they were gonna cut ties with a particular family member?
Reczek: So to step back for a second, prior to me writing this book, there's a lot of work in social work, psychology, and other disciplines that really tried to track what the causes of family estrangement are. And these would be things like you mentioned. So we might link them to substance abuse of a parent or a child or a sibling. We might link to physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. And those things were all very present in the stories of the people that I talked to. But there was something else going on that I thought was a little different and broader. And that something else is a different way that the people that I talk to wanted their families to be. So it goes back to this definition of family. It wasn't enough to be biologically related. It wasn't enough to raised by or with. What a family meant to the people that I talked to was really a way of being and relating to one another that supported their lives. So for the people that I talked to, what really was causing them going no contact wasn't even things that happened in their childhood we talked a lot about, right? We spent a lot of the interview talking about them, but in the end, that wasn't what was causing the no contact. What was causing it is something that was happening in adulthood. When the adult transitioned into their what we call emerging adulthood or midlife, the relationship with the parent or sibling didn't change. It didn't become mutual, it didn't become supportive and intentionally connected in the way that they really desired. And so ultimately, after many years, often this took several decades sometimes, to get to the point where they felt that this wasn't supportive of them, and in particular, wasn't support of them finding ways to form their own families, getting married, cohabitating with an intimate partner, having children. And so that was often one of the reasons that people would end up going no contact. Hmm. So.
Juravich: I mean, you don't stay friends with everyone you were friends with in high school or everyone you were with in college because people change and people evolve and that connection maybe isn't the same as it was whenever you were 16 years old, but your family is your family, right? And so as what you're saying is, is that if that connection isn't there, it doesn't matter if your family is your your family if you're not feeling a part of it.
Reczek: I think that the thing is that your mom is always your mom. And I think the people I talk to would always say that, that they want a mom, that they would want to have a relationship with their mother, but that the amount of harm and disconnection that that relationship maybe lended to them meant that that that at that time couldn't continue. So I think there's a distinction between I have these relationships with my family of origin. You know, I always have a... A brother, right? But the degree to which those people are invited into my home might differ, depending on the content of that relationship. And so I think that that might skirt the question a little bit to say, how does one define what it means to be in family relationships? But I would say it's not that those relationships no longer exist. It's simply that the degree, to which the relationship is kind of engaged with is different. And of course, like you might say, as someone who does work on aging caregiving, for example, you might, say, well, what happens, right, to the aging parent when a child goes no contact? This is a really central question and an important question that we need to think about and talk about. But I think that the sort of going backwards, we might say well, how do we create good relationships between parents and their adult children or between adult siblings that can support. This lifelong tie, instead of obligating it to the point where it is harmful.
Juravich: How much have you seen that going no contact is more of that mental and physical and emotional abuse, where it's an extreme situation, versus nowadays where it happens more due to ideological differences, political differences? You and your parents just fundamentally disagree about the way the world is going right now, so therefore is going no-contact the answer? Yeah.
Reczek: What I found in my work is that these, we might say ideological differences or differences in the way the world is going, who we vote for, our political or religious beliefs, they showed up in the ways that people talked about the relationships with their family, but it wasn't the main thing. So for example, I talked to a lot of people who were LGBTQ and they would mention like, okay, my dad doesn't really support my identity. And that was a part of the story. But then it would say, and also there's these other relational dynamics that are actually quite harmful to me. The lack of support, the fact that we are on the same side politically is one part of the puzzle that if the relationship was positive and supportive in the way that I desired, right? Or it had the dynamics that I felt were mutually respectful, that were intentionally connected, that were sort of safe for me, then I can continue that relationship despite that disconnection. But it is just one of many things to have me point towards the no contact. And I think it does a disservice to just simply sort of, and I don't think that's what you're saying, but I think that I hear saying like, oh, if we didn't vote the same way, then we are going to go no contact and I just didn't see it like that. I think, that it actually was much more deliberate, long-term and intentional around a series of interactions over time, as opposed to just one specific thing.
Juravich: Do you feel like going no contact is a decision that someone can make on their own? Or are you advocating for it to always be made with the help of a therapist of some sort?
