"How dare you keep MY grandchild from me!"
Source: iStock "Angry grandma with windblown hair" / Photo ID:168502532 / Credit: Willowpix
Images in movies, shows, commercials or greeting cards of grandparents and grandchildren spending time together typically elicit associated feelings and memories of warmth and safety. Making cookies. Reading stories. Doing crafts. Sending and receiving cards and gifts on birthdays and holidays.
The stuff of personal nostalgia and fond recollections.
Sometimes, however, reality isn’t that idyllic.
The topic of access to grandchildren is a very fraught one within the communities of estrangement. In many ways, it is an extension or amplification of the conflict between the adult child and the parent(s) they intentionally chose to estrange themselves from.
A consistent theme is that the estranged parent believes that they are entitled to something - be it the ongoing tolerance of their adult child to their unchangingly harmful behavior in order to maintain relationship with them or their perceived “right” to have access to their children’s children simply due to the happenstance of biological association - or ”blood ties” - regardless of the state of the relationship with their adult child.
Whether recognized as such, these arguments are based upon the equivalent of assumed territorial “rights,” not on relational contribution or consideration of impact to the overall functioning dynamic. It is the byproduct of patriarchal systems and mentalities where children are property and the offspring, or products, of one’s lineage are part of that ownership.
The hard, uncomfortable truth is that we live in a society where, within the realm of family, the expectations of unquestioning loyalty, duty and obligation are placed upon children, rather than being focused on the responsibility of parents to foster connection - to build and nurture healthy relational dynamics and create emotional safety.
That deep, widespread deficiency in cultural focus is revealed in the prevailing lack of emotional skill sets displayed by estranged parents in actually building authentic connection or possessing any sense of awareness of their foundational responsibility in establishing (and maintaining) the relational dynamic with their children.
For those whose estrangement from parents includes protecting their own children from those dysfunctional relational dynamics, it often becomes yet another area where blame is placed upon the estranged adult child for their “selfishness” in “withholding” their children from their parents.
Proclaimed pundits on estrangement will assert that when estranged adult children do not allow the people they deliberately removed themselves from to have access to their children, they are unfairly victimizing both their parents and their children and, in the process, will dramatically cast grandparents as the tragic “collateral damage” or "casualties" of the estrangement by their adult child.
They claim that the act of extending the estrangement to their children is a reflection of “our culture's disdain for aging [that] reveals itself in the little regard accorded to the role of grandparents when family conflict occurs. Grandparents are viewed as one more relationship to be disposed of when they don't satisfy the criteria required to sustain today's parent–adult-child relationships.” (1)
Well, yes and no.
It is astonishingly common and easy, even (or especially) by “experts” in estrangement, to minimize and malign the decision to estrange due to unchangingly harmful dynamics as being a reflection of a “disposable” relationship mentality. This "disrespectful" and glib viewpoint is often ascribed as being the result of a generational shift in, or away from, “family values.”
Such positioning deliberately belittles the difficulty and intense pain that underlies the decision to estrange and intentionally demonizes the estranged adult child versus placing the focus on where the relationship failure truly lies - with the party that refuses to authentically (if at all) come to the table to meaningfully address those harmful dynamics.
So no, those types of assertions are little more than false and deceptive rhetoric-based propaganda designed to fuel the deflective estranged parent agenda within the cultural discourse.
However, if the relationship doesn’t “satisfy the criteria” to be sustained between the parent and adult child, then that also holds true for the children of that estranged adult child and those that they estranged themselves from. It would be illogical and irresponsible for the estranged adult child to conclude otherwise. So yes, in that sense, there is a natural association between the estrangement of the adult child and their parent to the corresponding relationship (or lack of) with the estranged adult child’s children. For good and well considered reasons.
The reality is that these “grandparents” have deliberately chosen not to satisfactorily address the relational dysfunction or repair the harm they inflicted, leading to their adult child ultimately finding it necessary to go no contact. Yet despite this, they believe they have the right to ignore that dysfunction, most likely perpetuate it with their relationship with their child’s child, and force their adult child to interact with the source of their deepest emotional pain in order to provide their estranged parent with access to their own children.
Such an expectation is yet more evidence of what underlies the estrangement: unearned entitlement, emotional immaturity, lack of empathy or awareness and refusal of those estranged parents to take any sort of credible accountability.
