When Our Children Become Adults, Do We Actually Like Each Other?
Rethinking Family, Compulsory Kinship, and the Relationships We Choose to Maintain
Recently, I listened to an episode of WBUR's On Point titled “Is the meaning of family changing?” wbur.org featuring sociologist Rin Reczek, author of Families We Lose: A New Explanation for Family Estrangement.
I loved the conversation.
And I think part of what made it so interesting to me was hearing a sociologist approach a subject that has increasingly become dominated by psychologists, therapists, and mental health professionals.
I think we sometimes do ourselves, and the people we serve, a tremendous disservice when we examine human relationships almost exclusively through a psychological lens.
Psychology matters. Of course it does.
But so does sociology. So does anthropology. So does understanding how culture, economics, religion, technology, and social expectations influence the ways we relate to one another.
We don't develop our attachment patterns, beliefs, values, and expectations in a vacuum. We develop them within families, communities, cultures, and larger social systems.
And if we're going to have a meaningful conversation about family estrangement, I think we need to be willing to examine all of those influences.
What I appreciated most about Reczek's discussion was that it moved beyond the increasingly familiar question of why adult children are cutting off their parents.
It asked us to consider what family means in the first place.
And as I listened, I kept coming back to a question that I think deserves much more attention.
When our children become adults, do we actually like each other as people?
Not love each other.
Like each other.
Because I think there's an important difference.
Are More Families Becoming Estranged, or Are We Just Talking About It More?
One of the points Reczek raises is that we don't necessarily have the research to conclude that family estrangement is occurring at dramatically higher rates than it did in previous generations.
We do know that we're talking about it more.
And I agree.
I've made this argument throughout my writing on modern family estrangement.
Estrangement is not a new phenomenon. Families have experienced ruptures, cutoffs, abandonment, conflict, and disconnection for generations.
What has changed is how publicly we're discussing those experiences.
Social media has created entire communities organized around family estrangement. People share their experiences of going no-contact, navigating difficult parents, grieving estranged children, and attempting reconciliation.
We have podcasts, documentaries, books, and even television programs where people invite the public into their therapy sessions.
We have an entire vocabulary that allows people to describe relational experiences that previous generations may never have had the language to articulate.
Some of that is incredibly valuable.
People who previously felt isolated in their experiences can find community. They can recognize unhealthy patterns. They can begin questioning family expectations that may have caused significant harm.
But visibility and prevalence are not the same thing.
The fact that we're hearing about estrangement more frequently doesn't necessarily mean it's happening more frequently.
And while I think there's a legitimate conversation to be had about whether modern culture is contributing to family disconnection, I'm not convinced that we've suddenly developed an unprecedented epidemic of people abandoning their families.
I think the more interesting question is what we're learning about the family relationships that have always existed.
Compulsory Kinship: Because They're Family, You Must...
One of the concepts Reczek discusses is compulsory kinship.
I loved this term.
It describes something that has existed within family systems for generations, even if we haven't always had a name for it.
Because she's your mother, you must.
Because he's your father, you must.
Because that's your child, you must.
You must call.
You must visit.
You must forgive.
You must maintain the relationship.
You must show up.
And sometimes, those expectations are entirely appropriate.
When we bring children into the world, we have responsibilities to them.
Children are dependent on adults for their safety, care, development, and survival. Whether a parent provides that care directly or makes appropriate arrangements for someone else to do so, there is an obligation to ensure that a child's needs are met.
But something is supposed to happen as those children grow older.
The relationship is supposed to change.
And I think this is where many families begin to struggle.
We spend years raising children with the stated goal of helping them become independent adults.
We teach them to advocate for themselves, develop values, make decisions, manage conflict, and navigate the world.
At least, that's what we're ideally trying to do.
And then, when they actually begin doing those things, some parents struggle to accept that their children are no longer obligated to organize their lives around their parents' expectations.
But there's another side to that conversation.
Some adult children want complete independence when it comes to decision-making while continuing to expect their parents to protect them from the consequences of those decisions.
They want the autonomy of adulthood with the safety net of childhood.
And sometimes parents help create that dynamic.
We become so focused on protecting our children from discomfort, disappointment, and failure that we unintentionally interfere with their ability to develop the resilience and independence they'll eventually need.
Then we wonder why the transition into adulthood is so difficult.
A healthy adult parent-child relationship requires both people to recognize that the relationship has changed.