Reczek: Yeah. Well, I am hesitant to advocate really for much because I'm not a psychologist. I'm merely a sociologist and a marketer, but I think what I would say is in my experience from the data, it is rare for it to happen on its own, that often there are social others in their network. And I know we talk a lot about, I just was listening to Elizabeth, who I know, talking about therapists. And that definitely came up in my book. But there is also this notion of just meeting other families. Like, oh, I met my new partner's family, and they interacted in this way. And I was like, oh wow, this is me kind of retelling what people would say to me. Like, I didn't know that families could be like that. Um, and often that would happen when people would, you know, even in the workplace, people would say like, Oh, you don't have this older colleague who is a surrogate mom to me now. Like she treats me in the way that I always imagined that a mom would treat their kid. And so a lot of times when, when a strange moment was happening, it was this extremely immersive experience of people learning about how different family relationships can be, because when we're growing up, our family culture is the one that's handed to us, right? You know, I have a seven year old. We give him his family culture. This is it, right? But as he ages, he will learn new family cultures and new ways of existing outside, right, through media, of course, maybe through therapy, through books, but also through other people. And I think that that was one of the main ways that people kind of came to understand their relationships as they aged.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about family estrangement with Rin Reczek, author of the book, "Families We Lose, a New Explanation for Family Estrangement." In an ideal world, though, families are our support systems. They help us navigate the world. When we choose to forego our relationship with family, we might be losing a support system as well. If you're down on your luck and really need some money, who do you go to? Yeah. Yeah.
Reczek: A good family is there for you, right? And as someone who feels fortunate to have a really supportive and wonderful family, I can feel the benefit of that. When I talk to people who either initiate estrangement or find themselves in estrangements, I think that they don't feel the same way, that they also wish that they had the type of support network that existed that would very simply step in for them. And I just don't think that that is always the case. So for me, I think if we can support family relationships prior to getting to the point of going no contact, that's where I wanna do the work that I can. And maybe even reconciling. I think there's a lot of people out there who are working towards that. But even, so I think we can one, I like to say the tree doesn't fall over if it has strong roots, right? Of course it can in a hurricane, but we can think about it like we need strong roots in the family unit in order to support the blossoming of the flowers, right, or the leaves. When a family has really less strong roots than it can topple. And so to me, the estrangement is the symptom of the bigger problem that is happening in the family. And that is where we can do the work. And once the tree topples over, it's very hard to get it back up. And so how do we support people forming new families, new forest groves? I think that is a really important part of the story as well. So, the
Juravich: idea of, you've mentioned a few times, of strengthening the family and helping maybe the parents improve their relationship with their adult children. So is this like a class everyone should be taking or are you talking more about if a child is having a problem with their parents that there should be a family therapy session?
Reczek: What I would say is that from my statistical work, the age at first estrangement is pretty young. I think Elizabeth mentioned young adulthood. So somewhere in the early 20s is the first initiation of estrangements. Now, it often happens multiple. It can happen multiple times. It doesn't always stay. But that young adult period is a transitional critical period where you're, as a parent, moving from, I just raised this child. So now the child is an adult. And that is a critical point where we can intervene and teach parents how to transition their parenting style into one that is more collaborative. So what I hear from many of the adults I talk to, and I didn't only talk to adult children. I talked to people who were in their 60s who had estranged five years ago. So that's not just that period. But I think that is critical moment to say, how are we re-evaluating this relationship like you might a friend? Because it's transitioning into something different. And how do we come together to form a healthy relationship during this time? And recognizing that that is, again, going to change across the life course. So as parents age, they have different needs and negotiate that again, right? Who needs caregiving? Okay, we're gonna renegotiate this relationship once more. And so each life course stage really provides an opportunity to reevaluate those relationships and to build healthier connections that support it.
Juravich: How do we do that though? Like how do I get, you know, how do you get a parent to, like, do I say to my parents, like, hey, mom and dad, you need to go, you need read this book so that you understand how to parent me better as a 25 year old. Like, how, how you make that happen? Yeah.
