The Estrangement Story You Don’t Hear in the Media

There’s More to the Beckham Break-up than Meets the Eye

My mother and I have been estranged for twenty years, with a few exceptions. I saw her at the hospital when my niece was born. We spoke on the phone once in 2013, and a few times in 2016. I stopped sending my annual “Merry Christmas” text message in 2019. When we first became estranged, it felt like I was the only person in the world who couldn’t maintain a relationship with my mom. Now, stories like Brooklyn Beckham’s flood the media with one of two narratives: Brooklyn is an ungrateful kid; or David and Victoria are terrible parents. Both are probably too categorical.

In my work researching family estrangement, I have heard dozens of stories from estranged adult kids. Some are still hurting, others have moved beyond the most painful stage and still more feel grateful for the freedom estrangement has afforded them. None have cut off contact or maintained their boundaries out of spite. (I realise some estrangements are caused by the child’s mental illness or addiction issues, which is a different story that I won’t be addressing here.)

The thing I find most fascinating is that some cases mirror mine, which I used to think was unusual: the estrangement was initiated by an angry parent and then maintained by the child.

Some estranged adult children do feel some level of anger, but that anger is about how they are portrayed by their parents or journalists who claim they are simply chasing the latest “trend.” Estrangement is the last thing we wanted, and the only reason we’ve chosen it is self-preservation.

Image Source: Jessica Yap on Unsplash

There is More than One Kind of Abuse

It seems that most bewildered estranged parents think they were good parents: they fed and clothed their kids, paid for university and/or weddings, cheered for them in school sports. But for kids who choose estrangement, these things have come at too great a cost, cost being the operative word. Often, these parents have leveraged typical parenting acts into a favour that must be repaid. If parents are paying for the wedding, maybe they feel entitled to invite particular guests to the wedding. On its face, this sounds trivial. Why not let the parents invite who they want?

Here’s the part of this story that is often missing, which I think is what Brooklyn tried to explain in his explosive social media post: when parents control all aspects of a child’s life – maybe with money, but not always – a young child might be conditioned to show his appreciation by doing anything else the parents ask, even if he doesn’t want to. In the case of Brooklyn, maybe this meant trading his first dance with his wife for a mother-son dance. This level of control and dismissal of the child’s interests can become insidious over the course of childhood and adolescence. Maybe the breaking point seems unimportant, but the true reason for estrangement is probably a lifelong lack of validation.

This is just one example of how parent-child relationships might become complicated, and the truth is, it sounds trivial because it is trivial. The real test of a healthy relationship is how the conversation goes when the child tentatively says, “I don’t want to do this” or “I don’t like this plan.” Do the parents acknowledge and respect these feelings, or do they bulldoze in favour of their own interests?

Every estrangement story sounds trivial, but the story we hear is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Without exception, every estranged person I have interviewed has tried to find a way to explain their predicament to their parent. They try to explain because they want to resolve conflict and move forward together. But instead, estrangement occurs when the parent refuses or is unable to hear a critique.

The Story You Don’t Hear

Sometimes ‘no contact’ is even the parent’s idea. It was 2004 when my mother told me to move out, changed the locks on our home, and stopped taking my phone calls. Afterwards, there were brief periods of contact, but it was my work unpacking the before that gave me the most clarity. Throughout my childhood, my mom often gave me the silent treatment. As I got a bit older, she would sometimes leave entirely. She didn’t always say when she would return, and although it was always within a few days, it was still a worrying time in which I looked after my siblings and figured out what to have for dinner each night. In retrospect, it was only a matter of time until she was gone for good.

When she first told me to leave, I was desperate to reconnect, apologise (for what, I don’t actually know), and earn my way back into her good graces. That was the cycle we lived for most of my life. But at some point, I realised that while it was painful to be ignored, it was easier than spending all my time worrying about whether she was happy or angry with me and what I needed to do to maintain or change that.

Several people have told me similar stories. In one case, a woman told her mother she couldn’t take her calls during work hours any more; her mother responded by saying they shouldn’t speak at all. Similarly, we might infer from Brooklyn’s claim that his father refused “quality time” and was interested only in Brooklyn’s attendance at his very public 50^th birthday party, that control is more important to the parent than the relationship itself. In my case, after many years of no contact, my mother called. It was nothing like it should be, but it was a start. We spoke on the phone a few times and exchanged text messages, but when I failed to reply to one asking about a recent trip, she followed up to say we just shouldn’t be in contact after all.

These responses are irrational, but not unexpected. When I received that message, I thought, well, it was kind of nice while it lasted. But it was inevitable that I would disappoint her again, and she would leave. The difference in 2016 compared to 2004 was that I knew better than to try to fix it.

The Real Victims

I have no doubt that, if asked, my mother would say that I don’t speak to her. She will portray herself as the victim in any story she tells about our estrangement. And perhaps she’s right. There’s room for two victims. I don’t believe her behaviour is anything that can be helped at this time, and it’s a shame for both of us. Still, for parents lamenting they did nothing wrong, I wonder if they’ve ever considered how they might have unintentionally hurt their children, and most importantly, what they can do to repair that pain.

Parents who have shared stories of reconciliation have one thing in common: they’ve listened to their kids and worked on changing their harmful behaviour. Not necessarily because they believe it was harmful, but because they listened when their child said that they were harmed.

Of course, there are plenty of estranged adult kids who are unwilling to reconnect with their parents, and they are entitled to that choice. Perhaps the pain they endured is too much to revisit or risk inviting in again. Others are open to reconnection, if only they felt heard. The most overlooked story in estrangement is parents who are unable to listen.