And neither person gets to keep all the privileges of the old relationship while rejecting the responsibilities of the new one.
The Parent-Child Hierarchy Shouldn't Disappear Overnight
I don't think the transition from parent-child to adult-adult should happen suddenly on someone's eighteenth birthday.
Ideally, it begins years earlier.
By the time children reach their later teenage years, somewhere around 15, 16, or 17, depending on their development and circumstances, they should be practicing increasingly independent decision-making.
Maybe they're working and earning their own money.
Maybe they're learning how to manage their schedules.
Maybe they're navigating friendships, romantic relationships, school responsibilities, and conflicts with teachers or employers.
And rather than immediately intervening whenever something goes wrong, parents can begin helping them develop the skills to manage those situations themselves.
If your teenager has a problem with a grade, perhaps the first step isn't emailing the teacher.
Perhaps it's helping your teenager figure out how to have that conversation.
What do they want to communicate?
What questions should they ask?
What would a reasonable resolution look like?
And if that doesn't work, how can you help them advocate further?
That's parenting too.
In fact, I would argue that it's an incredibly important part of parenting.
Our goal shouldn't be to raise children who never experience discomfort.
Our goal should be to raise adults who have the skills, confidence, and support necessary to navigate discomfort when it inevitably happens.
That transition may continue through college, trade school, early employment, or whatever path a young adult takes.
And it won't look identical in every family.
Culture matters here.
In the United States, we often treat eighteen as a significant dividing line between childhood and adulthood.
But many cultures have very different expectations around multigenerational living, financial interdependence, caregiving, marriage, and the relationship between adult children and their parents.
There is no single culturally universal model of healthy independence.
What matters is whether the family can adapt to the changing developmental needs and autonomy of its members.
Because eventually, the relationship needs to become something other than one person directing the life of another.
It needs to become a relationship between adults.
But Do We Actually Like Each Other?
This is the part I keep coming back to.
We talk constantly about whether parents love their children and whether children love their parents.
But I think love is sometimes the easier question.
There are plenty of families who love one another deeply and still struggle tremendously to maintain a relationship.
They may not enjoy spending time together.
They may have fundamentally different values.
They may disagree about religion, politics, parenting, relationships, or how they want to live their lives.
They may communicate in ways that leave everyone feeling criticized, dismissed, or misunderstood.
They may simply have very different personalities.
And when the relationship is no longer maintained by the authority of a parent over a dependent child, those differences become much more important.
Because now we're asking two adults to choose to maintain a relationship.
And what makes us want to maintain relationships?
Think about your friendships.
You probably make time for people because you enjoy them.
You feel connected to them.
You share interests or values.
You appreciate how you feel when you're together.
You want to know what's happening in their lives.
You care about their well-being.
Sometimes maintaining those relationships requires effort, sacrifice, and inconvenience.
But you continue showing up because the relationship matters to you.
Now consider how different that feels from maintaining a relationship primarily because someone tells you that you have to.
Who wants to be loved out of guilt or shame?
I certainly don't.
I don't want someone showing up in my life simply because they believe they'll be a terrible person if they don't.
I want people in my life who genuinely want to be there.
And I think most people want that.
So perhaps one of the greatest challenges facing adult families isn't that we've become too individualistic.
Perhaps it's that we haven't learned how to transition relationships that were once maintained by dependency and obligation into relationships maintained by mutual desire, respect, and connection.
What Do We Actually Owe Each Other?
This is where the conversation gets uncomfortable.
What does an adult child owe their parent?
What does a parent owe their adult child?
Technically, once we're talking about two independent adults, I think the answer is far less straightforward than many people want it to be.
We have self-determination.
We get to decide how we live our lives, who we maintain relationships with, and what responsibilities we're willing to assume, within the limits of any actual legal obligations.
But our personal values, culture, religion, upbringing, and family expectations will influence those decisions.
Some families have strong traditions around adult children caring for aging parents.
Others place greater emphasis on financial independence and planning for one's own care.
Neither arrangement automatically tells us whether the relationships involved are healthy.
Personally, I don't believe that being someone's adult child automatically means you must become their caregiver.
You can care deeply about someone's well-being while recognizing that personally providing their care would be unhealthy for one or both of you.
Perhaps that means helping arrange professional care.
Perhaps it means providing financial assistance when you're willing and able.
Perhaps it means offering emotional support without taking on physical caregiving responsibilities.