Reczek: Yeah. So first of all, I think I love that question. Yeah, that is such a great question. I mean, I and I think about myself again as a parent of a young person. So I haven't been through this transition yet. And how jarring that must be to experience that as a a parent who has a child being like, OK, now we're renegotiating this. You spent 18 years like doing all these things. And guess what? But I think it is the nature of of the relationship of relationships broadly. We think about think about marriage and intimate ties. We don't expect that those relationships are the same across the 20, 30, 40 years, if we're lucky that we're within them. We have to make negotiations and changes for each person's life. And so I would encourage us to think about the parent-child and sibling even relationship that often is assumed that it's just happening and good. That's really not the case. These are relationships that also need skill building. So to your point, I mean, I'm not a therapist. I can't really speak to that, but I think we could think about. Sort of scaffolding relationships in a better way for these transitions, I think that's a great idea to kind of build even just conversations about what these relationships might look like.
Juravich: What about the idea of, you know, no family is perfect? Do you think that family therapy and better communication, can it mend the relationship? You know, if the estrangement has occurred, like should we try to fix it?
Reczek: Uh, you know, I think, again, my best sort of illustration of this is thinking about intimate relationships. In part, I do that because I think it's a more recognizable dimension. So when someone, you, know, let's say a spouse is wanting a divorce. Mm-hmm. Is there a chance that that can be stopped? Absolutely, if the conditions in that marriage, like someone says, okay, I'm thinking about it and we're gonna go to therapy, we're going to work on this and it absolutely can improve or people get remarried after divorce, right? So these are skills that we have and therapeutic approaches that we've have. They just really haven't been applied to the same degree in these other relationships. So what I would say to that is like, there absolutely is hope and I think instead of assuming that this tie is always gonna be there, because I think that that leads to kind of, I'm gonna use this word and I kind of hate that I'm using it, but entitlement, like it implies that it's always going to be there. So maybe we don't have to work on it. And I actually think that might be part of the problem as opposed to like a marriage where, you know, you have to communicate, you have grow as people. And so as in families of origin, as these relationships grow, we grow with them if we want to sustain them. And I think that that is ultimately where we can make the intervention. And I
Juravich: spent too much time now just asking about how to fix it, but let's talk just to end on because we're running out of time. How does going no contact, being estranged from family member, how does it lead to healing for a person?
Reczek: Sure. So in the last chapter of my book, I spend that chapter talking about both the pain of loss. We have collateral damage of estranging other family members, the loss of a family role. This is really painful for people I talk to. And also, it allowed them to be more intentional parents. So I heard that time and time again, I'm not going to recreate the problems that I had. Now, of course, that's nice to say, right? We create new problems in the relationships with our own children, but I think it is like. OK, I can be a better parent. I can a better partner or spouse. And I also can have relationships with other people, right? This found family. I have my surrogate mom at work, or I have my friends, or have my ceramics class that I feel like they're really close to me, and I know they'll be there for me no matter what. So there is a way of kind of rebuilding family relationships with that loss in mind. Hmm.
Juravich: Is there any worry though of like, so you cut off ties with a family member and then what happens if someone in your chosen family, right, so your friend ends up causing some trauma. Oh, for sure. Do you think that cutting ties constantly is gonna turn into a vicious cycle of avoidance?
Reczek: Yeah, I hear, you know, I understand that, that concern, like taking it to its conclusion, right? Listen, there's a radical conclusion of, well, every time there's a problem in your relationship, you're going to cut that relationship off. And I, you, know, I'll just speak from the data that I see. I don't really see that happening in the data that I have. Collected. But of course, that might be something that an individual would have to work on. Why am I, you know, this avoidant personality thing I hear a lot in the social media landscape right now, that's a thing. You know, I think, again, I just didn't hear that as part of the issue. I actually heard that I care so much about family. Now I know how to intentionally build it, even though I have this loss. And I think that for people who also experience, like who maybe didn't initiate estrangement, that is a path forward for them to finding connections of depth that are really. Wonderful for them is a great way that they can rebuild themselves as well, despite this.
