Mother-Adult Child Estrangement: Patterns and the Role of Transitions
Megan Gilligan, University of Missouri, Email: mgilligan@missouri.edu, J. Jill Suitor, Purdue University Karl Pillemer, Cornell University
Funding Sources: Research was funded through the National Institute on Aging (RO1 AG18869-01 and 2RO1 AG18869- 04). The second and third authors are co-principal investigators for each grant.
Gilligan, M., Suitor, J. J., & Pillemer, K. (2022). Patterns and Processes of Intergenerational Estrangement: A Qualitative Study of Mother-Adult Child Relationships Across Time. Research on aging, 44(5-6), 436–447. https://doi.org/10.1177/01640275211036966
The present study highlights estrangement between older mothers and their adult children in later-life. Specifically, it investigates how estrangement patterns change and how life transitions impact the estrangement process over time. Estrangement can be best defined as the emotional and physical distance created between individuals. It is a common phenomenon that can lead to a loss of closeness, connection, and communication in a relationship. Estrangement is an understudied topic with the potential to significantly impact health and wellbeing, including psychological wellness.
Participants included 61 mothers between the ages of 65 and 75 with at least two children, one of whom they were estranged from. Researchers conducted the first round of in-person interviews in 2001-2003. The second round of interviews was structured identically and performed in 2008-2011. Mothers were not asked if they were estranged from their children; instead, they were asked a series of closed-ended questions regarding the quality of their relationship with each child and the characteristics of each relationship. In addition, mothers were asked open-ended questions seeking information about their children’s personalities and emotional closeness with each child. Other questions prompted mothers to speak on major life events, arguments, and problems their children had experienced in the past. Researchers determined that a mother was estranged from their child if they did not have face-to-face or telephone contact in the last year. An estranged relationship was also decided if a mother had contact less than once a month, and the relationship was described as having low closeness.
The findings revealed that transitions in mothers' or children's lives did not alter the estrangement process. Life transitions experienced by mothers, including widowhood or major illness, did not impact the movement of estrangement across time. This means that mothers did not make efforts to reconnect or reconcile with their estranged children during major life events. Rather, these circumstances encouraged mothers to lean on the children with whom they had better relationships for support. Life transitions that occurred in children’s early adulthood and went against the mother’s values prompted estrangement and no reconciliation, with mothers becoming increasingly upset by their child’s actions over time. Overall, the study found that the mother-adult child estrangement process influences a relationship’s contact and closeness across time. Estrangement is not a discrete event resulting from a single life transition.
Researchers reveal that family estrangement is a complex and nuanced issue that continues to be prevalent in daily life. Future research should investigate estrangement processes among adult children and their siblings or fathers. Further studies are warranted to provide a comprehensive overview of family dynamics and encourage the dissemination of appropriate resources to support estranged families.