The Silent Treatment No One Is Talking About

in #parenting6 years ago

Chances are great you've never heard how adult children are ostracizing parents at an alarming rate. Why? Because the stigma attached is so painful, almost all parents never reveal this to people. When an ostracized parent does mention their adult children have cut off contact, the first question is always "What did YOU do?" Not only does this add salt to an already wounded soul, it cuts deep, so deep they never tell anyone again.


Source: dailymail.co.uk

The age most adult children seem to inflict this, is in their 30's. It can be the cause of an over-bearing parent giving too much advice, or a parent who is verbally abusive & critical or the adult child is being manipulative towards the parent almost like a spoiled toddler trying to get their way. This age is when most of us want to make our own mistakes without the "I told you so" reeling back at them. Perfectly understandable, but this is the wrong way to go about it.

Communication has become a lost art form. It sounds simple, open mouth and talk. But nobody is doing it anymore. It's texting, e-mails & Facebook now. Gone is the beautiful hand written letters to loved ones, gone is the telephone call to just say hello, gone is telling someone face-to-face they have hurt you. Today's young adults are walking a slippery slope by cutting off parents in what seems to be trivial things. Life is so short to make a divide so grand. I can see if the parents were physically abusive, even that term seems to lie on a slope of just basic discipline being used against parents.


Source: quotesgram.com

This is not something new either. Hundreds of years this has been happening in families, but nobody talks about it. It is taboo. The shame, guilt, confusion, hurt & anger that come with it pushes parents to suicide, depression, self destruction and isolation. Most parents will say they don't know what they did. That is not entirely true. They just don't want to face it or they think they do no wrong. Obviously, the children think you did something so horrible they cut off contact so the first thing is to put yourself in their shoes.


Source: lovethispic.com

As painful as it is, to admit you may not have been the best parent is a step in the right direction. Always leave the door open for them to come back. Try to listen when and if they ever do try to reach out. Learn from the past to move into the future. Let them vent and you be silent. Any communication is an olive branch, but it is not the time for parents to talk. Hard as it is, adult children are what we made them into.


Source: excellentfamily.net

There is always hope. Time doesn't make it easier either. Time is not on parents side as we miss out on grandchildren, holiday's & birthday's. The silence is heartbreaking. I hate when television shows the happy families gathered around for celebrations, everyone is smiling. I want to throw up. Reality within families is the opposite. Someone always has a grudge, someone is always walking on egg shells. Communication, which has all but disappeared, is the only hope for today's family. Open communication, talking to each other, letting people know the minute they have hurt you would do wonders to society today. Some where along the line some of us were taught to hold their tongue when they were hurt. It's not okay. People can't know unless you tell them.


Source: onsizzle.com

There can be a lot of reasons adult children cut off parents but unless there was physical or sexual abuse, it is nothing but a cruel, vindictive, selfish thing to do. Denying a parent access to grandchildren is another very cruel thing to inflict on another person. There is no reason to be this mean to people who raised you and loved you. Again this doesn't count if your parents were abusive. This was written for all the parents who loved their children and have been shunned for trivial things, interference from spouses and adult children getting bad advice from ignorant social media "friends".

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Yes, agreed, it is very bad and not talked about enough and we forget about this most of the time and I saw a lot when I taught English in Vietnam for 5 years, and saw 3 generations of family in many houses, many homes, many apartments, many places, in Vietnam, generally, more so than America it seems, and I saw benefits there in that and there is so much to learn from communication, from honoring parents, from being there for them, in checking in with them enough and these are variables and factors that may depend on many things but they are still things that do matter so much regardless of the details. I'm Oatmeal.

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