Let’s have an honest conversation about estrangement from a parent’s perspective. While there’s plenty written about toxic parents and setting boundaries, there’s another side to this story. Here are the things many estranged parents wish they could say to their adult children who’ve cut contact—not to defend or excuse, but to share the complex reality of this painful situation.
1. We Know We Messed Up, We Just Don’t Always Know How
The truth is, most of us are painfully aware that we failed you in some way, even if we don’t fully understand how or where things went wrong. We replay conversations and moments from your childhood constantly, trying to pinpoint where the fractures began. Sometimes we get defensive not because we think we’re blameless, but because the weight of our mistakes feels so overwhelming that we don’t know how to face it. When you try to explain what we did wrong, we might seem dismissive or argumentative, but really we’re struggling with the realization that we hurt you.
2. We’re Not the Same People Who Hurt You
This isn’t an excuse, but a reality we wish you could see: we’ve changed over the years, just as you have. The parent who made those terrible mistakes twenty years ago isn’t exactly the same person trying to reach out to you today. We’ve had our own growth, therapy, realizations, and regrets. Some of us have done extensive work on ourselves, trying to understand and correct our patterns. When you hold us frozen in time as our worst selves, it feels like being permanently sentenced for past crimes with no possibility of parole.
3. The Silence Is Like a Death Without Closure
Every holiday, birthday, and family milestone feels like a funeral for a relationship that’s still technically alive. We see our children growing up through distant social media posts or secondhand stories, and it’s like watching a parallel universe where we don’t exist. The hardest part isn’t just missing you—it’s the constant, gnawing uncertainty. We don’t know if this is temporary or permanent, if there’s something we could say or do to fix things, or if you’re happier without us in your life.
4. We’re Trying to Respect Your Boundaries While Dying Inside
Every time we see a number we don’t recognize on our phone, our hearts jump hoping it’s you. We draft messages we never send, buy gifts we can’t deliver, and save things we think you’d like but will probably never give you. We’re trying to honor your wish for space while simultaneously feeling like we’re abandoning you all over again by not trying harder to reach out. It’s an impossible balance between respecting your boundaries and feeling like we’re giving up on you.
5. Your Siblings Aren’t Your Enemy
When you cut us off, it creates ripple effects throughout the entire family that you might not see. Your siblings are often caught in an impossible position, trying to maintain relationships with everyone while being careful not to take sides. When they tell us about your life or share photos of your children, they’re not betraying you—they’re trying to help us cope with the loss while respecting your wishes.
6. We’re Not Just Missing You—We’re Missing Whole Chapters of Life
This isn’t just about missing phone calls or holiday dinners. We’re missing entire life chapters that we can never get back. Your child’s first steps, your job promotions, your struggles, and triumphs—these moments disappear into a void we can’t fill. When we run into old friends who ask about you, the pain of having no answer is physical. We find ourselves making up vague responses because saying “I haven’t spoken to my child in three years” out loud feels too embarrassing.
7. The Punishment Never Seems to End
Even when we’ve acknowledged our mistakes, apologized, gotten therapy, and made real changes, it sometimes feels like nothing we do can ever be enough. We understand that earning back trust takes time, but many of us are left wondering if there’s any path to redemption at all. The goalposts for reconciliation seem to keep moving, or worse, they seem nonexistent. We’re not asking for everything to go back to how it was before—we just want to know if there’s anything we can do to begin healing this rift.
8. Your Extended Family Is Suffering Too
Your grandparents are aging without seeing their great-grandchildren. Your aunts and uncles miss you at family gatherings. Cousins wonder why you’ve disappeared. While we understand your anger is directed at us, the collateral damage affects people who have nothing to do with our mistakes. They’re losing precious time with you too, and many of them don’t fully understand why.
9. We See Our Mistakes More Clearly Now
We see you giving your kids the emotional support we should have given you, having the conversations we should have had, showing the patience we should have shown. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking simultaneously—beautiful because you’ve broken the cycle, heartbreaking because we wish we’d known better when you needed us to. Every time we hear about your parenting victories, we’re proud of you and ashamed of ourselves in equal measure.
10. The Shame Is Almost Unbearable
When people ask about you or why you weren’t at a family event, each explanation feels like a public confession of our failures. Other parents look at us differently, probably wondering what horrible thing we must have done to make our own child cut us off. We’ve become those parents, the ones others whisper about and judge, and the worst part is we know we probably deserve it. The shame doesn’t just hurt—it isolates us from potential support because who wants to admit they’ve failed so completely at the most important job they’ve ever had?
11. We’re Afraid of Making Things Worse
Sometimes our silence isn’t stubbornness—it’s fear. We’re terrified that reaching out will push you further away, that saying the wrong thing will cement the estrangement permanently, and that our attempts to make things better will only prove how little we understand. This paralysis might look like we don’t care or aren’t trying, but really, we’re frozen by the fear of losing what little hope remains.
12. Your Happiness Still Matters More Than Our Pain
Despite everything, when we hear through the grapevine that you’re doing well—that you’re happy, successful, or have built a loving family of your own—there’s genuine joy mixed with our sadness. We’re proud of who you’ve become, even if we can’t tell you directly. Sometimes the only comfort we have is knowing that you’re living a good life, even if it’s a life that doesn’t include us.
13. We Hope One Day You’ll Understand
Not to excuse our mistakes, but to understand that parenting is a journey of impossible choices and inevitable failures. Now that many of you are parents yourselves, we hope you might one day see that we were doing our best with the tools we had—tools that were often broken by our own upbringing. This doesn’t make our mistakes okay, but maybe it makes them more human. We hope that someday, when your own children are grown, you’ll understand that good parents can make terrible mistakes.