If the estranged adult child no longer has a sense of emotional safety with their estranged parent, why would there be an expectation for them to expose their own children to the source of that potential danger?
“Feeling emotionally threatened for a period of time without a return back to safety, acceptance and belonging is to live in what essentially feels like a constant state of physical threat.”(2)
The pressure by society on estranged adult children to foster relationships between their own children and people they removed themselves from is indicative of both the lack of understanding and the societal minimization of the depth of harm that was endured in order to reach a decision to go no contact.
The decision to estrange is done as a last resort in order to remove ourselves from unhealthy relationships and environments that do not have the potential to improve. Continuing or re-exposing ourselves to those relationships or environments to facilitate interaction of our children with those harmful elements is not only a disservice to our healing but also to our children and their overall wellbeing as well.
As one study that delved into the experience of estranged adult children found, after the initial implementation of no contact with parents, “participants spoke about actively or passively maintaining the estrangement, because reconciliation - in any form - would undo all the hard work they had done on [them]self... Most stated that they needed to maintain estrangement as much as possible in order to protect themselves and make a space for healing.” One participant was quoted as saying, “‘It’s taken me literally, since I’ve been a mother, 15 years, to get to this point so that’s why I’m very protective of undoing everything I have done.’” (3)
Facilitation of regular interaction between the estranged parent and the estranged adult child’s children, while potentially not requiring any form of reconciliation, does necessarily have to involve some level of willing exposure to that source of deep and unrepaired pain. The repeated exposure required in doing so has potential to undermine whatever healing has been achieved - something which is very likely a continually ongoing endeavor. The reality is that there will always be some level of healing in process from the irreparable wound of having to deliberately walk away from parents and family.
As UK author and advocate for recovery from toxic parenting Josh Connolly states,
“If allowing your parent to have a relationship with your children risks, even a little bit, losing you as a human being - and that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll decide to not be here anymore - but it dampens your light so much that you’re not here [emotionally present/available], then you’re not just letting your parent have a relationship with your children, you are taking away the opportunity for your children to have a relationship with you. The decision comes down to, if allowing this abusive person to be in my children’s life switches my light out [to be fully myself with my children], then it doesn’t get to happen.” (4)
As estranged adult children, we (and our families of creation) are keenly aware of both the immediate and residual impacts to our emotional well being that comes along with interactions with the parents and family we estranged ourselves from.
The highly pressured cultural advocacy for estranged adult children to foster engagement between our children and our estranged parents glorifies - in a vacuum - the perceived universal benefit of the “grandparent/grandchild” relationship. It presumes that it would fall into the realm of what has been found in research as advantageous to the grandchild to have multigenerational familial exposure.
What is not considered is how that plays out within the dynamic of a dysfunctional family system in which those “grandparents” play a central and unremediated role in that dysfunction. It doesn’t factor either the individual or the collective, multigenerational unresolved history or harmful behavioral patterns. Nor does it consider the pain or the impact that those exposures to facilitate those interactions may have on the person who needed to remove themselves from those individuals in order to protect themselves in the first place.
In these dialogues, it is not considered that in fact these interactions could pose a threat to the grandchild as a result of that same emotional immaturity of the grandparent that underlies the estrangement and how that might adversely play out for that grandchild - either directly or through the unavoidable ripples within the family dynamic - or both.
Rather, the unqualified assumption is that the interactions between those two parties would naturally be safe, healthy and nourishing. The concept of emotional safety is not one that is well understood (especially by estranged parents) nor is the prevalence and impact of emotional abuse and neglect recognized (see previous educational series article on this topic).
“Without emotional safety, you can’t love well, or even live well. If you don’t feel emotionally safe when you’re with someone, you can’t feel close, and you don’t feel good.”(2)
Beyond the sense of entitlement, there is also a general absence of emotional intelligence or awareness behind estranged parents' belief in their “right” to a relationship with their “grandchildren.” This again, is part and parcel to the underlying factors for the estrangement with their adult children.
As explained by trauma counselor Kirsten Alberts:
“Toxic parents seeing ‘no big deal’ about having a relationship with their grandchildren without having a relationship with their children, is a tough concept to wrap our heads around. But here is what I have found so far: When their children set boundaries, or go LC or NC [low contact or no contact], their parents see it as a catastrophic betrayal that can never ever be fixed or forgiven. In their minds, nothing they did can EVER justify the ‘shocking’ act of a child ‘disrespecting’ his or her elders so atrociously, so they chalk it up to the child suddenly developing massive problems that are so severe, they can’t be fixed. (Social media, therapy, and a partner who ‘brainwashed’ them, are the top 3 ‘problems.’)
