5 ms·

Yeah it does seem like many of the "no contact" people are themselves childless. I doubt this is a coincidence.

avidiax 5y ago
It's definitely not a coincidence, but it is certainly complicated. Damaged kids become damaged adults, and if they realize it, they may decide that they wouldn't be good parents and rightly opt-out of it. Children that didn't have the right opportunities, whether that's their parent's fault or not may not have enough achievement as an adult to take on the burden of being a parent. One can argue whether it is harder being young today than it was 20-30 years ago, but you can't argue that being a parent requires lots of resources in both time and money, and if you don't have both, it's the right choice to not be a parent. Another layer is that the parents often want grandkids and will use them as an excuse or as leverage to maintain contact despite lack of respect for boundaries or even outright abuse. So there is an element of spite in denying them grandkids, and an element of self-protection in the same.
- munk-a 5y ago
  I would avoid going straight to damage as a source. I personally am very uncomfortable with some kinds of emotional expression and as a result it's difficult for me to reach out to make small talk. I wouldn't say my upbringing was in any way abusive either - I've lived a quite privileged life. Neurodiversity is I think also a thing you need to take into consideration on this topic. (this isn't meant to attack you for misclassification - but rather widen the pool of people who fall into this complicated class)
- laurent92 5y ago
  Long story short, I don’t call my parents precisely because I’m childless. Failing my love life has everything to do with them. It’s not like I were divorced. I’m precisely never married, never had a long girlfriend, despite not being ugly nor totally stupid, and my loneliness drove me crazy (in the literal sense – since Covid I’ve honestly snapped a few neurons, so it’s quite over for me). But before that, I used to be a fine person, but they didn’t give me any lead on the love life. EVERY father would be happy if the kid plays with girls at school, just not mine because they don’t want me to pump-and-dump - well they don’t have to worry about this for sure. I really don’t get how people succeed at the love life, it’s totally not working for me. I’m now workaholic and if I stop working, I’ll go insane with ruminations in a few hours only. I’m quite fortunate my worklife offers me the opportunity of working more, I’m a programmer-entrepreneur. Anyway, if I were successful at life, I’d certainly be happy to call my parents more. It’s just that their opinion led me to a general failure, so I can’t hear more.
  - tolbish 5y ago
    It's very possible. You probably won't see how it's possible until you've been to therapy. But you should 100% seek therapy. Your first and last paragraphs imply being a success at life means having children, which points to self-worth issues that HN commenters aren't qualified to address.
  - plandis 5y ago
    I won’t claim to understand your situation but as someone whose parents both died before I hit puberty, I can assure you it’s possible to find love on your own — I say this as someone currently happily married and expecting a child. I wish you the best of luck, you have the power to change your own life :)
  - 6f8986c3 5y ago
    At some point, we have to stop looking to our parents, and take responsibility for our own lives. Until we can do that, we aren't really adults. That's what sets adults and children apart: responsibility. Children are not responsible for their own lives; rather, they live under the guardianship of adults. Adults are responsible. And it is a hate crime that we have probably two generations in the West that have been raised to be actively irresponsible: to reject the mantle of responsibility, and instead spend their time loudly blaming... everybody but themselves. It doesn't matter how well-deserved that blame might be! Blame itself is toxic. Look, I get it. My parents did a number on me, too. But I also recognize that they too were broken in many ways, and that they did the best they could with what they had. Yes, that means they gave me a lot of shitty advice. But it was good advice to their younger selves. That's why I'm not angry with them anymore. Not for the cheating, or the divorce, or any of the rest. Because I am adult enough to take ownership over my own life.
    - themacguffinman 5y ago
      These children, now adults, have stopped looking to their parents. They've estranged them. I'd say in many cases, that's the responsible thing to do. If a close friend told you that their BF/GF abused them and asked you what was the responsible thing to do, would you not tell them that they should first remove themselves from their abuser? Is it not precisely the responsible and independent choice for a victim to leave their abuser behind and move on? Blame isn't necessary for estrangement. I broadly agree, blame is often toxic, and it's healthy to have a sense of cosmic empathy towards even people who have wronged you. It's not really clear to me who's ultimately "in the wrong" here, but the person you replied to is clearly taking the reins on their life: evidently, they're now dealing with life without their parents' help.
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  > Damaged kids become damaged adults I strongly disagree with this overbroad generalization. > you can't argue that being a parent requires lots of resources in both time and money, and if you don't have both, it's the right choice to not be a parent. I would be happy to argue this. Raising children is the most essentially human experience one can have. A society with fewer parents is a society well on its way to nihilism and extinction.
  - gls2ro 5y ago
