“You do not owe us any respect as your parents?”
“Come down off your high horse and treat us with the love and respect we deserve.”
“Do you really think we owe you more respect than you owe us?”
Many of us in the estranged community have likely been on the receiving end of these types of sentiments from parents or family members. These sentiments represent the one-way flow of parental expectation for “respect” with the weights and measures component of what is felt to be “deserved” or “owed” to them for the privilege of having been brought into existence, and then fed, clothed, housed and schooled. A highly transactional - not relational - mentality.
According to Wikipedia, to have respect for someone is to hold “an attitude of consideration or high regard,” and/or to hold “good opinion, honor or admiration” for them.
Often in the parent/child dynamic however, “respect” is instead translated into demands for deference and obedience. The parent has the expectation of being held in high regard as an automatic requirement, but in the dysfunctional families that eventually find themselves in an estrangement situation, it doesn’t flow both ways.
Rather, it is a form of parental entitlement that is pervasive and embedded in culture.
This entitlement is derived largely through authoritarian style parenting, which “places high value on children’s obedience and respect for parents. The parent is the ultimate authority. They expect their child to tell the truth, obey rules, behave properly, and not misbehave. Disobedience results in punishment.” (1) These types of parents try to “shape, control and evaluate their children’s behavior based on [an] absolute set of standards” while typically displaying low levels of emotional warmth or responsiveness. (2,3)
Not surprisingly, this style of parenting has the most negative of outcomes - both for the child and for the family dynamic and its relational health overall.
Parents with these types of mentalities generally view the term “entitlement” as something that they feel is exhibited in their “ungrateful” and yes, “disrespectful” children - particularly those adult children who have gone low or no contact with them. Rarely do they turn the tables on themselves and evaluate their own assumed entitlements - their entrenched beliefs that their children owe them something simply for being parents and the choices they made in how to use their available resources to fulfill their parental obligations.
An adult child having appreciation for what their parents provided - and what it may have cost them to do so - is not at all the same thing as then perennially and unconditionally owing their parents for having made the choices they did in order to provide it.
In many dysfunctional families, the expectations and obligations of “respect” for how parents believe themselves to have parented and what they provide(d) has been used as a cudgel of control over their child from a young age and maintained even in adulthood. However, these parents fail to understand - and in fact will be diametrically opposed to the idea when pointed out to them - that the way to create respect is to model it by how they treat and respond to their children.
Gaining respect from children is about the quality and manner of the parenting.
“Children need to know that they are respected and that their needs are important.” - Julie Gottman
Through years of research, the Gottman Institute has identified the behaviors that are destructive to relationships - whether it be a marriage or a parent/child/family dynamic - and refers to them as the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Those behaviors in reference to destructive parenting are (4):
1. Criticism: Constantly pointing out something negative in your child, blaming them for problems or naming perceived personality flaw(s). These are things that tend to be said reactively by parents in common daily interaction. Why are you such a slob?What's wrong with you?! Stop being so sensitive. Or things like: Your problem is:___.
When children hear these things repetitively, it leads them to believe something is wrong with them. When those criticisms and commentaries are ongoing and persist into adulthood, it continues to crumble and deteriorate the relational foundations that have been consistently chipped, and chipped and chipped away throughout their experience with that parent - or parents - and the family dynamic overall.
2. Defensiveness: A reaction against feeling personally attacked.
For those of us who are estranged, we have likely seen this behavior from parents and family throughout our lives and, most especially, upon initiating some level of estrangement distancing. These are the behaviors of denials, deflection/blame shifting, playing the victim, gaslighting, bullying, guilt tripping, and silent treatment.
Core to defensiveness is the absence of curiosity, concern or empathy regarding the internal experience of the other person. Rather, it is entirely concerned with avoiding responsibility or accountability for hurt feelings or conflicts. Such an attitude - especially when pervasive - is lethal to any relationship, let alone that of a parent/child or family dynamic.
3. Contempt: Similar to criticism but coming from a place of superiority - this can come in the form of sarcasm, belittling, mockery, persistent unwanted teasing, as well as name calling.
