Reading Dr. Coleman's words, I felt an ache deep in my bones—because he names what so few of us are willing to say out loud: even the most loving, devoted parent can still be turned into the villain in their child's story.
We think that by parenting better, by loving harder, perhaps by doing everything our own parents didn’t do, we can prevent heartbreak. We think we can "break the cycle." But the terrible irony Dr. Coleman reveals is that in cutting off their parents, today's adult children create a new and even deeper trauma—the tearing apart of generations. They do not break the cycle of pain. They extend it.
And in doing so, they inflict a wound they cannot yet imagine being dealt to them. Because one day, despite all their efforts to be the “better” parent, their own children may turn away too—rewriting years of love, sacrifice, and memories into something dark and unrecognizable.
Dr. Coleman’s wisdom is painful because it is so true: parenting with more love, more intention, more sacrifice doesn’t guarantee loyalty, gratitude, or even connection. Reality is sometimes crueler and more random than that.
I agree with him wholeheartedly. This is the grief few talk about—the grief of realizing that sometimes the very ones we love the most may one day see us not as their refuge, but as the source of their pain, no matter how hard we tried to spare them.
I have said this same type of thing to many hurting parents. Like my generation who decided to give every kid on the team a trophy because we didn't want anyone's self-esteem to suffer, the younger generation will suffer in ways they cannot now imagine. Every time I hear an younger parent exclaim that they are going to "make sure" that the trauma stops here, I cringe. I understand their good intentions and they "think" they believe that they won't be the least bothered when their child grows up and turns from them....but the truth is: until you've experienced it, you just don't know what you're talking about.
Dr Coleman.. you could not have said it better. There is a blind arrogance in millennial parents that think they are 100% better than their parents . I felt the same raising my daughters. I thought I was a great mom and I poured from a cup that I thought was wiser. Giving everything I thought my parents lacked. Financially, lovingly and emotionally along with open communication. Although I didn’t ban my mother or father from their grandchildren nor did I shut the door and never leave it open to them…. Yet eventually I estranged my own father.. expressing my feelings in a letter. I still left the door open to reconnect and I needed accountability or at least empathy to how I felt. My father is a diagnosed narcissist at a time 30 plus years ago when it was not advised to estrange just learn to handle him differently. Bottomline he was never able to be accountable. I still appreciate the wonderful things about him. However I’m not offered the same grace.. there is such disdain and hatred that I never thought would be possible after my divorce and at home mom of 22 years. So even my own arrogance “thinking I was the best mom ever” my daughters words when I was married. Shows you life and how our children can see us can change on a dime. Thankyou for sharing your wise message to those millennial parents and us, the erased ones.
Thank you Dr. Coleman for this article! We think we have it figured out in our naivety as parents when we begin the bliss of becoming a parent. . And sometimes if we’re lucky we do do better in some ways, but we also always mess up unintentionally and sometimes unbeknownst to us these flaws in us carried forward from legacies and generations of parents before us all trying to undo the previous generations “flaws“ in their current eyes. But will ultimately still find themselves a flawed parent. And ultimately all of us end up with children that have some sort of grievance. The sad thing is that some of these grievances have become trauma platforms enforced by a society, endorsing individuality now, the badge to wear as the ultimate goal in our current world more so than ever, rather than leaning into difficult conversations and healing the very relationships that hurt us. Coming out the other side with a deeper understanding of ourselves and another.
I am a retired Nurse Practitioner, and as a working mother, my life was not what I had envisioned. I worked long hours, two jobs, with them growing up, as it was important to me to keep a stable environment. My youngest daughter, now 37, went no contact after several years of abusive emails to me, and screaming at me for stupid things, like moving the couch away from the heater vent, which did not fit her asthetics in our house. She went no contact 3 years ago, and miraculouly showed up at my house the night before my mother's funeral last November, and acted as if nothing happened. Then no surprise, no contact from her through the holidays and at present. My oldest daughter, age 41, two months ago sent an email asking for more space, and she has 2 children. She does not want us to recognize any religious holidays, and she is furious that we voted differently from her in November. These two daughters do not speak to each other. At this point I am actually crying less, in a large part due to this support. We are grateful for our 3rd daughter, age 39, who is much more attentive, and will visit and do things with me. Dr. Coleman points out the importance of remaining grateful for what we have. I have it better than so many others, but it hurts, and I feel mistreated. We have been married 44 years, but these children don't give a hoot about anything to do with us.
