parenting

The Gut-Wrenching Heartbreak of Parental Estrangement

Each month, Focus on the Family counselors talk with mothers and fathers whose adult children want nothing to do with them anymore.

In most cases, the son or daughter weren’t abused or mistreated. In a great number of cases, it’s the adult child who has cut the ties, often abruptly and with little explanation. The estrangement often carries on for months and even years.

Tragically, this trend is becoming increasingly common. One study found that 27% of adult children have cut off any relationship with their fathers and 7% with their mothers.

Making a bad situation worse is a current movement to destigmatize the intentional alienation. As the logic goes, there’s no reason to expend energy on getting along with someone who frustrates you or who won’t fully endorse and champion whatever cause, lifestyle or belief system you embrace. The ethic at play values either “cancelling” or “curating” relationships with a focus on personal convenience, positivity and inspiration.

Steve, who has dipped in and out of a functional relationship with his parents, cut off all ties with his mother and father after the election of President Donald Trump this past November. Amy stopped responding to her parents’ texts and calls because they advised her to not move in with her boyfriend.

To be sure, though escalating, this dysfunction isn’t an entirely new phenomena. As a boy, I remember my aunt and uncle traveling to Europe to try and reestablish contact with their daughter. She refused to open her apartment door when they knocked on it. My parents were in tears just talking about the cruelty of such a response.

A 33-year-old woman who was raised in a Christian home and who now disagrees with her parents’ faith, is quoted in the January edition of Cosmopolitan magazine that “It’s an extreme privilege to have a great relationship with your adult children.” 

The insinuation is that mothers and fathers shouldn’t expect anything when it comes to their adult children, or in the very least, must earn what the child decides to allow.

The presence of grandchildren adds another layer of heartache to incidents of estrangement. In some cases, the disgruntled adult child might use the child as leverage or a torturous tactic akin to pouring salt in the wound.

Mothers and fathers aren’t perfect, of course, and there can be legitimate reasons for tension and the use of healthy boundaries between parents and adult children. It’s the wise parent that honestly and thoughtfully examines their actions, both past and current, in an effort to determine their responsibility. If there was any offense, they should apologize, ask for forgiveness, and then deliberately plot and plan a better way forward.

If the case involves actual abuse or potential danger, adult children must protect themselves and family members in their care. But in a great number situations, if the adult child refuses to work through the offense, whether perceived or actual, our counselors offer the following guidance. 

Honor the boundaries your child (and, if married, their spouse) have set, no matter how harsh or unreasonable. If they’ve asked you not to call, don’t call. If you dismiss these boundaries, you’ll only end up validating their negative image of you.

Guard your own heart. It would be easy to fall into depression and anxiety or to beat yourself up and blame yourself for matters beyond your control. Don’t fall into that trap. Don’t become bitter, and don’t believe lies about your own dignity as a person. Do whatever it takes to stay emotionally healthy and keep yourself psychologically safe in spite of the circumstances.

If the situation allows for it – you know best if it does – send your child (and spouse) a card with a brief message expressing your love and good-will a couple of times a year, perhaps on birthdays and at Christmas. It’s a small thing, but it will let them know that your hearts are still open toward them. Remember Romans 12:21 – “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” Look for opportunities to express your love in unobtrusive ways. And remain prayerful.

Focus on the Family has a staff of counselors available to speak with you over the phone. They can refer you to reputable and qualified Christian therapists in your area. They’d also be more than happy to discuss your concerns with you person-to-person. Call our Counseling department for a free consultation.

Additional Resources

Focusonthefamily.com/AbusiveRelationships

Family Estrangement: 6 Ways to Reconcile with Adult Children

Just Annoying, or Truly Unsafe? How to Navigate Get-Togethers With Difficult Family

When Adult Children Don’t Share Your Values

Distance In Relationship With Grown Child

J.D. and Usha Vance Parent on National Stage

Yesterday, newly-inaugurated Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife, Usha, gracefully faced what many parents might understandably consider a DEFCON-1, red-alert situation:

Wrangling three young, tired children at a prestigious, nationally televised event while sitting next to the President of the United States.

I’m not a parent, and I’m pretty sure even I’ve had that nightmare.

The young family arrived at the National Parade yesterday dressed to the nines, with Vance carrying three-year-old Mirabel and Usha preventing 7- and 4-year-old Ewan and Vivek from tumbling headfirst down the Capital One Arena steps.

