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What’s Ripping American Families Apart?
NY Times ^ | July 29, 2021 | David Brooks

Posted on 08/01/2021 7:01:49 AM PDT by daniel1212

At least 27 percent of Americans are estranged from a member of their own family, and research suggests about 40 percent of Americans have experienced estrangement at some point. The most common form of estrangement is between adult children and one or both parents — a cut usually initiated by the child...children in these cases often cite harsh parenting, parental favoritism, divorce and poor and increasingly hostile communication often culminating in a volcanic event...

The parents in these cases are often completely bewildered by the accusations. They often remember a totally different childhood home and accuse their children of rewriting what happened. As one cutoff couple told the psychologist Joshua Coleman: “Emotional abuse? We gave our child everything. We read every parenting book under the sun, took her on wonderful vacations, went to all of her sporting events.”...

there seems to be a generational shift in what constitutes abuse. Practices that seemed like normal parenting to one generation are conceptualized as abusive, overbearing and traumatizing to another..."you can be a conscientious parent and your kid may still want nothing to do with you when they’re older.”...

Coleman...argues...the function of family has changed. Once it was seen as a bond of mutual duty and obligation, and now it is often seen as a launchpad for personal fulfillment...Some kids seem to think they need to cut off their parents just to have their own life. “My mom is really needy and I just don’t need that in my life,” one Ivy League grad told Coleman. In other cases, children may be blaming their parents for the fact that they are not succeeding as they had hoped...

Major depression rates among youths aged 12 to 17 rose by almost 63 percent between 2013 and 2016. American suicide rates increased by 33 percent between...

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education; Health/Medicine; History; Outdoors; Science; Society; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: americaindecline; divorce; family; feminazism; idolatry; nuclearfamily; religion; smashthepatriarchy
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To: PGR88

I’m sure that’s true to a certain extent, but remember people are living much longer now and people have spread out around the country in far bigger numbers than in the past.....

I live in Florida, how many retirees live here and the children live hundreds of miles away in many cases....


41 posted on 08/01/2021 8:19:57 AM PDT by srmanuel (`)
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To: daniel1212

They are not families. They are users. Since we removed excellence and productivity and inserted everyone mooching off everyone else, fights are all that’s left.

Lazy kids tell their parents that the parents had better give them everything or else. Parents succumb to the threats.


42 posted on 08/01/2021 8:26:13 AM PDT by CodeToad (Arm up! They Have!)
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To: newfreep

“It began in earnest with LBJ replacing the father with government welfare.”

Might have been sooner with the erasing of prayer from the schools in the 50’s by Mad O’hair.

wy69


43 posted on 08/01/2021 8:36:28 AM PDT by whitney69 (uin )
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To: daniel1212

“Easy answer...The Left’s culture”
Meaning it is not...

There is a stunning lack of education as well. Common sense is gone. Things that an average 5th grader knew as common knowledge 50 years ago will stump the average college graduate today.

It is amazing how the media sais things like how educated women and such are today compared to men. Attending college is not synonymous with educated. Outside of STEM, which they are desperately trying to dummy down, any degree with the word ‘studies’ in the name actually has negative value as any ‘fact’ they learn is false and the entire point is to condition people to overreact with rage at anything done by the “villain class”. Most ology degrees are worthless as well. Someday we will not have people to design or maintain the technology we are dependent on today. Someday we will be disarmed and herded into cities to live in projects, and if people start gettin uppity, all you have to do is stop shipping rations for a few days and blame the troublemakers


44 posted on 08/01/2021 8:45:29 AM PDT by dsrtsage ( Complexity is just simple lacking imagination)
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To: ex91B10

Did not mean to exclude alcohol abuse from the equation. Nearly impossible to live long term with a drunk or even a “recreational “ drug user.


