I’m terribly sorry about your son. The pandemic seems to have popularized a lot of toxic fallacies in young people, and it spread like wildfire on TikTok. It happened with our teenage daughter. Fortunately for her sake, we pushed back and put her in counseling. As school started back up, she went back into a healthy social environment with good friends. She’s thriving now. She still brings up “political” views at times. We just use those as teaching moments, until she gets annoyed and changes the subject.
What you said was very helpful. She wants to get into an east coast school. Now that we’re nearing the time to when we start thinking about college, there’s a few we can scratch off the list. The goal is a functional adult We believe strongly in racial fairness, but we should never be ashamed of our race or heritage.
On the topic of estrangement, here is a website I found to be absolutely fascinating as it gave a completely different view of parental/child estrangement than I was used to hearing about.
To be clear - I am not trying to say this applies to OP’s situation, just that I found it to open my eyes to a different perspective about estrangement.
Not that this is a factor in picking majors, but kids in STEM majors are less political, and have less time to spend on such issues. Also, you can enquire ahead as to campus culture etc. for any particular school.
On many campuses women are screamed at all the time. This is nothing new. My daughter’s campus has Preacher John who regularly calls out women as “whores” on his megaphone.
Your son’s views may not really be that wrong- his blame of you for it is misplaced.
Estrangement is difficult but it can happen for many reasons. One of our neighbor’s kids has essentially disappeared. He went to college for one year, then dropped out, supported himself for a year at a minimum wage job living in a crowded apartment with roommates, then disappeared completely. My neighbor says she doesn’t even know where he is. My daughter said she had seen social media posts from him that indicates he had become a Qanon follower.
I don’t have time to read that article right now, but I can say it’s far more common for parents to kick kids out than kids kicking parents out in my area. Typical reasons for parents are political, religious (as in, kids not sharing politics or religion), not opting for the “correct” path in their lives (college/major, trade, marriage), or “going wild.”
I told my kids long ago that nothing they could believe or do (short of murdering us) would have us kicking them out. Love is simply not dependent upon such things. Even if they had gotten in trouble with the law, I’d still love them. I have friends whose kids have gone down the addiction path and they didn’t kick them out of their lives. They aren’t buying drugs for them either, of course, but one even mortgaged their house to pay for treatment. Fortunately, over a bit of time with some backtracking, that worked.
But certainly, many parents have bars and if the kids don’t reach those bars they’re shown the door and can’t come back unless it’s with a proper apology. I can’t relate at all.
Most of the political / ideological discussions at home, when they happen, tend to be data / fact driven. Less ideological. Kids should be able to defend their positions. There is significant push back, even if I agree with the position, if I feel that the kid is a taking a lazy view without thinking the position through. You acknowledge points in each others’ views. I think this makes kids resilient to peer pressures etc.
I think if this was about view points/differences then healthy debate would be fine.
I think from the moment he stepped on campus “he felt” targeted for his upbringing and race. I am not sure if that was the intent but the culture on campus was not supportive. He was an 18 year old boy, immature, and now had to defend how he was brought up and “who” he was. I am not saying that every kid reacts the same way, but he obviously internalized and took on the negativity.
And so the erosion began. He mentioned over the years different settings where he was marginalized and embarrassed during a class; but WE did not understand the impact it was having until too late.
Recently shocked when a friends kid (who had cut the parents off after college) was named in a lawsuit accusing a former teacher of sexual abuse. Kid lives in a state where the statute of limitations was extended… and he stepped forward along with several others.
I have no idea what really happened, nor will I ask. But it does make the years of no contact a little easier to understand if he told his parents and they didn’t act, or if they suspected something but didn’t try to get answers.
Not suggesting AT ALL that this is what’s going on with the OP. Just pointing out to all the armchair conspiracy theorists- kids who cut off their parents often have good reasons (to them) for doing so which have nothing to do with attending an elite college, community college, or no college at all. The idea that this is about the college strikes me as quite a stretch… especially if the kid is refusing to see a therapist.
There are “radical elements” at Liberty U, BYU, an entire group of religious fundamentalist colleges where young women who are sexually active (or even raped) are blamed and demonized so strong ideology is hardly the sole province of the “elite” university.
OP= hugs. Agree that therapy for you and the rest of the family might help or at least give you a safe space to talk.
I guess what I am saying here is not directly helpful because it is post mortem. I apologize for that. But both my wife and I strongly encourage the kids not to be apologetic for anything where other people demand an apology. We (in this case the kid) should know good from bad, and not do bad. And apologize for any bad you do, unbidden. And not apologize when you feel you have done no bad. Period. I don’t take blame for what someone else has done, just because I share a skin color with them, or ethnicity, or whatever. We just wanted the kids to strongly internalize that.
Many privileged families are big in giving back to the community both financially and through service. Maybe it would help your son to understand how you have used your privilege in the past to lift others up? If you worked hard for what you have and not put down others less fortunate, you can not really help the color of your skin or what others may assume to be a stress-free life of privilege imo. I can not judge someone on race/socioeconomic situation as to whether they are suffering in ways that I would not even understand. Have some kids considered white privilege had it rough-yes, and many may not speak of it. It is sad that students/friends are discriminating against him for things that were not in his control. If he was born into a loving stable family and has not had a lot of struggles in his life, I don’t think it is something to be ashamed of (or brag about). Just some thoughts, and yes, op, my son has felt eyes upon him where he has felt like people “hate” him because he is a white male…not sure it was legitimate or just his speculation based on course(s) that suggested all white males experience privilege. Luckily, he does not have a superiority mentality about his race/gender or pulled away from the family because of it.
One of my kids returned from break stating that there is a “victimization olympics” mentality on campus. Everyone has to claim some type of adversity/oppression, and when she candidly denies having had that experience, they correct her and insist she must have. She is getting better about just laughing it off and avoiding those discussions.
He is fully aware of where he came from … all of the privilege he enjoyed came from 2 parents (first in the family to attend college), grandparents that worked in road construction, and the list goes on. There were no trust funds, just hard-working parents who made the most of opportunities given them.
i don’t like the suggestion in that article that whenever there is an estrangement where the parents don’t know the reason why, it is a red flag that the parents are abusive.
That may be the case for people drawn into certain online forums, but I don’t think it is fair for the author to generalize. The author even notes that estranged parents with “reasons” tend to drift away. I suspect many normal parents without reasons drift away, too, because there is no more solace or support to be gained that way.
The article comes across as if the author started with a conclusion, based on previously delving into issues of children of narcissists, and then went looking for evidence in support.
I am sorry, OP. She attributes the victimization focus to her classmates’ lack of maturity and perspective-no one at her elite school should really be claiming oppression today. It is much worse in certain departments, and much better in STEM. She enrolls in fewer politics and English classes than she planned just to avoid it.
He has graduated from an elite university. I think he should use his “privilege” real or perceived to build others up rather than tear himself (and his family) down. There does seem to be a worldview by some that those considered privileged should have it stripped from them rather than to encourage them to improve the lives of others. Your son will have a lot to offer and can better the world in ways he doesn’t know yet. Disliking who he is and where he came from (neither which he can change) will not benefit him or what he believes in. Good luck.
I think people that are very concerned about these issues should give up their seat at an elite college and go study at a community college, and donate much of the money they make in life over their immediate needs to charity to people who are less privileged than them in this world – and there are many of those in Ethiopia etc. Instead of berating other people …
We believe strongly in racial fairness, but we should never be ashamed of our race or heritage.