Let's address something that comes up constantly in my comment section.
Estranged parents love to call no contact a trend.
A phase. A cultural epidemic. Something their adult children picked up from TikTok or their therapist or some influencer telling them it's okay to cut people off.
It is not a trend. It is self-preservation.
And the fact that estranged parents keep framing it that way? That dismissiveness is part of why the door closed in the first place.
No contact didn't happen overnight.
This is the part estranged parents conveniently skip over.
No contact is not what happens after one bad argument. It is what happens after years, sometimes decades, of extreme invalidation. Of dismissal. Of disdain. Of conversations that went nowhere. Of apologies that never came. Of patterns that repeated no matter how many times the child asked for something different.
No contact is not what happens after one bad argument. It is what happens after years — sometimes decades — of extreme invalidation. The chances were there. They just were not taken seriously.
Many estranged parents say they never got a chance to fix things.
Their adult children can give you a list.
A list of times they tried. A list of times they were shut down, minimized, mocked, or guilt-tripped for even bringing it up. The chances were there. They just were not taken seriously.
The shock estranged parents feel when their child goes no contact is real. But shock is not the same as innocence.
It has the same energy as a man saying his divorce came out of nowhere because he was a willfully ignorant participant the entire time. You were in the relationship too. You just weren't paying attention.
Both sides is not the argument you think it is.
Here is something I see in the comments constantly: Accountability, change, and respectful communication must come from BOTH sides if a healthy relationship will ever exist.
You're right. And that's exactly the point.
Both sides needed to show up. Both sides needed to be accountable. Both sides needed to communicate with respect. The estranged parent was one of those sides. And they didn't.
When estranged parents pull out the "both sides" argument, they are usually using it to flip the narrative — to paint themselves as the victim rather than the source of the conditions that created this distance.
When estranged parents pull out the both sides argument, they are usually using it to flip the narrative. To make no contact look like punishment. To paint themselves as the victim of emotional abuse rather than the source of the conditions that created it.
That is not what no contact is. No contact is what happens when one side kept showing up and the other kept refusing to. The distance is the consequence of the lack of repair. And that lack of repair sits with the parent.
Your side doesn't matter when your child has chosen distance. That distance is the consequence. Own it.
Watch how estranged parents talk. It tells you everything.
Something I noticed in a recent exchange: an estranged parent kept insisting they just wanted to have an adult conversation with their child.
Sounds reasonable on the surface, right?
Look closer. When you frame a conversation as needing to be "adult," you are implying the other person has been childish. You are positioning yourself as the mature one before the conversation has even started. You are walking in with a hierarchy already established.
That is not a neutral request for dialogue. That is control dressed up as communication.
And if you are laughing at someone's responses, reacting with mockery, being dismissive in real time — you are not actually in the space to have the conversation you are claiming to want.
You do not get to demand maturity from your child while demonstrating the opposite yourself. Just think about that little part. Even if it stings.
If the adult child has no conflict resolution skills, where did they learn that?
This gets asked constantly as a gotcha. As if the adult child spontaneously developed poor communication skills out of thin air.
Conflict resolution is not innate. It is modeled. It is taught. Children learn how to navigate disagreement by watching the adults around them — specifically their parents.
So when an estranged parent argues that their adult child should have just resolved the conflict instead of going no contact, I need them to sit with this: Who was supposed to teach them how to do that?
Parenting is a top-down process. Not bottom-up. Expecting your child — even your adult child — to be the one to initiate repair, manage the conversation, regulate your emotions, and carry the relationship is parentification. It is exhausting for the child. And depending on how it plays out, it is abusive.
You do not get to withhold the skill and then blame them for not having it.
By the time they go no contact, it is too late for conflict resolution.
I know that is hard to hear. But it is true.
The window for conflict resolution closed before no contact was ever established. That work needed to happen while the relationship was still active. While the child was still showing up, still reaching out, still trying.
Once your child goes no contact, you are not owed a conversation. Not one.
The door is closed. That is the reality you are working with now.
Getting caught up in who was right or wrong is beside the point. Debating the narrative does not change the outcome.
If your adult child ever chooses to open that door again, that is entirely their decision. But if and when that happens, real effort is required. Not deflection. Not a guilt campaign designed to pull them back through obligation instead of genuine repair.
Manufactured guilt is manipulation. Calling it love does not change what it is.
Wanting another chance is not the same as having changed.
Wanting another chance is understandable. I am not dismissing that.
But wanting another chance and actually doing the internal work to make that chance mean something are two very different things.
Most adult children who go no contact gave their parents chances. Many of them. The problem was not a lack of opportunity. The problem was what happened during those opportunities.
You cannot keep working something out with someone who is not interested in working it out. Or in changing.
Wanting another chance is understandable. But wanting another chance and actually doing the internal work to make that chance mean something are two very different things.
Many estranged parents say they want reconciliation. But the moment real accountability is required, the deflections start. The poor-me narrative comes out. The guilt trips begin. The dismissiveness returns.
That is not someone ready to repair a relationship. That is someone who wants the relationship back on their own terms without having to change anything about themselves. Those are not the same thing.
Here is the only question that actually matters.
Estranged parents spend a lot of energy arguing their case. Defending themselves. Explaining why their adult child is wrong, ungrateful, or influenced by bad advice.
That energy is pointed in the wrong direction.
I work with estranged parents. I have these conversations. The ones who make real progress are not the ones who come in ready to debate. They are the ones who come in ready to look honestly at themselves.
So here is the question I want every estranged parent to sit with. Not defensively. Not with a rebuttal already forming in your head.
What can you do differently if your child decides to reopen that door?
Not what did your child do wrong. Not why you deserve another chance. Not how unfair this all is.
What can you do differently?
That question, asked honestly, without deflection, without immediately centering your own pain, is where any real possibility of repair begins.
Not the public posts. Not the statistics about estrangement rates. Not the comments calling no contact a trend.
The honest question. That is where you start.
Roxanna Safdia, M.S. holds a Master of Science in Conflict Analysis & Resolution and is the creator of The Black Sheep Survives, a platform dedicated to family trauma recovery and generational healing. Follow @roxiesafdia.