45 posted on 08/01/2021 8:48:50 AM PDT by allendale
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To: upsdriver
" The tax code tore families apart. "Thanks but could you expand upon that?
46 posted on 08/01/2021 9:04:40 AM PDT by daniel1212 ( Turn to the Lord Jesus as a damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save + be baptized + follow Him!)
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To: Toespi
"We all have friends and families who are going through this right now. We horrifically did, just did this past week. Our daughter in her mid thirties came to visit from Ohio, with two kids, seven and ten, she is in the middle of a divorce. She got our of her car, and after greetings, I asked what she had paid for fuel on the way and how much it had gone up since the last time she drove here. She threw her hands up in the air, declared it was cyclical, and didn’t want to hear it, obviously it triggered her. The next afternoon we turned “The Five” on in our family room, the kids were in there with us. She comes running out, grabs the kids and sequesters them in their bedroom. (So her son played some war game video while we watched the violent Fox News). This happened again with Tucker and the same the next day, Things started going south and a big argument ensued, not about politics, but anything that could be thrown up at us. Her children are a mess, rude, spoiled and arrogant. In fact when my husband took the ten year old boy for donuts, he started ranting about “poor George Floyd”. I was sitting on the sofa one night with my leg stretched out and her brilliant seven year old daughter who was on the sofa next to me, said “get your feet out of my face” (I was no where near her face). The argument was horrible and she left but not before she screamed “in the last 48 hours you looked like BIDEN sniffed you and licked your cheek, LOL”. It was the most unhinged thing I have ever heard and honestly, deranged"

What a tragedy, and in this case it is no wonder a divorce is going on (likely for no Biblical reason) and the kids are the victim (should I mention that some on FR even object to calling children "kids" besides any spanking?). It used to be that what the Bible said was at least implicitly and indirectly the judge of what was correct, but now it is the every-morphing perversions of PC. Then we have China and Russia confederate against the US with its wokelitary. Yet the 1st century Christians had worse civic leaders but kep following the captain of their salvation, "marching to Zion" thanks be to God.

47 posted on 08/01/2021 9:18:22 AM PDT by daniel1212 ( Turn to the Lord Jesus as a damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save + be baptized + follow Him!)
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To: bigbob
" How many paragraphs before the NYT concluded the reason is Trump? "

Actually he is not mentioned, and this is an opinion piece which means it can be marginalized as regards what the NYT believes. The article actually seems to blame children! Yet you do not see such in more liberal papers.

48 posted on 08/01/2021 9:25:38 AM PDT by daniel1212 ( Turn to the Lord Jesus as a damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save + be baptized + follow Him!)
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To: srmanuel

“Most families I know have a crazy uncle who no one wants to be around....”

Hey! Have you been talking to my family? Don’t listen to them, they’re all nuts.


49 posted on 08/01/2021 9:35:54 AM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: daniel1212

In my family, trouble has been caused by the radical left and the CoupFlu Nazis.

Over a year ago, I disowned a couple of cousins due to their far left beliefs and involvement in the blm terror group. I don’t associate with seditious terrorists.

My older sister, with whom I have always been very close, has been harassing me to get the jab. Sad to say, she has let her fear over the virus become dangerous paranoia.

She is so terrified to travel anywhere that she waited over a year and a half for her mammogram, because she was too scared to enter a hospital. And, she has had Breast Cancer. Insane.

She finally found the courage to have her mammogram last Friday. I’m praying that she receives a good report.

A few days ago, she called me hysterically crying because I haven’t been vaccinated. I tried to calmly explain the dangers of the vax, but she has been completely brainwashed. There’s no reasoning with her.

I’m terrified that this issue will tear apart our relationship. We endured a rocky childhood and always had each other to confide in. So, naturally, this is very hard on me and I curse the Covid Nazis who continue with the endless fear porn. May they pay a heavy price for their sins.

I finally had to lie to my sis and promise that I would seriously consider the jab, I hated to lie, but she has serious “issues” and will not listen to any sort of reason. It tears me apart that it has come to this.

I feel such anger and rage towards the Branch Covidians for destroying people’s minds and destroying families with their fear porn. Goebbels would be proud.


