HOW TO BE
A PARENT...
turns a child against the other, occurs in 10 to 15 percent of divorces involving children.)
While the contributing factors
vary, the hush that surrounds parental estrangement is a constant,
Coleman said, which is why he
calls it a “silent epidemic.”
“It feels shameful to admit to.
People worry that if they do talk
about it, on either side, they are
going to be blamed,” Coleman
said. “There aren’t the normal
kinds of support groups that exist for other sorts of traumatic or
life-stressing experiences.”
A CONTINUING CYCLE?
With so little awareness, children
who are estranged from their parents often feel isolated and afraid
of falling into familiar patterns,
so much so that in some cases,
they simply opt out of parenthood altogether.
“There’s not an insignificant
number of people who just don’t
have any confidence that they
could raise children, because they
feel like their role models were so
terrible,” said Coleman.
But others, like Mike, a
35-year-old who lives in Virginia,
work through it. Mike, who served
in the military for four years and
HUFFINGTON
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now works in logistics operations
for the government, has had virtually no contact with his father
since his parents divorced when
he was a baby, and his father left
(though he did try, unsuccessfully,
to reach out to his father when he
was a teenager).
Growing up, he regarded his
mother as a hero who sacrificed
Experts say estrangement
is on the rise, and far
more common than is
widely believed.
for him, he said, even though she
frequently kicked him and hit him
with “anything in reach.” By his
mid-20s, when he returned from
the military, his view of her soured.
“My mother would say things
like, ‘You owe me. You ruined
my life,’” Mike said. “She knew I
would feel bad, and that I would
give her what she wanted.”
Mike helped her buy $2,000
worth of furniture he could not
afford, and a $12,000 car that she
defaulted on that was in his name.
She was, he said, “unkind” to the
woman he fell in love with, who
eventually became his wife. She
tried to sabotage their relationship, writing letters to his future
wife’s father, accusing Mike of be-