And sometimes it means recognizing that you cannot safely or sustainably participate in that person's care at all.
Those decisions are complicated.
They are also deeply personal.
But the same principle applies in the opposite direction.
Parents don't necessarily owe their adult children unlimited financial assistance, housing, or rescue from every difficult situation.
And adult children don't owe their parents unlimited access to their time, homes, marriages, or children.
The question becomes whether we're choosing to show up for one another because we value the relationship or because we've been taught that refusing makes us selfish, ungrateful, or disloyal.
There's a difference between choosing responsibility out of love and having responsibility imposed through guilt.
And I think healthy families need to be able to talk about that difference.
Family Should Be Held to a Higher Standard, Not a Lower One
I've said this before, and I stand by it.
Being family should not excuse behavior that we would find unacceptable from anyone else.
If anything, I think family members should be held to a higher standard.
Consider how vulnerable we are with the people we call family.
For many of us, our families witness some of the most significant moments of our lives.
Birth.
Childhood.
Puberty.
Our first heartbreak.
Our first major disappointment.
Marriage.
Parenthood.
Illness.
Loss.
Death.
These are the people we often expect to be present when we're at our most vulnerable.
And with that access comes responsibility.
Why is it that some people will speak to their parents or children in ways they would never dream of speaking to the cashier at the grocery store?
Why do we sometimes offer strangers more patience, courtesy, and respect than the people we claim to love most?
I don't think that's something we should normalize.
But holding family to a higher standard doesn't mean holding them to an impossible one.
Parents are human.
Adult children are human.
People struggle with addiction, mental health concerns, trauma, emotional regulation, and countless other challenges.
They make mistakes.
They disappoint each other.
They sometimes say things they regret.
And healthy relationships require room for human imperfection.
The distinction is between making room for imperfection and using family status to excuse ongoing harmful behavior.
“But they're family” becomes dangerous when we use it to dismiss abuse, excuse repeated mistreatment, or pressure someone to tolerate behavior that continues to harm them.
At the same time, I don't think every disagreement, disappointment, or uncomfortable interaction should automatically become evidence that a relationship is beyond repair.
We need room for accountability.
And we need room for grace.
Those things aren't mutually exclusive.
Sometimes Distance Is Just Distance
One thing I appreciated about Reczek's discussion was the recognition that estrangement and family connection aren't necessarily permanent, fixed states.
Relationships change.
People change.
Circumstances change.
And we're allowed to change our minds.
I think there's sometimes an expectation that once someone decides to go no-contact, that decision becomes a permanent declaration about the relationship.
But why?
We change our beliefs, values, perspectives, and priorities throughout our lives.
Why would decisions about relationships be exempt from that?
Sometimes people need distance because a relationship has become harmful.
Sometimes they need distance because they're overwhelmed.
Sometimes they're navigating major life transitions.
Sometimes their values or lifestyles simply aren't compatible with those of their family members.
And sometimes people drift apart without making any conscious decision to end the relationship.
Think about friendships.
There are seasons when you're incredibly close to someone.
And then life happens.
Someone gets married.
Someone has children.
Someone moves.
Someone spends every weekend traveling for their child's swim meets or volleyball tournaments.
Suddenly, they're not available for the same activities or conversations.
That doesn't necessarily mean they stopped caring.
It may simply mean their life requires something different from them right now.
Family relationships can experience similar shifts.
Not every period of distance is evidence of abuse, rejection, or pathology.
And not every family relationship needs to look like weekly dinners, daily phone calls, and shared vacations to be meaningful.
Sometimes a healthy relationship is one where two people acknowledge their differences and establish a level of connection that works for both of them.
Sometimes that level of connection is limited.
Sometimes it's none.
The important question is whether those decisions are being made thoughtfully, rather than solely as a reaction to unresolved hurt or an attempt to control another person's behavior.
Estrangement Can Protect You. It Cannot Do All the Healing for You.
This is where I think the mental health community has an important responsibility.
Estrangement can be protective.
It can create distance from ongoing harm, manipulation, abuse, or relational patterns that someone is no longer willing or able to participate in.
Sometimes that distance is necessary.
But I think we need to be careful not to confuse leaving a relationship with healing from the experiences that occurred within it.
You can stop speaking to your mother and still carry the same attachment injuries into your marriage.
You can distance yourself from your father and still find yourself fawning whenever someone becomes upset with you.