50 posted on 08/01/2021 9:55:29 AM PDT by CrimsonTidegirl (Christopher Sign did not kill himself.)
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To: daniel1212

stuff like this has been going on ever since there have been families!
there were 5 of us, all girls. two of my sisters just cannot get along. Both have to be center of attention drama queens.
No shared holidays, no death bed visits, no nothing.
My mom would be very sad if she was to see this.


51 posted on 08/01/2021 10:12:30 AM PDT by ronniesgal (so I wonder what his FR handle is???? )
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To: goodnesswins

I disowned my own WOKE LEFTY BROTHER. We only pretend to talk in front of our parents during Christmas and Thanksgiving.


52 posted on 08/01/2021 10:18:19 AM PDT by max americana (FIRED LEFTARD employees at our office every election since 2008 and enjoyed seeing them cry.)
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To: allendale

My daughter is wonderful. Lives 40 miles away, has a great husband and home, votes Republican. Handles money very well and like others in Idaho, didn’t get vax and never wore masks. My son, always the smartest and best-looking person in the family, walked out of a 250K job to drink, always tries to tell me what to do. Thinks my affairs need to be handled by someone else because I don’t want vax. I love him but I can’t stand him. He’s a jerk.


53 posted on 08/01/2021 10:34:12 AM PDT by Veto! (Political Correctness Offends Me)
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To: newfreep

The man must serve honorably as the head of the household

He must cherish his wife , and the children’s mother , all the time!

He must remain the rock of Gibraltar against all the evil forces of this world


54 posted on 08/01/2021 11:54:03 AM PDT by Truthoverpower (Arizona !!!! Now the TRUMP TRAIN is getting back on TRACK ! TRUTH! FREEDOM ! LIBERTY! )
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To: ealgeone

Ah-OOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!


55 posted on 08/01/2021 12:06:53 PM PDT by Lazamataz (I feel like it is 1937 Germany, and my last name is Feinberg.)
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To: daniel1212

Popular culture, amplified by the press, touted as “normal.”

The press delights in dividing. It’s a quasi-satanic entity.


56 posted on 08/01/2021 12:10:21 PM PDT by Cboldt
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To: srmanuel
Any number of reasons can lead members of a family to become estranged....

Thank you. A lot of people here are making light of this type of situation; but, I will tell you that you do NOT know what is going on in a house, unless you are living there.

I became estranged from my family some years ago. It was a situation that had been brewing since my early childhood; but, neither of my parents would act to stop the emotional, and sometimes physical, abuse that I had to endure at the hands of one of my brothers. When I would bring it up, my mother would make excuses for him; and, my father (whom I loved dearly) would tell me that the problem was that I was too sensitive.

Now, I was a sensitive child and still am as an adult. It is who I am; but, when I was a child, I was also very, very shy. Anyway, to be feeling hurt by the downright cruel verbal abuse from one (and sometimes two) brothers; and, to be told it is my own fault for letting it bother me, just made me feel that there was no one who was going to help me.

The dam didn't really break with me until I was married with children and living about as far away from my family as I could. It was my parent's 50th wedding anniversary and myself and my brothers were chipping in to pay for the party. All except this one brother, he would not chip in. So, it ended up being a bigger bill for the three of us; and, then he gave my parents a wad of cash for their anniversary. My mother tried to give it to my one other brother to pay for the jerk's portion of the party; that brother refused to take it. Some months later, my parents were visiting and my mother was defending this particular brother about something or other. I blew up, and that was it with our relationship.

When my husband drove my parents to the airport for them to return home, my parents were mystified by why I was so angry.

Anyway, this was only the flash point; but, the problem had been there for decades and my parents just ignored it. My parents are both deceased at this time, and I have no contact with my remaining siblings. It was not easy to pull away, people do not understand something like that; and, I was criticized for doing so without anyone asking why this had happened. Because I had walked away, it was all my fault. However, after I walked away, I found my life became a lot more peaceful.