This article says it all. What ever my parents did that I didn't think was right - I changed and allowed my children to do. My divorce and not that I came from a divorced family I didn't involve my children. Their father moved from Toronto to LA when my youngest was 3. Any milestone in my children's lives he was included without any animostity and he is a man who refused to pay support payments. I changed jobs to be able to accomodate my children's schedules. I had no life, I lived to give them everything. I catered to every whim and wish. When my mother was dying the doctors gave her 3- 6 wks to live, I took her into my home and we didn't have the best of relations and she lived for 15 months to doctors amazement but she was my mother. I tried to teach my children to forgive, family is important. Well now I'm alone - my son who I speak with lives in Seattle but my daughters have nothing to do with me for the past 4 years. My oldest has 2 children - 1 of which I have never met. My daughters have me blocked and anyone who knows me blocked (my friends and theirs) on all social media. I have from the beginning repsected their wishes, and nor do I have a reason as why this is happening. I have been through Dr. Coleman's classes, have followed other like Rachel Haack, read numerous books, seeked therapy for myself and have very supportive friends who also some are also estranged. The pain of living without my children is unbearable and MAIDS in Canada as of March 2027 is allowing medical assisted sucided for mental health issues only. Does it solve anything no, but its the only way I feel I can get pass the knife in my heart. I will not let my children know or contact them, but my dying wish to them would be they should never know from their children the pain they have caused me.
Please don't go the path of MAID. I've seen a video on it, very no-holds-barred, and it is not even painless. Please - I know how hard it is, I've been dumped by my only daughter - please try to find a reason to live even if you take things one year at a time. Or better yet, just a single day at a time. We live in terrible times and this is an ideology that is being heavily pushed. Please try to find some hope. My thoughts are with you.
Curious Josh why this is specific to Millennial parents? Is your practice primarily this subset? Interesting to me is that in one of my support groups (a tiny fraction of the client base you have) the majority of parents had by far EAC under 30. Maybe the millennials have set the stage…
Wow, it’s so heartbreaking to read these comments. I just “broke up” with my therapist of 10 years because although she’s been helpful in so many ways, I felt that once my older son estranged from me about a year and a half ago, my therapist just kept bending over backwards to sympathize with him and insist I do the same. My son simply ghosts me. I’ve written and sent the “apology letter” (he decided he wanted to live with us as a first step toward relocating from China, with his wife and daughter, and their five-and-a-half month stay did not go well). There are so many knock-on losses to estrangement. In addition to this break with my therapist, my husband and I can’t bear to go to family gatherings because it’s too painful to see our son and play-act that everything is normal. Most heartbreaking of all, we’ve lost our granddaughter. I question if my son has a mental health issue because how else can I understand this cruelty? I liked this article by Dr. Coleman. Estrangement by adult children is a growing and tragic phenomenon.
This is regarding the expression "emotional incest", with which the son attacks his mother in his letter. It is, I guess, another puritanic/therapist-inspired expression, aimed to further hurt his mother, who thought that she was being close to her son.
"Emotional incest" is something like "workplace husband", vilifying friendship between sexes and we'll probably see other expressions distorting closeness.
Thank you Dr Coleman for putting into words the thoughts that have been running through my head regarding millennial parents’ “holier than thou” parenting philosophy of today.
I think of teachers’ comments on what it’s like to attempt to teach their children and they are having a horrendous time. Their children have SO much self esteem that they argue with teachers, refuse to cooperate in class or with other kids in the classroom. That pales in comparison to their children having zero attention span because they live on their electronics devices when at home- they can’t sit still to listen to a story or focus on a lesson and millennial parents blame ALL of their children’s difficulties in school on COVID.
What is to become of these kids when they become adults? With zero respect for authority and no ability to concentrate for longer than at most a 15 minute video on YouTube- how will they ever attain a college degree, even a two year skills degree, work or obey laws?
However, you absolutely mapped out what is to come with their relationships with their kids when they grow up- the question.is, will this prompt any estranged millennial adult children to finally reach out to their parents and apologize, realizing what they did to us?
Thank you for sharing your expertise, empathy and compassion. You are always spot on! It’s now 13 years for me and your advice has educated and carried me forward to this day.
Tears 😢 specially these next few days. The Anniversary of my estrangement 15 years. My grandson’s birthday tomorrow. 17 years old. The anniversary of when my daughter took me to court 11 years ago May 10th
The following day I tried to take my life, May 11 - 6 years ago, I went to my daughters house for the first time since the estrangement and she didn’t recognize me because of how much I had aged. Last but not least. Mother’s Day….
My daughter since day one thought she was a great mom, even told me that my mother nor I knew what being a good mother was. I pray she’s doing a great job.
Reading Dr. Coleman's words, I felt an ache deep in my bones—because he names what so few of us are willing to say out loud: even the most loving, devoted parent can still be turned into the villain in their child's story.