The couple spent the next half an hour or more holding, blocking, sitting with and shuffling their children around their seats. There was bouncing, standing on chairs, lolling in uncontrolled boredom, and, of course, conversations with President Trump. Thumbs were sucked. Teddy bears were almost dropped into the parade.

You can watch some of the hilarity here:

There’s something refreshing about prominent parents being unashamed about being, well, a family.

Children are undeniable, joyful blessings. They are also frequently inconvenient. They can be messy, hyper, stubborn and fussy. They get tired easily. They don’t tend to enjoy sitting down for long periods of time.

The Vances included their children in a life-changing event when many might have deemed them too inconvenient to bring along. In doing so, J.D. and Usha demonstrated that they consider themselves, first and foremost, parents.

Parenting, at its core, is a constant, selfless pursuit. It requires parents to deprioritize their own interests — and sometimes, sanity — in favor of caring for and guiding the little blessings they’ve been trusted with.

And there are no days off.

The constancy of parenting has been minimized in American culture. Too many new parents feel like it’s too much to ask. Restless kids are plopped in front of screens so parents can “take a break.” Teaching kids how to behave is increasingly farmed out to schools and daycares, which some argue should be free.

The Vances clearly do not subscribe to this view. They didn’t take time off from parenting to make their own experience less stressful. Perhaps they understand that celebrating and spending time with their children is more rewarding than looking perfect for the cameras.

That’s a powerful illustration of godly parenting and familial commitment — one I hope many families will find affirming and uplifting.

Tim and Demi-Leigh Tebow are Correct: Parenting is a Privilege

Tim and Demi-Leigh Tebow announced on Tuesday they were expecting a baby, calling it a “privilege” to be a mother and father.

They’re right.

Society often seems to go out of its way to highlight the burden of raising children, zeroing in on the financial costs, the time, the energy, the mental strain.

There is no denying its many challenges – even heartache and heartbreak from time to time.

But like so many of the most important things in life, you can’t calculate the cost of the incalculable.

The Tebows, who married in 2020, announced that Demi-Leigh is 16 weeks along and eagerly awaiting their baby’s birth later this year

“I’m so grateful because I just couldn’t imagine a better life partner to do life with first and foremost,” said the former Miss Universe. “To be able to raise a little tiny human being together. I’m so grateful that Tim is my husband … that we get to do parenting together.”

Since stepping away from his professional sports career, both in the NFL and minor league baseball, Tim Tebow has been covering college football for ESPN, partnering with a private equity firm, and overseeing the Tim Tebow Foundation.

According to its mission statement, the foundation “exists to bring Faith, Hope & Love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need.”

In announcing the news of their baby, the Tebows showed a strip of ultrasound images of the preborn child.

It was in January of 2010 when Tim Tebow partnered with Focus on the Family in a highly anticipated Super Bowl commercial.

The 30-second spot ignited a firestorm of controversy, catapulting it to one of the most talked about ads in the big game’s history. Critics claimed it was going to be an “anti-abortion” commercial and voiced their disgust and objection in the days leading up to Super Bowl Sunday.

In the end, the critics looked silly when it was revealed the spot featured Pam Tebow, Tim’s mother, talking about how Tim was her “miracle baby” who almost didn’t make it out of the womb. Doctors had encouraged the Tebows to abort, but they refused.

Whether championing support for preborn life, victims of sex trafficking, or those with developmental disabilities, Tim and Demi-Leigh Tebow have long celebrated the beauty and value of every life.


Years ago, the late legendary talk show host Larry King was being interviewed by Charlie Rose.

“You’re not a father, are you?” Larry asked Charlie.

“No,” answered Rose.

“You miss the great joy of life,” reflected King, who was father to five.

A lifetime of success at work will never outpace the pleasures and satisfaction of pouring yourself into the task and privilege of raising a child.

In an era when fewer couples are marrying, and fewer of those couples are having children at all, it’s a good thing when a high-profile couple celebrates the wonder of parenting.

Tim told People Magazine that his wife “is going to be a fierce defender and protector … She will be extremely loyal and loving. Demi is someone that is extremely determined. When she sets her mind to something, she goes all the way in — and I know that she will do that as a mom, too.”