Juravich: We've been talking about family estrangement with Rin Reczek, author of Families We Lose, a New Explanation of Family Estrangement. Thank you so much for joining us today, Rin. Thank you. And coming up, we will look at our political climate and ask if giving rise to the no-contact movement is ideology. Is family estrangement always the best option? That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. How do we define and maintain family in the modern age? Do we owe anything to our families of origin? Proponents of a more traditional view of family see that children and parents have a mutual obligation to each other. People who believe in a democratized version of kinship think that family can be found rather than born into. But is going no contact the best way to deal with family conflict? Or is improved communication and family therapy a better solution? Joining us now to continue our conversation about family estrangement is Noelle Mering, author of the book, "No Contact." Noelle is also a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, and she writes about culture, politics, and religion for many publications. Welcome to All Sides, Noelle. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Okay, so your book is called "No Contact," but the subtitle of your book is How a Seductive Ideology Broke Families and Friendships and How We Can Repair Them. So I wanted to lean into that subtitle there. So do you think the increase in family estrangement we're seeing around the country is truly because of a shift in core beliefs and values?
Noelle Mering: Well, I think it's a mix. I think there's some complications there. I think, there's, you know, a rise in cultural traits of narcissism and that implicates people on both sides of estrangement. But I certainly think that there is a sort of new kind of ideological reinterpretation of what it means to be family in a way that pathologizes it and prefers families that emanate out of our autonomy, like chosen families and found families.
Juravich: So you advocate against going no contact, but there are cases where you truly believe it is the best option. Like for example, if someone's parent was physically abused them, there's the physical, mental, that kind of abuse thing. Do you agree that there are some cases where no contact is the solution?
Mering: Yes, certainly. So I analogize it to an immune system. We have to have a healthy immune system that can identify things that are threatening to us and expel them. But what I think is happening oftentimes now is more like an autoimmune disorder where we no longer can make proper distinctions between what's difficult, what's dangerous. And so we wind up attacking things that we actually really need for our survival.
Juravich: So your book and your other work focuses on kind of less severe instances where no contact occurs. So in some cases, people cut ties with a loved one based merely on ideological differences, different politics basically. But I mean, if a level-headed person decides that that's what's gonna bring them the most peace is to not talk to grandma anymore. I mean who's to say that's wrong?
Mering: Yeah, well, I guess that my point would be that, to really have a durable interior piece as an individual, we have to have our piece not be dependent on rearranging the externalities of our life, that we have be able to have more of an internal grounding that we can be in relationship with people and have a unity without needing it to have uniformity. And I think that is one of the distinctions and the challenges that we're facing now is that we've predicated unity on uniformity And that is to have a bar, I think, to demand of any relationship.
Juravich: In your book, you write that estrangement is destabilizing and it means that reconciliation will never happen. So saying going no contact, I mean, it does not just threaten a relationship. You're saying that it basically threatens the fabric of society. How so? Tell me about that.
Mering: Yeah, I think that's right. Well, I mean we live in a pluralistic society And so if it's hard to hang together with people with whom we know in depth Then it's going to be really hard to hate hang together With strangers across our town or across the country, you know And so I think having civil discourse in a in a Pluralistic society really demands that we are able to differentiate ourselves without having to feel threatened By disagreement or threatened by somebody who believes something different. That doesn't mean that the differences aren't important They're incredibly can be incredibly important It just means that we don't need to make our relationships all contingent upon that sort of conformity or uniformity to what we think is right.
Juravich: And do you agree, do you feel like we, you know, families owe something to each other? I don't even know, I don't know if owe is the right word, but like, you know parents and children, do they have a mutual obligation to each other to stick together no matter what?
Mering: Yeah, no, no.
Juravich: No matter what.
