Estrangement

Sometime in college, I started hurting my parents.

I became short on the phone. I didn’t return messages promptly. I bristled at questions that felt intrusive. I wasn’t trying to punish them. I was trying to separate, to figure out who I was apart from my family. Certainty, absolute and unshakeable, was the tool I used to create that space.

At the time, I was sure they didn’t know anything. My mind could not be changed.

College gave me what I needed most: distance. Physical distance first, then psychological distance. It was the first real space I had to begin figuring out who I was on my own. I didn’t handle that separation gracefully. I wasn’t kind. I wasn’t curious. I wasn’t generous. Sorry, Mom and Dad.

Looking back, it’s clear what I was doing. I wasn’t rebelling for rebellion’s sake. I was learning where I ended and they began. From the inside, that phase felt necessary, even if it was painful for all of us.

Years later, my own children, now in their mid-twenties, came at me with a similar force.

Each of them, in their own way, told me how I had failed them. All I could really do was listen and agree. They weren’t attacking me. They were renegotiating our relationship as they grew into their own people.

If you believe in karma, I got back exactly what I gave.

Seeing this cycle from both sides made me pause when I started hearing more talk about family boundaries, estrangement, and moral certainty. Parents feel blamed. Adult children feel justified. Everyone feels sure. It’s often described as a new fracture, a troubling trend, or a sign that something has gone wrong.

I’m not convinced that’s true.

We are hearing about family cut offs with the newer generations in the media lately. Some are convinced it is an “epidemic.” I am not convinced it is new. I think developmental phases of the younger generations are much louder and more visible.

 I’m noticing a pattern that feels familiar. In my own life, periods of certainty, separation, and boundary-setting marked important turning points in how I became myself. What looks different now isn’t the behavior itself, but the context in which it’s happening.

Certainty is normal developmentally when you begin to set boundaries. The certainty I’m describing isn’t intellectual confidence or moral superiority. It’s a developmental tool people use to draw clear lines before they know how to soften them.

When my children entered this stage, the power dynamics shifted in ways I wasn’t prepared for. As a parent, I hated that phase. I felt like I was losing control and watching something beautiful change very quickly. And I was. When our children become adults, the relationship we’ve known no longer fits. They are meant to evolve. They are meant to separate. They are individuals, not extensions of us. All we can really do is stay curious.

My children are nineteen months apart, which meant I didn’t get a clean break. There was a pause between one child starting this process and the other moving out of it. Just enough time to think I might be past the worst. It took a few years between the two of them to get through what felt like being humbled.

Letting go wasn’t passive. It took effort to listen without defending, to tolerate discomfort without trying to regain control, and to resist explaining myself into innocence. That period taught me something I didn’t want to learn: love doesn’t guarantee authority.

And then something shifted.

There are real advantages to this phase with my adult children, even if I couldn’t see them at first. I no longer feel responsible for fixing things for them. The relationship has room to breathe now. I also have space to continue my own development.

They call me out sometimes. I laugh because we don’t agree. I laugh because sometimes they’re right. I hear perspectives I wouldn’t have arrived at on my own. We grew up in very different worlds, and they’re living a reality I’ll never fully inhabit. Letting them teach me something feels like an honest exchange now.

What may feel like a crisis in families is, in many cases, a developmental pattern. Certainty and boundaries are often necessary tools for growth. What’s different now is visibility.

Social media hasn’t created these experiences. It’s made them easier to name and easier to find. Stories that once stayed inside families are now shared publicly. When something private becomes collectively recognizable, it can feel like a trend even if it isn’t new.

What’s interesting is that despite all this attention, there’s no clear research showing that family estrangement is actually happening more often than it used to. What has changed is how visible it is.

What looks new may simply be an old pattern, amplified and collectively witnessed.

Separation does its work. Certainty softens. Relationships change shape.

We’re still figuring it out.

But the air between us is different now.

It is better.