Our nation and world desperately need more children, but we likewise must raise up a new generation of advocates who will fight, defend, and lead those boys and girls to a Savior who will change their lives, giving them purpose and meaning on this earth – and an assurance that the best is yet to come.

Congratulations, Tim and Demi-Leigh, and please let our team know if we can help serve and encourage your growing family. Parenting is a privilege – and also a blast!

Image credit: Tim Tebow

The Two-Parent Privilege: Understanding Contemporary Family Formation

Focus on the Family’s Jim Daly recently interviewed noted economist Melissa Kearney on her important book, The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind (University of Chicago Press, 2023).

Professor Kearney, who works as the Neil Moskowitz Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, shared some very important statistics about what the decline of marriage as a social norm is bringing to our world in terms of well-being for women and children, poverty rates and other important measures of general well-being. She explained how marriage is becoming the new class divide among the haves and have-nots in our communities.

The following are edited block quotes of Kearney’s most salient points as a scholar on the topic of marital decline among certain socio-economic and ethnic groups.

Growth of Single-Parent Families in U.S. Outside the Well-Educated Class

And critically, what I see in the data that’s happened over the past 40 years is that the share of kids growing up in a single parent home or outside a two-parent home has grown quite shockingly.
Only 63% of U.S. kids are growing up with married parents today. That’s a really major change in the past 40 years.
And the other really, really critical feature of this trend is that it’s happened almost entirely outside the college educated class.
Marriage is holding pretty steady among adults with a four-year college degree, but outside that economically advantaged class, single parenthood has really risen.
American kids have the unfortunate distinction of being more likely than kids in any other country, for which we have this kind of data, to be living in a one parent home.
The Pew Research Center has this data from 130 countries: 23% of U.S. kids are living in a one parent home. The average across the 130 countries is 7%. In Europe, it’s 13%. In Asia, it’s like less than 4%. So we see, relatively, very high rates [of unmarried parenthood] in the U.S.

Single-Parent Homes: Divorced or Unmarried Parents?

What’s actually happened for kids in this country is that fewer and fewer of their parents are even getting married in the first place. So, in fact, the rise in the share of kids living in a one parent home over the past 40 years is almost entirely driven by an increase in never married parents. From a kid’s perspective, [economically] that’s even worse than parents getting divorced.
Because what we see is only a quarter of kids who live with a single mom get any child support [from a father]. So those kids are much less likely to ever have had during their childhood the benefit of two parents in their household. They’re less likely to have the benefit of continued engagement with a nonresident parent or even financial support going forward. And so, it’s almost worse [that a marriage never existed] than just not a commitment to keeping marriages together.

Class Divide in Family Formation

Between 1980 and 2020, the share of kids born to unmarried parents went from 18% to 40%. [Nearly all this change is among non-college educated women.]
So today, it’s really … with moms who don’t have a four-year college degree, and slightly more than half actually are outside of marriage. So, it’s an even bigger divide that the parents were never married in the first place.
In 1980, the least advantaged moms, moms without a high school degree, 73% of their kids were being raised in a married parent home. And that raised a lot of concerns in the 1980s about this very disadvantaged groups of moms because [at that time] about 83% of the kids whose moms had a high school degree were being raised in a married parent home. And 90% of kids whose moms had a four-year college degree [were raising their kids in marriage].
What happened over the next 40 years, nobody really would have predicted in the 80s or 90s, but the middle group, high school-educated moms, the middle-class Americans, their rates of marriage basically converged downward to the most disadvantaged groups.
So, the majority of moms with a high school degree or some college, the share of them living in a married-parent home fell from 83% to 60%. So now, what we have is the college-educated really standing apart. Those moms are about three times less likely to be doing the hard job of raising their kids in a single parent home as compared to moms without a four-year college degree.

Higher Poverty Rates in Unmarried-Parented Homes

The poverty rates among kids growing up with a single mom as compared to two married parents, it’s five times as high. It’s like 25% versus 5%. Kids growing up with a single dad, their poverty rate is three times as high as kids growing up in a married-parent home.

