Estrangement is a big problem
More than a quarter of Americans may be estranged from a family member
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For the past six months or so, I’ve been casually bookmarking news articles on estrangement. For example, here’s an Economist piece from May suggesting estrangement may actually be quite common. And here’s one from the Atlantic in January with a similar thesis.
The take away from such coverage is that estrangement seems to be a growing problem. And I find that particularly fact relevant because estrangement is very much the opposite of what I’m exploring — and, I suppose, advocating — here in this newsletter. If more and better connections with more people (especially family) leads to a better life, becoming estranged means something broke down.
Amidst all this coverage comes a new book, Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them, from Karl Pillemer, a sociologist and professor of human development at Cornell. I recently bought and started reading this book, and it paints a dire picture indeed.
Pillemer conducted a survey of more than 1,300 Americans and found that 27 percent said they were estranged from a relative. If the survey is representative of the broader population (which Pillemer believes it is), that means around 67 million people in the U.S. are estranged from someone. In fact, he actually thinks the numbers are “likely higher, as some survey respondents may have not wished to admit the problem. Therefore, the 27 percent figure should be considered a low estimate of the scope of family rifts”1.
Broken down by relationship type, Pillemer discovered that 10 percent of people in his sample were estranged from a parent or child, 8 percent were estranged from a sibling, and the remainder were estranged from other family members including cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, etc.2
The vast majority of the people who reported experiencing estrangement also indicated that they find it upsetting, and Pillemer goes into detail about how estrangement serves as a source of chronic stress3. He also argues that this matters because, despite growing variation in the types of relationships people have, family relationships remain “the most reliable ties available in our society”4.
I found all of this to be pretty disheartening, and it reminded me of the rise of love-based relationships. As historian Stephanie Coontz has documented5, people feared that when relationships were centered around love (“soul mates” verses the older of idea of “work mates”) they would be fundamentally fragile. Coontz believes these fears proved to be true. And while she was talking specifically about marriage and couples pairing up, estrangement strikes me as an analogous issue; if the only thing holding an extended family together is an emotional bond, it can quickly disintegrate over disagreements about, say, political positions or lifestyle choices.
In the recent Atlantic article on estrangement, historian Steven Mintz makes a similar point:
Families in the past fought over tangible resources — land, inheritances, family property. They still do, but all this is aggravated and intensified by a mindset that does seem to be distinctive to our time. Our conflicts are often psychological rather than material — and therefore even harder to resolve.
That article also mentions that some people who become estranged, particularly parents of adult children, seem to be confused by what actually caused their estrangement. Pillemer makes this point too, and his book includes passages from interviewees who describe being “bewildered”6, confused7 and unable to understand the dynamics of their own estrangements.
Pillemer also notes that some estrangements occur when a relationship hits a breaking point and people ultimately conclude their “done” trying8. But the book also mentions instances of people gradually drifting apart9.
Estrangement can be, in other words, a process.
All of this got me thinking more critically about my own relationships, and wondering if I could be sowing the seeds of future schisms10. I certainly hope not, but as a relatively new parent (my oldest is 3) I find it kind of scary to think that my ties to my kids could someday crumble for reasons one side can’t understand, correct, or even apologize for. I still have time to avoid that fate, but the lesson I take away from this is that estrangement is just one chapter in a much longer story — and that at least some people probably didn’t realize that chapter was coming until it was too late.
In any case, via his research Pillemer identified six pathways to estrangement. I’m not going into detail on all of them here but I will briefly list them:
History (eg past abuse or neglect)
The legacy of divorce
A problematic in-law
Money and inheritance
Unmet expectations
Value and lifestyle differences11
What I thought was interesting is that those categories capture not just estrangements, but also a lot of the (not-quite-estrangement) friction I’m aware of in the families of various friends and acquaintances. It’s so easy to see how the gulf between people can gradually widen until it becomes an uncrossable chasm.
I could go on and on, but if you’re interested in why people nuke their family relationships, or how they come back from that, check out the book.
In the meantime, I wanted to highlight an anecdote Pillemer includes. By way of setup, I’ve always imagined estrangement to be something that is maybe unfortunate, but also perhaps inevitable in some circumstances. In other words, sometimes you just have to cut a family member off.
That may be true, but the book recounts the story of a woman named Tricia Stewart who was born to a teenage mother and a drug dealer father. Stewart’s parents divorced and her mom left, leaving her in the care of the drug dealer. Stewart was forced to sell drugs when she was 10, and was physically and sexually abused by people in her father’s life.
If ever there were someone for whom estrangement would seem like a good fit, it’s Stewart. And indeed she did cut off her parents for a while. But incredibly, in her mid twenties and by then a mother herself, Stewart rebuilt relationships with both of her parents. Pillemer writes:
Reflecting on decades of stormy family drama, [Stewart] told me that working to move through estrangement to reconciliation was worth the cost. Achieving the reconciliation taught her critically important lessons about how to meet her own needs while accepting differences and showing compassion to others. She explained: “My dad’s not capable of saying he’s sorry, because he doesn’t really understand the ramifications of his actions. I can still be in a relationship with them and not own whatever they have going on. The biggest thing is being comfortable with who I am and the choices I’ve made.”
Obviously Stewart’s experience isn’t for everyone. But it was inspiring to read an example of someone who had every right to severe ties, yet nevertheless figured out a way back.
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Headlines to read this week:
The Unexpected Joys of Aunting
“I have seven siblings, and my father has six, so the kids in our family are awash in near relations. In my family, uncles are teasers and practical jokers, pitchers of wiffle balls, and sneakers of treats, while aunts are board-game-players, story-readers, and purveyors of nutritious lunches. But we are all keepers of family lore, capitalizing on every child’s fascination with the childhoods of their parents. Your dad learned to ride a bike in this alley; We made these cookies with Nana every Christmas; Did I tell you about the time Uncle Frank tried to run away from home? This is what separates us from the fairy godmothers and BFGs of story time: shared history; bonds older than we are.”
The Opposite of Toxic Positivity
“The antidote to toxic positivity is “tragic optimism,” a phrase coined by the existential-humanistic psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. Tragic optimism involves the search for meaning amid the inevitable tragedies of human existence, something far more practical and realistic during these trying times. Researchers who study “post-traumatic growth” have found that people can grow in many ways from difficult times—including having a greater appreciation of one’s life and relationships, as well as increased compassion, altruism, purpose, utilization of personal strengths, spiritual development, and creativity. Importantly, it’s not the traumatic event itself that leads to growth (no one is thankful for COVID-19), but rather how the event is processed, the changes in worldview that result from the event, and the active search for meaning that people undertake during and after it.”
Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them. Karl Pillemer. 2021. Page 24.
Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them. Karl Pillemer. 2021. Page 24. Pillemer mentions a few pages earlier that the consensus definition of estrangement “involves cutting off regular contact between two or more family members.”
Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them. Karl Pillemer. 2021. Page 57.
Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them. Karl Pillemer. 2021. Page 57.
Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. Stephanie Coontz. 2005.
Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them. Karl Pillemer. 2021. Page 61.
Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them. Karl Pillemer. 2021. Page 60.
Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them. Karl Pillemer. 2021. Page 31.
Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them. Karl Pillemer. 2021. Page 5.
I wrote a few weeks ago about proximity, and how it can weaken family bonds. I see this in the lives of tons of people know; they end up living far from each other and over the decades interact less and less. The end result may not be estrangement in the conventional sense, but the end result is almost the same. It’s like an estrangement of convenience. I have no idea how common this is, but it kind of seems to be the default relationship type for a lot of adult siblings.
Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them. Karl Pillemer. 2021. Page 31-50.