    Damaged kids become damaged adults which will raise damaged kids. Of course we can add a word to express that this should not be applied to individual but only to a group: like "Majority of damaged kids become ..." and of course it really depends what people mean when they say "damaged". If that means trauma, then there is this concept of "Transgeneration transmission of trauma" not in terms of epigenetics (as this has not been proven yet), but in terms of behaviour of adults transmits trauma verbally and non-verbally to the child. I think this also applied to a whole range of responses/believes about how we approach life in general which is transmitted from parents to child. Yes, also the child has their own personality and might not be influenced that much, but nurture is pretty powerful especially in the forming years. Not sure this is a 100% proven mechanisms in psychology (replicated and understood) but I can easily identify in my kid things that I wish I fix for myself and I see this in other parents with kids too. I also think a child is a very powerful chance to change myself as kids can really be (specially when they are young and copy their parents) mirrors of their parents thus making identifying these mechanisms easily. I am thankful that I think there are a lot of things that I caught early on, did a lot of work to fix them and managed not to transmit to the child.
    - Gibbon1 5y ago
      Damaged kids grow up to be adults that are fearful of failing as parents.
- nyokodo 5y ago
  > but you can't argue that being a parent requires lots of resources in both time and money I know enough parents doing fine for their kids without much money and even less time that I’ll have to contradict you. It’s infinitely better to be alive than have stuff or even ample parent time. I can attest to that from personal experience. In the short term it’s certainly convenient to avoid having kids as having kids is hard and requires sacrifices. However, it’s a commonly held myth that for many kids are beyond them due to time and money, presumably as a justification for precluding or severely limiting children. One has the ability to make that decision but one shouldn’t lie about the motivation because for many the choice is made to put themselves first and reject the sacrifices of being parents.
  - stevenicr 5y ago
    My first thought was to disagree and push the small datapoint thing - but I suppose it varies greatly based upon location in the world, and what the definition of 'fine (for their kids)' is. In some places kids can play outside and have a village of school connected people / things to get through just fine. I guess it's also easier to do fine if you have church groups to help, and some places have other community that can help I am guessing. Perhaps that mall in Beverly Hills is a fine babysitter and teacher of life lessons - the malls around other parts of the country stopped being good for that some years ago. I also feel that fine is also a gamble. You might get affordable child care that does not abuse your kids and you might get a school system that teaches them life fine.. but you may not, and if you don't have the time to find out, or the money to change things drastically - you are essentially gambling with an innocent's life. Again I feel this varies quite a bit from location to location and situation to situation. But I don't feel it is right to suggest the choice is putting themselves first - at least not in all circumstances, and I'd guess it's not the main factor in most of these conscious choices.
    - nyokodo 5y ago
      > You might get affordable child care that does not abuse your kids and you might get a school system that teaches them life fine.. but you may not If your response to child abuse, a lack of affordable childcare, and ok schooling is that the children shouldn't exist, you've lost me. > you are essentially gambling with an innocent's life. You lose all bets you don't make. Life is a gamble full-stop so you are always gambling when you bring a life into the world. My main point is that there is a whole lot more room to maneuver for many childless couples from a purely practical point of view before it'd be established that having children were irresponsible for them. People have way too high expectations and a lot of ulterior motives that are the real barriers. One way to look at it is, what would you do to help them if you children already existed? Would you move somewhere cheaper/safer/closer to family? Would you sacrifice your career? Would you lower your standard of living? Would you sacrifice your lifestyle? If the answer to any of those is "no" (be honest now) then you've discovered an important part of your true motivations.
zadler 5y ago
Though it’s unclear if they are no contact because they have no appreciation for what their parents might be going through (since they don’t yet have kids) or if their parents are just too toxic to deal with at all (perhaps contributing to their not having kids).
moate 5y ago
Which do you think is the causal effect: not having children causes it easier to break from the parents, or having terrible parents that cause estrangement makes people less inclined to have their own children?
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  Why not both? It is much easier to make a case for causation with the former though; an overwhelmingly common experience among new parents is to reconsider past resentments now that they know what their own parents actually went through.
RichardCA 5y ago
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-verse https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-ver...
xwolfi 5y ago
I disagree a bit. I trained my parents early to expect a cut, and at 19 I moved with a girlfriend and never looked back. We have a good relationship and they re good parents but I cut all attempts at having them take more space in my life than the minimum. It's so common in France we call that killing your dad (I googled and it seems to be a Freudian expression we started using to say growing up) and is part of growing up. I have a kid now, and I want her to get the fuck out at 19, and start a life of her own with as little need for my involvment. The funny thing is I moved to Hong Kong eventually and couldnt convince my french gf of 7 years to follow me because she couldnt tolerate being so far from her parents. I then met my current chinese wife, born here, who is in a very fusional relationship with her mom, who talks to her for hours everyday, so much she needs to kill her phone at night to stop it. And they live an hour apart... It s clear to me there's something in Asia that's different because they all seem just as fusional (I find it unhealthy), but it may be also a girl thing more generally ? I have a sample of 2 so it's hard to know. In any case, my daughter will be encouraged to "kill her dad" and be on her own. Even if her mom might disagree :D