It was the child, not the parent, who ‘chose to walk away instead of dealing with their problems,’ so they don’t see how it should affect their relationships with their grandchildren - who don’t have the same ‘problems with disrespect’ as their children do. Grandchildren have grandparents, and just because the adult child doesn’t want a relationship, it doesn’t mean their grandchildren shouldn’t.” (5)
The "top three problems” noted by Alberts are borne out in the body of research as the main external factors on which estranged parents blame the estrangement versus the harmful relationship factors as cited by estranged adult children who, not incidentally, are the ones who tend to initiate the estrangement.
These are parents who, as we who estranged ourselves from them already know, will never see their role in the dysfunctional relationship and will never acknowledge the depth of harm inflicted. Or, if anything, they pay superficial lip service to that harm - as advocated by those estrangement pundits - in order to manipulate re-engagement or to try to finagle access to their estranged child’s children.
They fully believe themselves to be entitled to a relationship with their adult children no matter what, so naturally similarly believe themselves entitled to a relationship with their child’s children.
After all, it was never their issue or fault, in their mind, for why their adult child walked away.
Ultimately, it is not the role of estranged family members, friends, acquaintances, so-called “experts” or society at large to dictate that there be a relationship between those that we estranged ourselves from and our own children. Or to malign those of us who choose not to facilitate one.
No one has an entitlement to a relationship with our children - no matter who they are.
As we have the right to protect ourselves from the harm of those we estranged ourselves from, so too do we have the right - and obligation - to protect our children.
Another uncomfortable reality of estrangement is that among the many challenges of being cycle breakers is the number of times we have to stand alone against the cultural norms and expectations that society fails to see as being dysfunctional and harmful.
Thankfully, with organizations like Together Estranged and the continually growing awareness around estrangement, there is more support and sources of community for us cycle breakers than there has been in the past.
As it relates to what our children would benefit from, our families of choice and creation can, and often do, include members of the older generation who can fill in for what they might otherwise stand to gain from relationships with our estranged parents who refuse to make repairing the relationship with their own child the priority.
Rather than having shifted away, our “family values” have expanded to recognize and include far more than what is traditionally focalized to that of related “blood.” The full and true saying, after all, is “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” The bonds we form of our own choice, volition and effort are often stronger than those we simply happen to have been born into.
It only takes one grandparent or grandparent-like relationship of true connection to fully receive that benefit. Our children will receive the additional benefit of understanding that relationships are based in mutual respect and effort and that they need never have tolerance for harmful behavior - by anyone.
Family of origin or not, it is the relationships we actively cultivate, nourish and invest dedicated emotional labor into that are deeper, more connected and more resilient than those we falsely assume we have entitlement to, and therefore do little or nothing to maintain or repair.
I, for one, am monumentally grateful for the close bonds my child has had and continues to have with his grandparents on my spouse’s side (and also with my spouse’s siblings and extended family). The experiences they have had together - from baking cakes, enjoying both holiday gatherings and regular FaceTime chats, making up stories, building elaborate five foot tall rockets out of cardboard or just joyfully spending time together - have always been full of love, affection, emotional warmth and safety and genuine connection.
Whether with memories made or yet to come, there is nothing my child is missing out on.
A grandparent relationship of true connection
[Please note: This article is a reflection on the annual September 8th observance of Grandparents Day. The educational columnist is not a licensed mental health professional. The articles under this series are written from a peer to peer perspective.]
Sources:
Coleman, Joshua. “The Lonely, Fractured Lives of Estranged Grandparents” Psychology Today, March 6, 2024
Letich, Larry. “Emotional Safety: What it is and Why it is so Important” The Art of Feeling. November 10, 2022.
Agllias, Kylie . (2017): Missing Family: The Adult Child’s Experience of Parental Estrangement, Journal of Social Work Practice, DOI: 10.1080/02650533.2017.1326471
Connelly, Josh. https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_ffw/video/7403786274181500192
Alberts, Kirsten.“Grandparents Rights” August 28, 2024 https://www.facebook.com/KirstenAlbertsOnlineCounselling
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