There’s a story that lurks in our family lore. I don’t remember anyone ever telling it outright. But it was there. Fuzzy around the edges. Bleeding into every day.
When my grandfather was very young, his father died tragically. He went duck hunting, got pneumonia, and, without antibiotics, the infection quickly took his life. My great-grandmother was not only broken-hearted, but also understandably terrified about her future. It was 1927. Women didn’t work outside the home except under serious duress. There were no federally funded social safety nets (FDR’s New Deal including aid for dependent children wouldn’t come for another eight years). Without her husband, my great-grandmother had no idea how she and her young son would survive.
My grandfather remembered her anger, her fury that no one stepped up to help her in the ways that she needed, following her husband's sudden passing. She was so upset that she cut off contact with her family.
My great-grandmother became a schoolteacher. She was disciplined and determined and raised my grandfather successfully on her meager salary, even managing to save enough for her own retirement. Her dire straits were temporary, but the rift with her family became permanent. My grandfather grew up without connections to his extended family. And when my mom and her siblings were born, they too missed out on relationships with extended family members.
This week, the New York Times published a chilling article about a rising trend of elective estrangement that has been building in this country since COVID. Whereas previously individuals might have cut off contact with family out of anger or pain as a last resort, recently “mental health influencers” have been promoting the possibility of liberating oneself from family as a step towards personal growth and healing, sometimes without any attempt to resolve the pain or conflict driving the estrangement in the first place.
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