It's definitely not a coincidence, but it is certainly complicated. Damaged kids become damaged adults, and if they realize it, they may decide that they wouldn't be good parents and rightly opt-out of it. Children that didn't have the right opportunities, whether that's their parent's fault or not may not have enough achievement as an adult to take on the burden of being a parent. One can argue whether it is harder being young today than it was 20-30 years ago, but you can't argue that being a parent requires lots of resources in both time and money, and if you don't have both, it's the right choice to not be a parent. Another layer is that the parents often want grandkids and will use them as an excuse or as leverage to maintain contact despite lack of respect for boundaries or even outright abuse. So there is an element of spite in denying them grandkids, and an element of self-protection in the same.

munk-a 5y ago
I would avoid going straight to damage as a source. I personally am very uncomfortable with some kinds of emotional expression and as a result it's difficult for me to reach out to make small talk. I wouldn't say my upbringing was in any way abusive either - I've lived a quite privileged life. Neurodiversity is I think also a thing you need to take into consideration on this topic. (this isn't meant to attack you for misclassification - but rather widen the pool of people who fall into this complicated class)
laurent92 5y ago
Long story short, I don’t call my parents precisely because I’m childless. Failing my love life has everything to do with them. It’s not like I were divorced. I’m precisely never married, never had a long girlfriend, despite not being ugly nor totally stupid, and my loneliness drove me crazy (in the literal sense – since Covid I’ve honestly snapped a few neurons, so it’s quite over for me). But before that, I used to be a fine person, but they didn’t give me any lead on the love life. EVERY father would be happy if the kid plays with girls at school, just not mine because they don’t want me to pump-and-dump - well they don’t have to worry about this for sure. I really don’t get how people succeed at the love life, it’s totally not working for me. I’m now workaholic and if I stop working, I’ll go insane with ruminations in a few hours only. I’m quite fortunate my worklife offers me the opportunity of working more, I’m a programmer-entrepreneur. Anyway, if I were successful at life, I’d certainly be happy to call my parents more. It’s just that their opinion led me to a general failure, so I can’t hear more.
- tolbish 5y ago
  It's very possible. You probably won't see how it's possible until you've been to therapy. But you should 100% seek therapy. Your first and last paragraphs imply being a success at life means having children, which points to self-worth issues that HN commenters aren't qualified to address.
- plandis 5y ago
  I won’t claim to understand your situation but as someone whose parents both died before I hit puberty, I can assure you it’s possible to find love on your own — I say this as someone currently happily married and expecting a child. I wish you the best of luck, you have the power to change your own life :)
- 6f8986c3 5y ago
  At some point, we have to stop looking to our parents, and take responsibility for our own lives. Until we can do that, we aren't really adults. That's what sets adults and children apart: responsibility. Children are not responsible for their own lives; rather, they live under the guardianship of adults. Adults are responsible. And it is a hate crime that we have probably two generations in the West that have been raised to be actively irresponsible: to reject the mantle of responsibility, and instead spend their time loudly blaming... everybody but themselves. It doesn't matter how well-deserved that blame might be! Blame itself is toxic. Look, I get it. My parents did a number on me, too. But I also recognize that they too were broken in many ways, and that they did the best they could with what they had. Yes, that means they gave me a lot of shitty advice. But it was good advice to their younger selves. That's why I'm not angry with them anymore. Not for the cheating, or the divorce, or any of the rest. Because I am adult enough to take ownership over my own life.
  - themacguffinman 5y ago
    These children, now adults, have stopped looking to their parents. They've estranged them. I'd say in many cases, that's the responsible thing to do. If a close friend told you that their BF/GF abused them and asked you what was the responsible thing to do, would you not tell them that they should first remove themselves from their abuser? Is it not precisely the responsible and independent choice for a victim to leave their abuser behind and move on? Blame isn't necessary for estrangement. I broadly agree, blame is often toxic, and it's healthy to have a sense of cosmic empathy towards even people who have wronged you. It's not really clear to me who's ultimately "in the wrong" here, but the person you replied to is clearly taking the reins on their life: evidently, they're now dealing with life without their parents' help.
jkhdigital 5y ago