Racial/Ethnic Demographic of Married Two-Parent Families

So, children whose parents identify in the census as ethnically Asian, 88% of those kids are living in married-parent households. And remarkably, the data don’t show a large education gradient for that group, meaning that marriage rates are really high all across the education economic distribution for Asian-Americans.
77% of white children are living in married-parent homes.
62% of Hispanic children are living with married parents.
Only 38% of black children are doing so. So, I mean, there’s so much we need to do to address racial disparities in this country.
But the fact that only 38% of black kids are growing up with the benefits of the resources of two parents in their household, that is going to perpetuate racial class divides in resources and opportunities and ultimately outcomes, which is why I’m so convinced that we need to do something to break this cycle, to address those gaps.

So, we are seeing declines in married parenting among all ethnic groups, save for Asian-Americans. But we must note Kearney’s distinction in marriage- and married-parenting rates are hanging steady among the college educated, while they are declining sharply among the less educated. Most single-parent homes are created, not by divorce, but by out-of-wedlock births among non-teens and non-college educated women. This has been true since the mid-1980s.

Related Articles and Resources

Family Scholars Explain the Current Marriage Paradox in America

New Research Shows Married Families Matter More Than Ever

Why Marriage Really Matters – 3 Focus on the Family Reports

Reclaiming the Truth About Marriage

Research Update: The Compelling Health Benefits of Marriage

Important New Research on How Married Parents Improve Child Well-Being

Brad Wilcox Exhorts Young People to ‘Get Married’

New Research: Marriage Still Provides Major Happiness Premium

Cohabitation Still Harmful – Even as Stigma Disappears

Don’t Believe the Modern Myth. Marriage Remains Good for Women

Don’t Believe the Modern Myth. Marriage Remains Good for Men.

Yes, Married Mothers Really Are Happier Than Unmarried and Childless Women

Married Mothers and Fathers Are Happiest According to Gold-Standard General Social Survey

Married Fatherhood Makes Men Better

Marriage and the Public Good: A New Manifesto of Policy Proposals

TikTok Dangerous for Minors — Leaked Docs Show Company Refuses to Protect Kids

Leaked documents from inside TikTok suggest the social media giant intentionally endangers kids to benefit its bottom line.

A group of 13 states and the District of Columbia filed individual suits against the Chinese-owned company earlier this month, alleging:

TikTok’s underlying business model focuses on maximizing young users’ time on the platform so the company can boost revenue from selling targeted ads.

The suits claim TikTok’s addictive features, like autoplay and 24-hour push notifications, as well as, marketing strategies, like promoting beauty filters, harm children’s mental and physical health. Evidence uncovered in the states’ two-year investigation into the platform suggests the company knew about these problems and allowed them to continue.

TikTok’s internal documents and communications should have been hidden from the public. However, problems with the redaction in South Carolina’s and Kentucky’s cases prematurely revealed some clandestine details.

It doesn’t look good for TikTok.

Users 12-and-Up

On the Apple App Store, TikTok claims its content is suitable for children ages 12 and up. But Apple challenged that age rating in 2022, according to evidence in South Carolina’s case against TikTok.  

The Washington Post reports:

A team at Apple reviewing TikTok’s rating found that the app features ‘frequent or intense mature or suggestive content’ and pressed the platform to raise its recommended age to 17 and over.

But TikTok refused to give up its kid-friendly rating. Instead, it claimed it took “aggressive strategies” to filter and remove the kinds of content Apple flagged. South Carolina’s suit says it didn’t work. TikTok still shows children inappropriate and vulgar content, the case alleges, but the company doesn’t want to cop to it.

Big Business

New York Attorney General Letitia James, who helped lead the charge against TikTok, says TikTok has financial incentives to keep its age rating low. A press release explaining the case claims approximately 35% of TikTok’s American ad revenue comes from children and teens.

Leaked information from Kentucky’s case, reviewed and published by NPR, supports James’ assertion.

TikTok knows know many of its most dedicated users are minors. One internal study of its users found 95% of American smartphone users under 17-years-old use the app. Another study of TikTok’s engagement statistics notes, “As expected, across most engagement metrics, the younger the user, the better the performance.”

The company knows it must keep young users engaged. In one employee chat regarding a TikTok tool meant to decrease the time minors spend on the app, a project manager admitted, “Our goal is not to reduce the time spent [on TikTok].” Another employee added, “[The goal is] to contribute to daily active users and retention [of other users].”

Flimsy Features

The aforementioned tool allows parents to impose an hour-long TikTok time limit — a feature that would impact TikTok’s goal if it worked. But it doesn’t. TikTok estimates it only reduces usage time by an average of 1.5 minutes.