We think that by parenting better, by loving harder, perhaps by doing everything our own parents didn’t do, we can prevent heartbreak. We think we can "break the cycle." But the terrible irony Dr. Coleman reveals is that in cutting off their parents, today's adult children create a new and even deeper trauma—the tearing apart of generations. They do not break the cycle of pain. They extend it.
And in doing so, they inflict a wound they cannot yet imagine being dealt to them. Because one day, despite all their efforts to be the “better” parent, their own children may turn away too—rewriting years of love, sacrifice, and memories into something dark and unrecognizable.
Dr. Coleman’s wisdom is painful because it is so true: parenting with more love, more intention, more sacrifice doesn’t guarantee loyalty, gratitude, or even connection. Reality is sometimes crueler and more random than that.
I agree with him wholeheartedly. This is the grief few talk about—the grief of realizing that sometimes the very ones we love the most may one day see us not as their refuge, but as the source of their pain, no matter how hard we tried to spare them.
So many will not have their own children or wait to have children until an age when their own parents have passed.
This essay and truth are exactly what I needed to hear today. Thank you.
I have said this same type of thing to many hurting parents. Like my generation who decided to give every kid on the team a trophy because we didn't want anyone's self-esteem to suffer, the younger generation will suffer in ways they cannot now imagine. Every time I hear an younger parent exclaim that they are going to "make sure" that the trauma stops here, I cringe. I understand their good intentions and they "think" they believe that they won't be the least bothered when their child grows up and turns from them....but the truth is: until you've experienced it, you just don't know what you're talking about.
Dr Coleman.. you could not have said it better. There is a blind arrogance in millennial parents that think they are 100% better than their parents . I felt the same raising my daughters. I thought I was a great mom and I poured from a cup that I thought was wiser. Giving everything I thought my parents lacked. Financially, lovingly and emotionally along with open communication. Although I didn’t ban my mother or father from their grandchildren nor did I shut the door and never leave it open to them…. Yet eventually I estranged my own father.. expressing my feelings in a letter. I still left the door open to reconnect and I needed accountability or at least empathy to how I felt. My father is a diagnosed narcissist at a time 30 plus years ago when it was not advised to estrange just learn to handle him differently. Bottomline he was never able to be accountable. I still appreciate the wonderful things about him. However I’m not offered the same grace.. there is such disdain and hatred that I never thought would be possible after my divorce and at home mom of 22 years. So even my own arrogance “thinking I was the best mom ever” my daughters words when I was married. Shows you life and how our children can see us can change on a dime. Thankyou for sharing your wise message to those millennial parents and us, the erased ones.
Thank you Dr. Coleman for this article! We think we have it figured out in our naivety as parents when we begin the bliss of becoming a parent. . And sometimes if we’re lucky we do do better in some ways, but we also always mess up unintentionally and sometimes unbeknownst to us these flaws in us carried forward from legacies and generations of parents before us all trying to undo the previous generations “flaws“ in their current eyes. But will ultimately still find themselves a flawed parent. And ultimately all of us end up with children that have some sort of grievance. The sad thing is that some of these grievances have become trauma platforms enforced by a society, endorsing individuality now, the badge to wear as the ultimate goal in our current world more so than ever, rather than leaning into difficult conversations and healing the very relationships that hurt us. Coming out the other side with a deeper understanding of ourselves and another.
I am a retired Nurse Practitioner, and as a working mother, my life was not what I had envisioned. I worked long hours, two jobs, with them growing up, as it was important to me to keep a stable environment. My youngest daughter, now 37, went no contact after several years of abusive emails to me, and screaming at me for stupid things, like moving the couch away from the heater vent, which did not fit her asthetics in our house. She went no contact 3 years ago, and miraculouly showed up at my house the night before my mother's funeral last November, and acted as if nothing happened. Then no surprise, no contact from her through the holidays and at present. My oldest daughter, age 41, two months ago sent an email asking for more space, and she has 2 children. She does not want us to recognize any religious holidays, and she is furious that we voted differently from her in November. These two daughters do not speak to each other. At this point I am actually crying less, in a large part due to this support. We are grateful for our 3rd daughter, age 39, who is much more attentive, and will visit and do things with me. Dr. Coleman points out the importance of remaining grateful for what we have. I have it better than so many others, but it hurts, and I feel mistreated. We have been married 44 years, but these children don't give a hoot about anything to do with us.