> Damaged kids become damaged adults I strongly disagree with this overbroad generalization. > you can't argue that being a parent requires lots of resources in both time and money, and if you don't have both, it's the right choice to not be a parent. I would be happy to argue this. Raising children is the most essentially human experience one can have. A society with fewer parents is a society well on its way to nihilism and extinction.
- gls2ro 5y ago
  Damaged kids become damaged adults which will raise damaged kids. Of course we can add a word to express that this should not be applied to individual but only to a group: like "Majority of damaged kids become ..." and of course it really depends what people mean when they say "damaged". If that means trauma, then there is this concept of "Transgeneration transmission of trauma" not in terms of epigenetics (as this has not been proven yet), but in terms of behaviour of adults transmits trauma verbally and non-verbally to the child. I think this also applied to a whole range of responses/believes about how we approach life in general which is transmitted from parents to child. Yes, also the child has their own personality and might not be influenced that much, but nurture is pretty powerful especially in the forming years. Not sure this is a 100% proven mechanisms in psychology (replicated and understood) but I can easily identify in my kid things that I wish I fix for myself and I see this in other parents with kids too. I also think a child is a very powerful chance to change myself as kids can really be (specially when they are young and copy their parents) mirrors of their parents thus making identifying these mechanisms easily. I am thankful that I think there are a lot of things that I caught early on, did a lot of work to fix them and managed not to transmit to the child.
  - Gibbon1 5y ago
    Damaged kids grow up to be adults that are fearful of failing as parents.
nyokodo 5y ago
> but you can't argue that being a parent requires lots of resources in both time and money I know enough parents doing fine for their kids without much money and even less time that I’ll have to contradict you. It’s infinitely better to be alive than have stuff or even ample parent time. I can attest to that from personal experience. In the short term it’s certainly convenient to avoid having kids as having kids is hard and requires sacrifices. However, it’s a commonly held myth that for many kids are beyond them due to time and money, presumably as a justification for precluding or severely limiting children. One has the ability to make that decision but one shouldn’t lie about the motivation because for many the choice is made to put themselves first and reject the sacrifices of being parents.
- stevenicr 5y ago
  My first thought was to disagree and push the small datapoint thing - but I suppose it varies greatly based upon location in the world, and what the definition of 'fine (for their kids)' is. In some places kids can play outside and have a village of school connected people / things to get through just fine. I guess it's also easier to do fine if you have church groups to help, and some places have other community that can help I am guessing. Perhaps that mall in Beverly Hills is a fine babysitter and teacher of life lessons - the malls around other parts of the country stopped being good for that some years ago. I also feel that fine is also a gamble. You might get affordable child care that does not abuse your kids and you might get a school system that teaches them life fine.. but you may not, and if you don't have the time to find out, or the money to change things drastically - you are essentially gambling with an innocent's life. Again I feel this varies quite a bit from location to location and situation to situation. But I don't feel it is right to suggest the choice is putting themselves first - at least not in all circumstances, and I'd guess it's not the main factor in most of these conscious choices.
  - nyokodo 5y ago
    > You might get affordable child care that does not abuse your kids and you might get a school system that teaches them life fine.. but you may not If your response to child abuse, a lack of affordable childcare, and ok schooling is that the children shouldn't exist, you've lost me. > you are essentially gambling with an innocent's life. You lose all bets you don't make. Life is a gamble full-stop so you are always gambling when you bring a life into the world. My main point is that there is a whole lot more room to maneuver for many childless couples from a purely practical point of view before it'd be established that having children were irresponsible for them. People have way too high expectations and a lot of ulterior motives that are the real barriers. One way to look at it is, what would you do to help them if you children already existed? Would you move somewhere cheaper/safer/closer to family? Would you sacrifice your career? Would you lower your standard of living? Would you sacrifice your lifestyle? If the answer to any of those is "no" (be honest now) then you've discovered an important part of your true motivations.

