By Dan Russo
Editorial
About 38% of Americans say they have gone “no contact” with a friend or family member in the last year, according to a survey conducted in March by Talker Research for the therapy platform Talkspace. This survey indicates that younger generations are more willing to estrange than older ones. For example, 60% of Generation Z (early teens to late 20s) reported cutting someone off versus 20% in the Baby Boomer generation (ages 62-80).
One of the most painful no contact situations occurs when parents are cut off by their adult children. Section 2217 of The Catholic Catechism states, in part: “…Obedience toward parents ceases with the emancipation of the children; not so respect, which is always owed to them. This respect has its roots in the fear of God, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.” Experts acknowledge, however, that expressing the respect adult children owe to parents gets complicated when there is a history of abuse, neglect, addiction or other serious problems in a parent-child relationship. This complexity can also obviously exist in other relationships between people, but the bonds between parents and children are often connected to particularly strong emotions.
“When dealing with a ‘toxic’ or difficult relationship, there’s no easy, one-size-fits-all answer about what to do,” wrote Dr. Greg Bottaro, a Catholic psychologist, in a recent post on the Catholic Psych Blog. “Sometimes very strict boundaries or complete separation is needed to ensure you aren’t being pulled into another person’s craziness. (This is especially true when aspects of mental or physical safety is involved.) In other instances, the relationship may not necessitate such measures. In those cases, what if we feel called to suffer with people in their difficulties, even though it may be difficult for us? Discerning the answer to the question of how to deal with the difficult people in our lives requires an understanding of boundaries, knowing the purpose of relationships, and growth in self-awareness.”
“An example that can help us understand the concept of healthy boundaries is that of Simon of Cyrene — the man pressed into service to help Jesus carry his cross,” Bottaro continued. “Although Simon helped Jesus carry his cross, bearing much of the burden for him at certain points along the road to Golgotha, at some point Simon had to let Jesus go the rest of the way. Simon could not do for Jesus what Jesus alone was called to do. As Christians, this is a model we can use to understand the proper balance between being with people in their suffering and letting people feel and deal with the suffering they are responsible for in their lives.”
In her book “No Contact,” which comes out next month, Catholic author Noelle Mering offers a different viewpoint. She studied the trend and argues that the significant increase in the practice of young people cutting off friends and family in general, and their parents in particular, is mostly due to disagreements over idealogy.
“… (There) are people who go no contact for entirely healthy reasons,” said Mering in a July interview with The National Catholic Register. “I analogize it to an immune system. It’s good for people to have proper immune systems that can protect them when needed and pull away from things that are harmful. But my thesis is that this [wider phenomenon] is not so much mimicking an immune system’s defense response as it is an autoimmune disorder, where we no longer can differentiate between normal familial conflict and friction and severe abuse and manipulation. The three most common causes that adult children would cite are COVID disagreements, voting for Donald Trump, and not affirming their gender. Or sometimes the child was an ally and they had friends who were living alternative lifestyles, and they could no longer reconcile what they believe were their parents’ hateful beliefs with the people in their sort of chosen family. Those are the three most common reasons.”
Whatever the motivations for no contact, the practice continues to gain steam in our society. It is imperative that Church institutions and individual Catholics are educated on the issue so they can offer spiritual support and other guidance to those suffering on both sides in estrangement scenarios.
Resources:
Davenport Diocese Office of Marriage and Family Life:
https://davenportdiocese.org/marriage-family
Catholic Therapists.com:
https://catholictherapists.com/
Catholic Psych Institute:
https://catholicpsych.com/
Dan Russo, editor