Another internal document suggests the screen-time limit wasn’t built to work well. TikTok only evaluated the feature’s success by how it “improved public trust in the TikTok platform via media coverage.”

TikTok apparently instructs their content moderators to perform a similarly shoddy job. A document referring to “younger users/U13” tells moderators to leave underage users’ accounts alone unless it explicitly identifies them as under 13 years old.

Addiction, Inc.

TikTok doesn’t just turn a blind eye to minors on its platform — it recruits them.

The platform discovered users must watch 260 videos to form a TikTok habit. Kentucky’s lawsuit elaborates:

While this may seem substantial, TikTok videos can be as short as 8 seconds and are played for viewers in rapid-fire succession, automatically. Thus, in under 35 minutes, an average user is likely to become addicted to the platform.

TikTok knows its most engaging features cause young people to compulsively open its app. It also knows what problems these compulsions cause. The company’s internal research concludes:

Compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy and increased anxiety. … [It] also interferes with essential responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities and connecting with loved ones.
Trapped in PainHub

One of the platform’s most addictive features is its algorithm, which learns and feeds users the kinds of videos they like. But ingesting too much of the same content can quickly skew the way users view the world.

A good example of this comes from one of TikTok’s employees, who participated in an internal study of “filter bubbles” — the kind of homogenous content filtering that occurs when social media algorithms determine what posts users engage with.

This employee wrote:

After following several ‘painhub’ and ‘sadnotes’ accounts, it took me 20 minutes to drop into a ‘negative’ filter bubble. The intensive density of negative content make me lower down mood (sic) and increase my sadness feelings (sic) though I am in a high spirit in my recent life.

The employee is referencing TikTok accounts featuring exclusively sad stories and comments from people in pain. Ostensibly designed to support those going through a hard time, an excess of this kind of content makes the world seem like a perpetually dark place.

To avoid filter bubbles, TikTok claims to offer a “Refresh” feature that resets the algorithm. James’ press release says this feature “does not work as TikTok claims.”

Online Strip Club

So TikTok knows minors generate big profits, creates addictive features to keep them on the app, turns a blind eye to underage users and allows them to binge on inappropriate content. Yikes.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, it gets worse.

One incident documented in Kentucky’s case involves TikTok Live, a feature that allows users to broadcast live videos of themselves. In 2022, TikTok discovered “a significant” number of adults had started paying minors to strip on live video.

You read that right. In one month alone, adults sent more than 1 million ‘gifts’ — real money converted into digital currency — to kids for ‘transactional’ behavior.

D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb calls this an “unlicensed payment system” that incentivizes minors to prostitute themselves. He told the Post:

TikTok has designed its money transmission business to lure children in, using childlike cartoons and emojis to make it look like the children are playing games, when in fact they are being exploited financially.

In contrast, a TikTok official commented to coworkers:

One of our key discoveries during this project that has turned into a major challenge with Live business is that the content that gets the highest engagement may not be the content we want on our platform.
Why It Matters

The more we learn about social media, the more obvious it seems that children shouldn’t get within ten feet of it. To learn more about what you can do to keep your child screen-free, take a look at the articles linked below.

At least commit to enforcing strong boundaries around technology. Some ideas include requiring your children to scroll social media in public area, regularly checking their social media feeds for inappropriate content and educating them about sextortion and other predatory online behaviors.

Remember that companies like TikTok and Meta will not reliably protect your child from exploitation and inappropriate content. It’s up to parents to keep kids safe online.

Additional Articles and Resources

Four Ways to Protect Your Kids from Bad Tech, From Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt

Parent-Run Groups Help Stop Childhood Smartphone Use

Survey Finds Teens Use Social Media More Than Four Hours Per Day — Here’s What Parents Can Do

Teen Boys Falling Prey to Financial Sextortion — Here’s What Parents Can Do

Instagram’s Sextortion Safety Measures — Too Little, Too Late?

Kid’s Online Safety Act — What It Is and Why It’s a Big Deal

Instagram Content Restrictions Don’t Work, Tests Show

Zuckerberg Implicated in Meta’s Failures to Protect Children

Surgeon General Recommends Warning on Social Media Platforms

‘The Dirty Dozen List’ — Corporations Enable and Profit from Sexual Exploitation