More Answers and Advice for Parents of Estranged Adult Children- Sheri McGregor, MA
About a decade ago, I became the unwilling member of a group of parents who society has forced into silence and continues to judge and blame. Truth be told, I would have made many of the judgments that were projected on to me. I am the parent of an estranged adult child. Ignorance and silence perpetuate untruths concerning estrangement. Along with this, there has developed an entire philosophy of cancel culture and a business sector within psychology that supports blaming parents. Don’t get me wrong—I realize divorce, drug abuse, alcoholism, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse all can lead to estrangement. But these are NOT fueling the phenomena we’re dealing with. Sheri McGregor’s book is about how “good parents who work diligently and do their best sometimes end up without the sweet fruits of their labor.” Her statistics indicate that as many as one in four families will experience an estrangement at some point. Gone are the days of reasonable parenting producing anything like reasonable outcomes, IMHO. Early in my own search for understanding, I looked for books and found ridiculous nonsense that blamed, shamed, and put the onus on parents for reconciliation. What a breath of fresh air to find McGregor’s book which empowers parents!
In 2016, McGregor released her first book, Done With the Crying: Help and Healing for Mothers of Estranged Adult Children. I skipped that one preferring to go on to the second because the focus of Beyond Crying is about moving the family that’s left behind forward. After years of processing my own feelings and coming to the same place as the author about her own situation, I was more concerned about how siblings handle estrangement and how to prepare for end-of-life choices. In addition, Beyond Crying, offered expanded material on mental health, boundaries, and truths about reconciliation.
The overall emphasis of this book is to help parents recover a strong and healthy sense of self to move forward with purpose. The adult child may never reappear or reappear only to break again. Even reconciliation that is functional will never be what it once was. You can’t go home. Hard truth. McGregor shares many stories from interviewing over 50,000 parents who have walked this path. They are enlightening.
And I know that if you read this far, you’re wondering—why. Why did my estrangement happen? Like many of the parents in the book, I don’t know why. I never will.
Sheri McGregor’s Website for parents: https://www.rejectedparents.net/
Added: 7/22 To get a feel for how adult children are counseled in current psychology to drop parents from their lives simply google “no contact with parents.” Be prepared for some terrible stuff.
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