In Gottman’s research, it was found that the use of contempt not only predicted how the rest of a conversation would go, but also, how the rest of the relationship would go.
Again not surprisingly, in the context of parenting, these types of behaviors were identified in another study as being reflective of a harsh parenting style which resulted in higher levels of parenting stress and lower levels of secure attachment with the child.(5)
Family dynamics that feature this type of interaction style from the parent(s) are naturally at high risk for later estrangement as that parent has consistently failed to demonstrate any meaningful level of respect for their child. When those behaviors are modeled by parents and/or allowed by siblings towards each other or one targeted member, the family dynamic becomes toxic.
4. Stonewalling: Emotionally shutting down and withdrawing from an interaction or a conflict. A persistent refusal to communicate, cooperate or express emotions. [It is similar to silent treatment, however, silent treatment is a refusal to acknowledge the other person with the deliberate intent to harm or punish them. Both are forms of manipulation and emotional abuse when used by parents/caregivers.]
Stonewalling is a form of managing emotional overstimulation that is exhibited in all ages. When observed in children within an interaction, it is a sign to parents to back off and allow that child a chance to regulate themselves - and to help them constructively and supportingly in the process.
In a parent, especially when used repetitively or as a standard of practice, it is a passive aggressive form of manipulation and authoritarian control to avoid difficult conversations. Parents who engage in stonewalling may still be in relationship with their children, but are refusing to engage in specific topics despite the need or direct entreaty by their child to do so.
It is a blatant disrespect for the needs of their child - young or adult - to process, resolve and repair relational ruptures.
The ability to provide guidance in naming emotions and processing relational tensions is a critical differentiator of the emotionally mature and intelligent parent who understands the importance of doing so to meet the needs of their child through an emotion coaching approach (a topic discussed in the previous educational series article). It’s understanding the existence and impact of the inherent power differential - particularly when children are young - and the role the parent has in helping children understand and know that their emotions are both normal and valuable.
It requires the parent to have the self awareness to recognize their own feelings and reactions and to be able to prioritize the relationship and the needs of their child in the moment versus continually allowing their emotional dysregulation to dominate and thus wreak damage to their child’s psyche and to the relationship. This awareness, approach and prioritization is important for the parent to implement from the time the child is young and to continually adapt to the temperament of that child as they mature.
When parents are consistently disrespectful, misattuned and emotionally neglectful to their child from early childhood on - refusing to hear them or empathize with them - they show them over and over and reinforce the belief that their needs are not as important. That they are not important.
The authoritarian mindset and its unrelenting maintenance of a hierarchical power structure continues with parents into their child’s adulthood. It is something reflected in the recent Psychology Today article, “3 Reasons Parents Let Adult Children Disrespect Them.”
In this article, the mentality of authority and control is evident in the title alone in the use of the term “let” and persists throughout with the terms “allow,” “permit,” “accept,” and “tolerate” as applied to an adult child/parent dynamic.(6) A dynamic that at that point, SHOULD be one of equals if it were a healthy relationship - where both feelings and differences of opinion or experience have been consistently shown over time to be able to be discussed openly and safely without fear of adverse relational ramifications. It is the parent who needs have the maturity to relinquish their hold on the power differential and to embrace and respect their adult child as an equal in order to establish that relational safety within that adult to adult relational dynamic.
Tellingly, nowhere in the article does the author explore or suggest the parent reflect on possible histories of harmful parental relational dynamics that might be a root cause of what they deem “disrespect” by the adult child. Rather, there is only the nod to possible guilt over parenting decisions that serves to uphold the ideal of parenting authority vs accountability.
This type of article, published on a platform highlighting “experts” in the field of psychology, serves as a tacit cultural endorsement for and representation of the harmful imbalance of emphasis of respect (and incorrect application of definition) within the parent/child dynamic. It is the type of article commonly and consistently found within discussion of parent/adult child relational tensions and estrangement.
The thing is, children naturally do hold their parents in high regard - at least until there is sufficient and often overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And even then, the cultural mandate to “respect” parents holds an unrelenting grip.
