The last few weeks have brought the news that three of the kids born or adopted by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have filed petitions to drop Pitt from their names. In recent years I have spoken with former clients who report varying degrees of estrangement from their now adult kids. This is both a serious and saddening trend.
Parents who participate in lengthy disputes over custody often don’t see that children tend to blame them for disrupting the idyllic childhood Americans now seem to think everyone is entitled to. The other counterintuitive thing I have found is that kids tend to blame the more mature parent for not doing more to placate the less reasonable mom or dad.
The Wall Street Journal published on this topic on July 23, 2026. The article focused on child “abuse” as the cause of estrangement while acknowledging that people have all sorts of ideas about what constitutes “abuse.”
Author Elizabeth Bernstein interviewed therapists working with these alienated adults. Many noted that some parent-child relationships can be too close and that a vacation from that intensity can be healthy. But we have an idealized perception of the importance of family in securing a happy life and long term estrangement can promote sadness and depression.
It would seem the remedy here involves both moderation and communication. Whether you are the parent or the adult child and you harbor bad feelings toward a family member, those feelings really do merit some investment with a therapist to figure out how you got there. In so doing realize that the therapist is only hearing your side and that may have some interest in promoting your newfound cause. After spilling your beans, it’s appropriate to ask if you should be interrupting contact with a parent. If the conclusion seems “yes” you should devote some time to communicating that decision. A cold cutoff or a rant airing your findings of abuse may feel good in the short term but often morphs into the long-term sadness/emptiness the Journal article references.
The better path may be a communication that you are going to take some time to explore what happened to the family during childhood (or perhaps even recently) and that you will be back in touch once you have processed it. That may beget a strong response including highly defensive contradiction of your concerns. Don’t pick or immerse yourself to do a battle you’re unprepared for. That’s what therapists and self-reflection are there for. But part of that process involves assessing whether you want a reconciliation or a benign agreement to disagree and move on.
If you look at the work of family historian Stephanie Coontz, you will realize that expectations of what family relationships “provide” has evolved over centuries and that since World War II we have promoted a narrative that family is everything. That’s a tall order and can create unrealistic expectations and produce huge disappointment. Choose your battles carefully and make certain that you aren’t a cascualty to family conflict.
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