HOW TO BE
A PARENT...
HUFFINGTON
01.19.14
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BY CATHERINE PEARSON
When she
gazes at her
4-monthold daughter,
Toni finds
it hard to
believe that
her own
father has
not reached
out to her for
months.
Growing up, the 24-year-old
preschool teacher from Texas had a
strained relationship with her father. He was an alcoholic, she said,
who frequently lied to her and
struggled with mental health issues. When her parents divorced in
2012, Toni recognized an opportunity to sever ties. Last September,
not long after her own daughter
was born, she wrote her father a
letter, explaining that she no longer wanted any contact with him.
“Part of my thinking was, ‘I don’t
want to voluntarily put bad people
in my daughter’s life,” Toni said. “I
kind of see it as protecting her.”
Toni was surprised and hurt
when she didn’t hear from her father. A part of her, however small,
thought her letter might spur him
to action. “I look at my daughter
and I say, ‘I don’t care what she
says to me, I could never not be a
part of her life,” said Toni, who like
all of the estranged adults in this
article, asked that only her first
name be used. “Sometimes, I don’t
know whether I’m sad or angry. …
Right now, I think I’m both.”
There are no clear estimates of
how many grown children in the
U.S. are estranged from their parents, either by their own choice or
their parents’. But experts say estrangement is on the rise, and far
more common than is widely believed, presenting challenges for a
new generation of men and women on the brink of parenthood.
Estrangement is neither an illness nor a condition that can be
diagnosed, but the fracturing of
a family can be no less devastating — and there are no clear treat-