From the moment of birth, parents are their children’s entire world - from being necessary for their very survival and serving as the imprinted models of human connection to shaping how they in fact see the world, how they learn to interact with others, and ultimately how they see themselves.
For much of their impressionable and vulnerable early lives, parents are their children’s heroes. They WANT and often NEED to respect and hold them in high regard for their own emotional safety and connection within the relationship. It is psychologically and emotionally devastating for children to later lose that sense of regard and esteem for their parents and family. It is why - along with the strong cultural dictates on the permanence of family and the demand for unconditional respect for parents - that children end up tolerating within the parent and family dynamic, what they never would in any other relationship.
‘One of the distinct phenomena I have seen over the years is the strong willingness of children and adult children to endure far more at the hands of a parent than a parent would ever endure at the hands of the child, even when that child becomes an adult.” - Sven Erlandson, Badass Counseling (7)
The Psychology Today article and the prevalent cultural memes showcasing the intolerance of parents to receiving “disrespect” and their steadfast ignorance of what that attitude actually reflects upon them is the perfect illustration of this reality.
Far from being fictionalized representations, the sentiments at the outset of this article are direct quotes from my own parents during several rounds of communications in the lead up to full estrangement. They serve as succinct yet potent illustrations of the 4 Horseman of the Apocalypse behaviors of criticism, defensiveness, contemptuousness and stonewalling in response to repeated attempts to share my experience and ask for acknowledgement, respect and simple change in order to maintain the relationships. Likely those parental sentiments are far from being unique to my experience.
Estrangement is not the result of the disrespect or entitlement of adult children. On the contrary, it comes from the ongoing disrespect and entitlement of parents for what they have not modeled or demonstrated to their children. Estrangement is the result of a transactional mentality of parents expecting unconditional deference and continued access to their children - and to their children’s children - without ever having to be accountable for or adjust their own behaviors to meet the needs of that separate, unique individual that is their child/adult child.
Much has been learned about healthy relational dynamics and the harm done through the authoritarian style of parenting. Much has also been learned about the importance of repair to relational health and resilience. The foundation of effective relational repair is mutual respect and it is what is modeled first by parents in their interactions with their children from infancy on.
As individuals estranged from our families, our way forward to creating and maintaining that relational health and resilience with our own families of creation is in the understanding that enduring relationships are, by definition, relational - not transactional. Importantly, it is about understanding that the respect of our children is not something we are owed or entitled to, but something WE build through demonstration to them and with them.
We can learn and incorporate what our estranged families cannot.
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. - Alvin Toffler, writer, futurist
[Please note: This article is a reflection on the annual August 1st observance of Respect for Parents Day. The educational columnist is not a licensed mental health professional. The articles under this series are written from a peer to peer perspective.]
Sources:
Sylvain, Rebecca. “The Four Parenting Styles: Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive, Uninvolved.” September, 2022. LinkedIn.
Kuppens S, Ceulemans E. Parenting Styles: A Closer Look at a Well-Known Concept. J Child Fam Stud. 2019;28(1):168-181. doi: 10.1007/s10826-018-1242-x. Epub 2018 Sep 18. PMID: 30679898; PMCID: PMC6323136.
Dewar, Gwen Ph.D.”Authoritarian parenting outcomes: What happens to the kids?” Parenting Science
Gottman, Juli. Emotion Coaching: The Heart of Parenting, Gottman Institute, Online Course. 2020.
Lunkenheimer E, Ram N, Skowron EA, Yin P. “Harsh parenting, child behavior problems, and the dynamic coupling of parents' and children's positive behaviors.” J Fam Psychol. 2017 Sep;31(6):689-698. doi: 10.1037/fam0000310. Epub 2017 Mar 23. PMID: 28333490; PMCID: PMC5608615.
Bernstein, Jeffrey. “3 Reasons Parents Let Adult Children Disrespect Them.” Psychology Today, June 26, 2024.
Erlandson, Sven. There’s a Hole in My Love Cup. 2018. ISBN: 978-1-62550-538-5
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