zadler 5y ago

Though it’s unclear if they are no contact because they have no appreciation for what their parents might be going through (since they don’t yet have kids) or if their parents are just too toxic to deal with at all (perhaps contributing to their not having kids).

moate 5y ago

Which do you think is the causal effect: not having children causes it easier to break from the parents, or having terrible parents that cause estrangement makes people less inclined to have their own children?

jkhdigital 5y ago
Why not both? It is much easier to make a case for causation with the former though; an overwhelmingly common experience among new parents is to reconsider past resentments now that they know what their own parents actually went through.

RichardCA 5y ago

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-verse https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-ver...

xwolfi 5y ago

I disagree a bit. I trained my parents early to expect a cut, and at 19 I moved with a girlfriend and never looked back. We have a good relationship and they re good parents but I cut all attempts at having them take more space in my life than the minimum. It's so common in France we call that killing your dad (I googled and it seems to be a Freudian expression we started using to say growing up) and is part of growing up. I have a kid now, and I want her to get the fuck out at 19, and start a life of her own with as little need for my involvment. The funny thing is I moved to Hong Kong eventually and couldnt convince my french gf of 7 years to follow me because she couldnt tolerate being so far from her parents. I then met my current chinese wife, born here, who is in a very fusional relationship with her mom, who talks to her for hours everyday, so much she needs to kill her phone at night to stop it. And they live an hour apart... It s clear to me there's something in Asia that's different because they all seem just as fusional (I find it unhealthy), but it may be also a girl thing more generally ? I have a sample of 2 so it's hard to know. In any case, my daughter will be encouraged to "kill her dad" and be on her own. Even if her mom might disagree :D