You can leave a family system where conflict was avoided and continue avoiding difficult conversations with everyone else in your life.
You can end a relationship with someone who was controlling and later find yourself drawn to relationships with similar dynamics.
There's an old saying:
Wherever you go, there you are.
And I think it applies here.
Changing the people around you doesn't automatically change the patterns you've learned.
Family systems function as systems.
One person's behavior may be particularly harmful, but other members often develop ways of responding to, accommodating, avoiding, or managing that behavior.
That does not mean everyone carries equal responsibility.
A child who experienced abuse is not responsible for the abusive environment they were raised in.
But as adults, we have an opportunity to examine what we learned from those environments and whether those patterns continue showing up in our relationships.
And that's where the work of cycle breaking actually begins.
Cycle breaking is not a noun. It's a verb. It's a choice we make every single day.
It's not enough to recognize that something was unhealthy.
It's not enough to identify the person who hurt you.
It's not enough to announce that you're breaking generational cycles.
You have to be willing to examine your own behavior.
Take accountability for what belongs to you.
Recognize what doesn't.
And commit to doing something different.
Sometimes that work changes a family relationship.
Sometimes it doesn't.
But it can change how you show up in every relationship that follows.
The Grief of the Family We Thought We'd Have
I think one of the most overlooked aspects of family estrangement is the grief.
And not simply the grief of losing contact with someone.
It's often the grief of losing what you thought the relationship could be.
What you believed it should be.
What you needed it to be.
What you hoped it might eventually become.
An adult daughter may be grieving the mother she wishes she could call when something wonderful happens.
An adult son may be grieving the father he always hoped would be proud of him.
A parent may be grieving the future they imagined with their adult child.
The holidays.
The grandchildren.
The family gatherings.
The ordinary moments they assumed would continue for decades.
Sometimes people are grieving experiences they never actually had.
And sometimes they're grieving experiences that may never happen.
This is part of what makes ambiguous loss so complicated.
The person may still be alive.
They may live ten miles away.
You may know exactly where they are.
You may see photographs of them online.
But the relationship you wanted, needed, or imagined isn't available.
And unlike death, there's often no clear endpoint.
There may always be a possibility that something changes.
Maybe they'll reach out.
Maybe they'll apologize.
Maybe they'll understand.
Maybe you'll reconnect.
Maybe next year will be different.
For some people, that possibility offers hope.
For others, it becomes a painful reminder of a relationship that remains unavailable.
And because estrangement is often understood as a choice, the grief may receive very little acknowledgment.
When someone dies, people generally recognize that you're grieving.
When someone is estranged, people may ask why you don't just call them.
Or tell you that life is too short.
Or remind you that they're still your mother.
Or suggest that if you really wanted the relationship, you'd find a way to fix it.
But relationships require more than one willing participant.
And sometimes there is nothing one person can do to create the relationship they wish existed.
Estranged Parents Grieve Too
I think it's important to recognize that ambiguous grief doesn't belong exclusively to adult children.
Estranged parents may experience profound grief.
They may have spent decades raising a child, organizing their lives around parenting, and imagining the relationship they would eventually share with that child as an adult.
Then, for any number of reasons, that relationship changes or ends.
They may lose contact not only with their adult child but also with grandchildren and other members of the family.
They may miss birthdays, weddings, holidays, and ordinary moments they expected to be part of.
And they may have very little understanding of whether that relationship will ever resume.
That can be devastating.
Acknowledging that grief doesn't require us to determine who was right or wrong.
It doesn't require us to excuse harmful parenting.
And it doesn't require us to dismiss an adult child's reasons for choosing distance.
It simply requires us to recognize that more than one person can experience genuine pain within the same family system.
When I think about working with an estranged parent or adult child individually, my approach isn't fundamentally different based on which side of the estrangement they're on.
First, we make room for their experience.
The hurt.
The anger.
The confusion.
The grief.
The disappointment.
Depending on their history and clinical needs, approaches such as EMDR or Accelerated Resolution Therapy may help them process painful experiences and the emotional and physiological responses associated with those experiences.
We explore the patterns they've learned, the expectations they've carried, and the ways those experiences continue influencing their lives.
We work toward being able to remember and understand what happened without becoming overwhelmed by the emotional response every time they revisit it.
We examine accountability.
What belongs to them?
What doesn't?
What can they change?
What is outside their control?
And eventually, we begin exploring what a meaningful future could look like.
