Not All Estranged Parents Are Abusive

Not all estranged parents are abusers. There are dozens of reasons adult children cut off their parents that have nothing to do with the parents: drugs, mental illness, personality disorders, abusive husbands or wives, and parental alienation, for starters. Adult sons and daughters are capable of being just as abusive to parents as parents are to children. So when you hear that a parent is estranged, don't immediately assume they're at fault. And don't use this website to prove that they must be at fault.

But members of estranged parents' forums are... a subset of all estranged parents. A distinctive subset. Quite a few people show up with stories of losing contact with their children because of drugs, mental illness, abusive sons- and daughters-in-law, or the influence of a vengeful ex. However, most of the people who know why their children are estranged filter away from the group quickly. I don't know where they go, but I suspect they find help in other groups—parents with drug-addicted children find groups about dealing with drug addicts, parents whose children are in the control of an abusive partner find groups about partner abuse. They go to groups whose focus is on the challenge the child is facing.

The parents who stay have a different focus. For example, even when members of estranged parents' forums present compelling evidence that their child is in an abusive relationship—bruises, witnessed verbal abuse, statements by the child that their spouse is abusive—the parents react abusively. They still demand, berate, and control. They push their child to do what's best for the parents, not what's best for the child. For example, they may insist upon visits with the grandchildren, even if their daughter has to sneak the grandchildren out of the house and risk abuse from her husband if she's caught. The parents are focused on how their child's abusive marriage affects them, personally, not on their child's suffering.

There are other signs that the parents who stay aren't the same as the parents who leave, or who never come to the group. For example, one member's adopted younger son had reactive attachment disorder (RAD) and tried to kill his mother when he was 14. On its own, that's not a sign that the mother was abusive. RAD does terrible damage to children, and we're still struggling to find a therapy that works for the worst cases.

But the school system twice notified CPS that they suspected the mother was abusing the son. And while disciplining her son in public, the mother was repeatedly interrupted by strangers who tried to stop her, then called CPS. CPS decided the charges were founded and "threw the book at" her. So when she disciplined her older son at home and the neighbors called the police, she was at risk of being sent to jail by CPS. The mother described herself as "a 'victim' of the Parent Police" who had "lost [her] freedom to parent."

(She also had a little dog that loved her right up until the day it bit her, when she threw it out of the house and told it not to return for a week. Two weeks later someone found the dog and called her, and her father brought it back.)

She wasn't in a support group for parents of RAD. She wasn't even in a support group for parents of drug addicts, which her older son had been since the ninth grade. She was in a group specifically for estranged parents who have given up on having a relationship with their children, seeking relief for her bitterness at her 16- and 18-year-old children's self-absorption and rejection, and for her anger at the repeated challenges to her parenting.

And the other members? They supported and consoled her. Another member shared her own experience of spending years in CPS's sights.

Non-dysfunctional people don't stay in that environment. They get out, they find forums that address their children's problems and recognize child abusers' justifications when they see them. What's left behind are the people too broken to recognize abuse, too hungry for validation to speak up when they see their friends being abusive, too abusive to pass in a forum of healthy people.

Not all estranged parents are abusive.

Not all estranged parents are abusive.

Not all estranged parents are abusive.

But if they're a member of a estranged parents' forum, they're not one of those parents.

How do you tell which parents are abusive?The missing missing reasons

Updated 5/26/2015

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The analyses on this page are my own opinions and should not be construed as medical advice or statements of absolute fact.