Mering: It's not an absolute. I think there are times where their separation is warranted, but I think the richness of love in relationships is a combination oftentimes of duty and choice. So relationships that are all choice and no duty are unstable because they're hoisted on their own petard. You can just as easily be unchosen in the future. But relationships that all duty and no choice are impersonal. You know, the real richness of relationship and love is choosing the things that we also have a duty towards are the people with whom we also have a duty. That's not an absolute demand and distance can be warranted. But I think it makes us far more of a stable in ourselves as well as in our units and our communities and then across our civic life. If we have that combination of giving obligation to whom we ought to and choosing the people for whom we have an obligation.
Juravich: So choosing people for whom we have an obligation. So is that your immediate family? So if you decide to go no contact with mom or dad, immediate family, someone who raised you, do you have an obligations to them?
Mering: Still it depends. Well, I think we have an obligation unless you know It's really a threat to ourselves and to our children and how you define threat is right kind of where the issue lies, right? Is that are we defining it too broadly or can we are we redefining danger as difficult or difficulty as as danger? That's where I think I try to dive into the book and in the book But you know a lot of the people I profile in the books have found, you know with the chosen family unit that they They find that it worked out really well when they're young, fun, had some money, were healthy. As they get older and they have crises and financial crisis or a health crisis or what have you, they realize you really do need people who are obligated to you. And so oftentimes it can be something that is temporary, but it doesn't really withstand the durable relationships or what we need in life. And that can be friendships, but also we need to give some differential treatment to the importance of those familiar obligations that we were. Given to each other through life or fate or whatever for a reason, and it's not an absolute requirement to be in relationship with them, but we do owe special obligation to them.
Juravich: In some cases, I feel like it turns into like a cost benefit equation, like a cost benefit analysis. So the social contract is that parents will provide a loving, accepting environment for their children. And if the parents don't fulfill their end, then why should the child fulfill their side?
Mering: Yeah, great question. So I think one of the shifts that we have that's reflected in that question is that we want to approach our relationships more in how can I love you? What do I owe you? How can I make this relationship better rather than how is this relationship serving me? And I think we really have radically shifted into evaluating all our relationships based on how they serve me. And the human person should not be reduced to a metric of pleasure or utility. There are people who just are out of the dignity their personhood. They're owed something just to be, you know, that we all might become the type of person who is unpleasant because we're sick or because we've gotten irascible or we're depressed. And we will also want people to owe something to us too in that moment.
Juravich: What if the parent is cold and self-centered and disrespectful to the child? Is it the child's job to try to convince them you should be a better parent?
Mering: Yeah, no. So our counsel, you never want to think that you have the power to change someone, right? That that's, you know, we have to understand what's outside of our control. And so, you know, it might not be our job to try to change them, but it might be our job to, you, know, within, within healthy boundaries, be there for them to drive them to a doctor's appointment to kind of be, but you know we don't have to engage if they're, you know irascible or attacking us, you know, and we can say, okay, you So I'm going to leave now. Um, you know, so in those hard relationship we have, we should have boundaries. And if it becomes truly abusive, then obviously we need to remove ourselves. But I don't think we need a change in order to still be there for them and just be somebody who can, um, offer some, some aid for them when they need it.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about family estrangement, and we're talking with Noelle Mering, author of the book "No Contact." What if the parent or grandparent is not accepting of a family member, maybe an adult child's lifestyle? Perhaps they're LGBTQ, they want to change their pronouns, the parent, or grand parent just fundamentally disagrees with this. Can you see a case for going no contact rather than feeling like an outcast in your own family?
Mering: Yeah, I deal with that a lot because that is a large driver of no contact movement. And I guess what I would say is, I mean, think about it in any other sort of deeply held belief. If, you know, if somebody were Catholic and their child or their parent really was hostile to the Catholic faith, would you think, you can just reject them because you're Catholic and they don't believe in the Catholic Church? No, even though that's your deeply held identity. So no, I don't think that even if somebody has reasonable arguments against what you believe it to be true, even if you think they're fundamentally wrong, I don't think that that's just reason to reject them. But I think that there's ways in which gender ideology really invites people towards rejection of each other. Because in some ways, you know, it is somewhat of a rejection of the self. You know, that you're trying to reinvent who you are and the parents and the grandparents. Have a canon of memory of you. And then they, and so they in some ways will always be an existential reminder of an identity that is hard to, that identity that just won't die. And so I think it makes our relationships very fragile the introduction of gender ideology.
