Parent-Free By Choice
The beginning of the explanation from Demand Euphoria, an unschooling parent’s blog
How many of you out there have chosen to separate yourselves from one or both of your parents because of the way they treated you?That was the question I asked on Twitter. I was blown away by the responses. There were about 20 people who spoke up and shared a little of their stories with me, out of about 400 followers. I was surprised at how common this issue seemed to be. Then I asked a similar question on Facebook, this time asking people to email me their stories, not sure what I would do with them yet.
Here are some of the things people have shared:Thank you for your curiosity and openness to this subject many find taboo.
Part of me thinks is it easier to just tell people your mom died than to say you just don’t speak to her. A person can only be hurt so much before enough is enough.
[My father] made my life miserable and then threatened my kids.I’m teaching my parents a lesson. I do plan on getting back in touch, but not until they’ve had a long time to realize that they need us more than we need them.
It’s heartbreaking and it’s not an easy choice to make. So much baggage goes along with it. People understand divorce more than they do cutting ties with parents.Many people also shared how they have felt so alone going through this process. Some have people making them feel guilty about their decisions. All this made me wonder: If this is taboo, why is that? Why do we give people a hard time about cutting ties with parents? Do we as a society feel that a person owes her parents something, no matter how badly they have treated her? If this is such a common issue, why aren’t we talking about it more?
Read the rest at Demand Euphoria
I thought this might be relevant to some of my followers and I think it’s a really incredibly important thing to start a dialogue about.
This is wonderful. I’ve cut contact with my parents (both sets!) at some point or another, and it was probably the best thing I could do for my mental health. Now I’m on speaking terms with some of my parents, but I definitely don’t regret cutting contact when I did.
I haven’t had any contact with my father in several years because of the totally unforgivable shit he has done, and I have 0% regret at that decision.
(Source: onyourownsidethistime)
