Devastating Statistics, Right?
Jennifer Hershon’s subscriber chat:
Nearly two in five Americans — 38% — say they have gone “no contact” with a friend or family member in the past year, according to a survey of 2,000 adults conducted in March by Talker Research for the therapy platform Talkspace.
Younger Americans were far more likely than older generations to report cutting someone off. The survey found that 60% of Gen Z respondents had gone “no contact,” compared to 50% of millennials, 38% of Gen X and 20% of baby boomers.
A very interesting point in this article is the source. One would think that the respondents who took the poll are more connected to the world of therapy. A possible lesson from these statistics is that therapy is creating less resilience, less healing and more pain in subsequent generations. Parenting skills have increased in kindness/choices/emotional development/etc and yet our culture’s respect for parenting has significantly decreased at the same time that our use of/respect for therapy increased exponentially. Sadly, just like the word abuse and trauma are so watered down now that everyone is “abused” and has ptsd (we hear this in everyday language as a joke) and is narcissistic (instead of just “spoiled” or other adjectives that are probably more fitting), we may find that therapy becomes associated with unnecessary division, watering down its effectiveness to heal.
I would like to know how many adult children who “discontinue contact” use their minor children (ie the grandchildren) as pawns/weapons against the kids’ grandparents. It seems that using children in this way is a red flag for discard/elder abuse, as opposed to estrangement for legitimate reasons. In a legitimate estrangement, the parent would keep the children safe. In discard/elder abuse, theres a game being played where both the grandchildren and grandparents suffer emotional abuse while the adult child uses theirs kids (who have healthy bonds with loving grandparents) to punish any minor misstep. (I’m not talking about “grandparent sexually abused grandchildren “ but “you won’t serve my husband coffee the way he wants, thus yhe grandkids will no longer speak with you, and in fact will be told lies in order to make them think you are evil.”