This article says it all. What ever my parents did that I didn't think was right - I changed and allowed my children to do. My divorce and not that I came from a divorced family I didn't involve my children. Their father moved from Toronto to LA when my youngest was 3. Any milestone in my children's lives he was included without any animostity and he is a man who refused to pay support payments. I changed jobs to be able to accomodate my children's schedules. I had no life, I lived to give them everything. I catered to every whim and wish. When my mother was dying the doctors gave her 3- 6 wks to live, I took her into my home and we didn't have the best of relations and she lived for 15 months to doctors amazement but she was my mother. I tried to teach my children to forgive, family is important. Well now I'm alone - my son who I speak with lives in Seattle but my daughters have nothing to do with me for the past 4 years. My oldest has 2 children - 1 of which I have never met. My daughters have me blocked and anyone who knows me blocked (my friends and theirs) on all social media. I have from the beginning repsected their wishes, and nor do I have a reason as why this is happening. I have been through Dr. Coleman's classes, have followed other like Rachel Haack, read numerous books, seeked therapy for myself and have very supportive friends who also some are also estranged. The pain of living without my children is unbearable and MAIDS in Canada as of March 2027 is allowing medical assisted sucided for mental health issues only. Does it solve anything no, but its the only way I feel I can get pass the knife in my heart. I will not let my children know or contact them, but my dying wish to them would be they should never know from their children the pain they have caused me.
Please don't go the path of MAID. I've seen a video on it, very no-holds-barred, and it is not even painless. Please - I know how hard it is, I've been dumped by my only daughter - please try to find a reason to live even if you take things one year at a time. Or better yet, just a single day at a time. We live in terrible times and this is an ideology that is being heavily pushed. Please try to find some hope. My thoughts are with you.
Please watch this interview with Kelsey Sheren on MAID for further detail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBgh-yxZtzY
Thank you Sue, and as the video describes I live in Canada no where to get help here.
We are up against NYT bestsellers like "Emotionally Immature Parents".
I guess almost every parent can be considered emotionally immature when they make a parenting mistake.
Curious Josh why this is specific to Millennial parents? Is your practice primarily this subset? Interesting to me is that in one of my support groups (a tiny fraction of the client base you have) the majority of parents had by far EAC under 30. Maybe the millennials have set the stage…
Wow, it’s so heartbreaking to read these comments. I just “broke up” with my therapist of 10 years because although she’s been helpful in so many ways, I felt that once my older son estranged from me about a year and a half ago, my therapist just kept bending over backwards to sympathize with him and insist I do the same. My son simply ghosts me. I’ve written and sent the “apology letter” (he decided he wanted to live with us as a first step toward relocating from China, with his wife and daughter, and their five-and-a-half month stay did not go well). There are so many knock-on losses to estrangement. In addition to this break with my therapist, my husband and I can’t bear to go to family gatherings because it’s too painful to see our son and play-act that everything is normal. Most heartbreaking of all, we’ve lost our granddaughter. I question if my son has a mental health issue because how else can I understand this cruelty? I liked this article by Dr. Coleman. Estrangement by adult children is a growing and tragic phenomenon.
Bravo! On point as usual. Thank you for your courageous words!
This is regarding the expression "emotional incest", with which the son attacks his mother in his letter. It is, I guess, another puritanic/therapist-inspired expression, aimed to further hurt his mother, who thought that she was being close to her son.
"Emotional incest" is something like "workplace husband", vilifying friendship between sexes and we'll probably see other expressions distorting closeness.
Thank you Dr Coleman for putting into words the thoughts that have been running through my head regarding millennial parents’ “holier than thou” parenting philosophy of today.
I think of teachers’ comments on what it’s like to attempt to teach their children and they are having a horrendous time. Their children have SO much self esteem that they argue with teachers, refuse to cooperate in class or with other kids in the classroom. That pales in comparison to their children having zero attention span because they live on their electronics devices when at home- they can’t sit still to listen to a story or focus on a lesson and millennial parents blame ALL of their children’s difficulties in school on COVID.
What is to become of these kids when they become adults? With zero respect for authority and no ability to concentrate for longer than at most a 15 minute video on YouTube- how will they ever attain a college degree, even a two year skills degree, work or obey laws?
However, you absolutely mapped out what is to come with their relationships with their kids when they grow up- the question.is, will this prompt any estranged millennial adult children to finally reach out to their parents and apologize, realizing what they did to us?
Thank you for sharing your expertise, empathy and compassion. You are always spot on! It’s now 13 years for me and your advice has educated and carried me forward to this day.
Tears 😢 specially these next few days. The Anniversary of my estrangement 15 years. My grandson’s birthday tomorrow. 17 years old. The anniversary of when my daughter took me to court 11 years ago May 10th
The following day I tried to take my life, May 11 - 6 years ago, I went to my daughters house for the first time since the estrangement and she didn’t recognize me because of how much I had aged. Last but not least. Mother’s Day….
My daughter since day one thought she was a great mom, even told me that my mother nor I knew what being a good mother was. I pray she’s doing a great job.
Thank you for this post.
Wow! Nailed it!