A future that may include reconciliation.
Or may not.
The goal isn't to convince someone to resume contact.
It isn't to convince someone to remain estranged.
It's to help them move forward with greater clarity, emotional flexibility, and the ability to make decisions that aren't governed entirely by unresolved pain.
Because whether someone returns to the relationship or not, they still deserve the opportunity to heal.
Sometimes Reconciliation Comes With Grief Too
We often imagine reconciliation as the happy ending to family estrangement.
Two people reconnect.
They apologize.
They forgive.
And everything begins to feel better.
But reconciliation can be much more complicated than that.
Sometimes people reconnect only to discover that the relationship they hoped to rebuild isn't actually possible.
Perhaps your mother is willing to have a relationship with you, but she still isn't someone you can turn to for emotional support.
Perhaps your father is trying to be more present, but there are parts of your history he may never fully acknowledge.
Perhaps your adult child is willing to reconnect, but the relationship looks very different from what you imagined.
You may genuinely appreciate the relationship you're able to have while continuing to grieve the relationship you wish you could have.
And that grief may resurface.
At holidays.
During major life events.
When you see someone else enjoying the kind of relationship you've always wanted.
Or when something happens and you instinctively wish you could share it with someone who simply isn't capable of showing up in the way you need.
Reconciliation doesn't necessarily mean restoring the relationship you once had. Sometimes it means accepting what cannot be restored and deciding whether something different can be built.
That requires vulnerability.
It requires willingness.
And it requires both people to participate.
It doesn't require perfection.
And it certainly doesn't require giving someone permission to continue hurting you.
Can Chosen Family Replace the Family We Were Born Into?
I think chosen family can be incredibly meaningful.
Friends, partners, mentors, neighbors, and communities can provide belonging, support, and connection that someone may never have experienced within their family of origin.
Sometimes those relationships become the most significant relationships in a person's life.
But I also think we need to be careful not to romanticize chosen family as though it automatically resolves the grief associated with family estrangement.
Chosen family has limitations too.
People have their own families.
Their own responsibilities.
Their own relationships and competing priorities.
Sometimes chosen communities are deeply connected to geography.
People move.
Circumstances change.
Relationships shift.
And sometimes you find yourself rebuilding that community again.
I know something about that personally.
I've rebuilt chosen family more than once in my life.
And at this point, I think both my family of origin and the chosen families I've built have, in different ways, fallen short of the family experience I once imagined.
That doesn't mean those relationships haven't mattered.
It doesn't mean they haven't been meaningful or loving.
It means that the idea of family I've carried with me hasn't always matched the reality of the relationships available to me.
And perhaps that's part of my own grief.
What I can do is try to create something different for my children.
I can be intentional about the relationships we're building now.
I can work toward creating a family environment where, when my children become adults and eventually build families of their own, they genuinely want to remain connected.
Not because they're obligated.
Not because they're afraid of disappointing me.
But because they enjoy being part of our family.
And I can recognize that even with the best intentions, I won't get everything right.
Neither will they.
Which brings me back to the importance of being willing to repair.
“I Don't Owe Anyone Anything” Sounds Empowering Until It Becomes Isolating
I understand why the language of autonomy and self-determination has become so important.
For generations, people were pressured to remain in relationships because of family expectations, cultural obligations, and fear of judgment.
We needed to challenge those expectations.
People deserve autonomy.
They deserve boundaries.
They deserve the ability to decide what relationships are healthy for them.
But I also think we need to consider what happens when individual autonomy becomes the only value guiding our relationships.
Because meaningful relationships require us to show up for one another.
And sometimes showing up is inconvenient.
Sometimes it means having a difficult conversation.
Sometimes it means acknowledging that we were wrong.
Sometimes it means making room for someone else's needs when they don't perfectly align with our own.
Sometimes it means sitting with discomfort rather than immediately trying to escape it.
That isn't the same as tolerating abuse.
It isn't the same as abandoning ourselves.
And it isn't the same as allowing someone else to control our lives.
It's recognizing that healthy interdependence requires us to care about the impact we have on one another.
We don't have to maintain relationships out of shame or guilt.
But I hope we don't lose the desire to maintain relationships out of love, concern, and genuine connection.
Because there's a difference between being free to choose our relationships and approaching every relationship as though we owe nothing to anyone.
And I think that distinction matters.
Maybe We Need to Start Asking Our Families a Different Question
So, is the meaning of family changing?