So, don't be so quick to judge someone for walking away. Sometimes you have to for your own emotional and mental health.

57 posted on 08/01/2021 1:39:53 PM PDT by LibertarianLiz
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To: LibertarianLiz

That’s a tragic story, I’m sorry it had to be that way, it could not have been easy....

I have nothing similar to relate to, my mother’s younger sister and her 3 daughters were estranged from everyone in the family....I’m not sure exactly why....I don’t know where they live or even if they are still alive, it’s like we don’t exist in each other’s life.....


58 posted on 08/01/2021 2:07:01 PM PDT by srmanuel (`)
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To: daniel1212
Pertinent Scriptures texts:

Proverbs provides a good start and Ecclesiastes a good end...


PROVERBS Chapter 1:8-33 

    
Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction

    and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
They are a garland to grace your head
    and a chain to adorn your neck.

10 My son, if sinful men entice you,
    do not give in to them.
11 If they say, “Come along with us;
    let’s lie in wait for innocent blood,
    let’s ambush some harmless soul;
12 let’s swallow them alive, like the grave,
    and whole, like those who go down to the pit;
13 we will get all sorts of valuable things
    and fill our houses with plunder;
14 cast lots with us;
    we will all share the loot”—
15 my son, do not go along with them,
    do not set foot on their paths;
16 for their feet rush into evil,
    they are swift to shed blood.
17 How useless to spread a net
    where every bird can see it!
18 These men lie in wait for their own blood;
    they ambush only themselves!
19 Such are the paths of all who go after ill-gotten gain;
    it takes away the life of those who get it.

Wisdom’s Rebuke

20 Out in the open wisdom calls aloud,
    she raises her voice in the public square;
21 on top of the wall[d] she cries out,
    at the city gate she makes her speech:

22 “How long will you who are simple love your simple ways?
    How long will mockers delight in mockery
    and fools hate knowledge?
23 Repent at my rebuke!
    Then I will pour out my thoughts to you,
    I will make known to you my teachings.
24 But since you refuse to listen when I call
    and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand,
25 since you disregard all my advice
    and do not accept my rebuke,
26 I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you;
    I will mock when calamity overtakes you—
27 when calamity overtakes you like a storm,
    when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind,
    when distress and trouble overwhelm you.

28 “Then they will call to me but I will not answer;
    they will look for me but will not find me,
29 since they hated knowledge
    and did not choose to fear the Lord.
30 Since they would not accept my advice
    and spurned my rebuke,
31 they will eat the fruit of their ways
    and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.
32 For the waywardness of the simple will kill them,
    and the complacency of fools will destroy them;
33 but whoever listens to me will live in safety
    and be at ease, without fear of harm.”

 

 



Remember your Creator
    in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
    and the years approach when you will say,
    “I find no pleasure in them”—
before the sun and the light
    and the moon and the stars grow dark,
    and the clouds return after the rain;
when the keepers of the house tremble,
    and the strong men stoop,
when the grinders cease because they are few,
    and those looking through the windows grow dim;
when the doors to the street are closed
    and the sound of grinding fades;
when people rise up at the sound of birds,
    but all their songs grow faint;
when people are afraid of heights
    and of dangers in the streets;
when the almond tree blossoms
    and the grasshopper drags itself along
    and desire no longer is stirred.
Then people go to their eternal home
    and mourners go about the streets.

Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
    and the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
    and the wheel broken at the well,
and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
    and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.[a]
    “Everything is meaningless!”

The Conclusion of the Matter

Not only was the Teacher wise, but he also imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. 10 The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true.

11 The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one shepherd.[b] 12 Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them.

Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.

13 Now all has been heard;
    here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
    for this is the duty of all mankind.
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment,
    including every hidden thing,
    whether it is good or evil.


59 posted on 08/01/2021 3:48:38 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: cuban leaf

Easier answer: We subsidize sin.


60 posted on 08/01/2021 3:49:33 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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