Juravich: Well, how do you feel about working through that then? Instead of going no contact, I mean, can the child try to work with the parents to find some common ground? Maybe even see family therapists together? Is there a middle of the road that can be met?
Mering: Yeah, I think there is. So in the book I talk a lot about on both sides, I think it's incumbent on both people on both sides to try to rehumanize the other. So, you know, that I'm not gonna reduce you to this one error that I think you have, or I'm gonna reduce to this lifestyle. I'm going to say, you're a human being with loves and triumphs and struggles and joys and sorrows. Let's engage on a more human level. Tell me about the art you're working on or the new job you're trying to get. Let's try to humanize each other because once we go no contact, it sort of reinforces itself. We reduce the other person to the worst thing we believe about them. And when you're with somebody in an embodied relationship, you're there rehumanized, you see their vulnerability, you see they're laughter, you see that foible that they have or that quirk that they had. And sustained relationship can help give a fuller picture, an integrated picture of the other, regardless of whether or not we have serious disagreements.
Juravich: Earlier in the show, we talked about therapists recommending going no contact at an increasing rate. But sometimes maybe it's not the best advice to cut off. If there's a chance to work things out, you break off that chance if you cut it off. I mean, how do you feel about this idea that therapists are more often recommending family estrangement?
Mering: Yeah, I interviewed some young kids who were suggested by the therapist to go to contact. And it was sort of startling to a couple of them. They thought, you know, I've got struggles with my dad, but I love them. I don't wanna go no contact with them. It sort of seemed to come out of nowhere according to them. You know, I think there's some great therapists out there and therapy can be incredibly necessary and useful. I think that we have sort of, it's an increase in therapeutic mindsets and, you know, therapeutic language, therapy speak, the rise of the people looking at the word gaslighting, for example, has skyrocketed and narcissism and toxicity. Some of that is because those traits are more prevalent in society. So, of course, people are going to be more curious about them. But we tend to use them with a lot of imprecision. And insofar as we do that casually, we're diagnosing something that doesn't necessarily need to be calcified in a diagnostic framework. It can't just be. A challenging relationship doesn't necessarily have to be a toxic one. And I think that ubiquity of that therapy speak can really freeze our emotional state and our perception of the other person in a way that can lead to that sort of estrangement.
Juravich: And we're running out of time, but I'm going to ask you this real quick. Our previous guest mentioned that sometimes parents need to be adaptable, adapt the way they parent as the children get older. So recognize the fact that their child is now a grown adult who can make their own decisions. Do you think that there's a way to teach parents or grandparents to be adaptable in absolutely? Yeah, go ahead. Absolutely. I tell parents you never.
Mering: You don't want to placate and chase your child nor do you want to try to control your child You have to respect the interior freedom of the other and so, you know insofar as parents are trying to control their adult children You know They're gonna want try the child is gonna want to push them away further because they need to differentiate it to some level and so You know, I think respecting the freedom is absolutely crucial and if if you know My suggestion is always unless it's a severe extreme situation never give unsolicited advice, you just don't do it They're the adult now give them the pink slip on their life and engage in their relationship in other ways.
Juravich: Okay. So I feel like unsolicited advice is the parent's job though, right? So yeah. Is that the part of the change? The parent has to realize that they have to break away.
Mering: Well, yeah, I mean, I think that the parent who is less prone to give unsolicited advice is the one paradoxically who the child is more going to be likely to seek their counsel. And so I think a lot of times children feel smothered by if their parent is giving them unsolicit advice, especially if they're living independently. When my kids are in college or if I'm paying for anything, I'm giving them a solicited advice. But once they're independent, it's no longer my job. And I can invite conversation and see if they want to talk about something, but I can't impose upon them.
Juravich: We've been talking about family estrangement with Noelle Mering, author of the book, "No Contact." Thank you so much for joining us today, Noelle. Thanks for having me. This has been All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich. Thanks for joining. Thanks for listening.