Of course it is.
Family has never been a completely static concept.
Our expectations around marriage, parenting, gender roles, caregiving, independence, and intergenerational relationships have changed repeatedly throughout history.
And they'll continue changing.
I don't think that's inherently a bad thing.
But I also don't think we should assume that redefining family automatically makes our relationships healthier.
The work still has to happen within the relationships themselves.
And that brings me to the question I wish more families were asking.
How do I envision our family, and have I actually shared that vision with the people who make up my family?
Because I wonder how many families are operating under completely different expectations without ever realizing it.
A mother imagines weekly family dinners.
Her adult daughter imagines visiting once a month.
A father imagines being involved in major decisions.
His adult son wants advice when he asks for it, but otherwise wants the freedom to make his own choices.
Grandparents imagine spending every holiday together.
Their adult children want to create new traditions with their own families.
And everyone assumes that their vision of family is the one everyone else should share.
Then someone feels rejected.
Someone feels controlled.
Someone feels unappreciated.
Someone feels suffocated.
And before long, the conflict becomes about whether someone loves their family enough.
But perhaps the problem isn't love.
Perhaps the problem is that nobody ever discussed what the relationship was supposed to look like once everyone became an adult.
What if we started having those conversations earlier?
What if parents began talking with their teenagers and young adults about how their relationship would change as independence increased?
What if adult children could communicate what kind of relationship they hoped to have with their parents without assuming that expressing those preferences was inherently disrespectful?
What if parents could share their hopes without presenting those hopes as obligations?
And what if, when our visions didn't align, we approached those differences with curiosity rather than immediately assuming someone was selfish, ungrateful, controlling, or rejecting?
Maybe we could negotiate something different.
Maybe we could find common ground.
Maybe we'd discover that we don't need the same level of closeness to maintain a meaningful relationship.
And sometimes, we might discover that our differences are significant enough that a close relationship simply isn't possible.
That would be painful.
But it wouldn't necessarily mean someone failed.
Family isn't automatically forever. But the families we come from will always be part of our origin stories.
We carry those experiences with us, whether we remain connected or not.
We can choose what we want to continue.
We can choose what we want to change.
We can acknowledge what hurt us without allowing those experiences to dictate every relationship that follows.
And we can recognize that the people we call family are human beings.
Imperfect human beings.
Just like us.
Maybe the goal isn't to preserve every family relationship at any cost.
And maybe it isn't to walk away whenever relationships become difficult.
Maybe the goal is to build relationships where people can be imperfect, accountable, autonomous, and connected.
Where we don't have to agree about everything.
Where we can make mistakes and repair them.
Where we can respect one another's independence without becoming indifferent to one another's needs.
Where we choose to show up because we genuinely want to.
And where we understand that the relationship between a parent and an adult child isn't simply a continuation of the relationship they had when that child was ten years old.
It's something new.
Something that has to be developed, negotiated, and maintained by the adults they've both become.
Maybe the meaning of family isn't something society gets to decide for us.
Maybe it's a conversation we need to start having with the people we call family.
Additional Reading and Listening
WBUR's On Point titled “Is the meaning of family changing?” wbur.org featuring sociologist Rin Reczek, author of Families We Lose: A New Explanation for Family Estrangement.
Continue Exploring Family Estrangement
This article builds on my six-part series, Breaking the Silence: Understanding Modern Family Estrangement:
Are Therapists Contributing to Family Estrangement? Looking Beyond the Headlines
Is Family Estrangement Really Increasing, or Are We Just Talking About It More?
Maybe We Don't Have a Family Estrangement Crisis. Maybe We Have a Family Transition Crisis.
Acceptance Without Approval: Can We Move Forward When We Remember the Past Differently?
When There Is No Path Forward: Life After Family Estrangement
Exploring Family Estrangement, Reconciliation, or Ambiguous Loss?
At Trauma Wise Healing, I work with adult children and parents navigating estrangement, relational rupture, attachment injuries, family-of-origin trauma, and the complicated process of deciding what comes next.
Sometimes that work involves exploring reconciliation.
Sometimes it involves grieving a relationship that may never become what you hoped it would be.
And sometimes it involves learning how to show up differently in the relationships you choose to maintain.
The goal isn't to tell you what your family should look like.
It's to help you understand your experiences, recognize your patterns, and make intentional decisions about the relationships you want to build.