The Crucifixion of the Modern Parent

How litigation, socioeconomics, trauma, and other factors stand in the way of building of strong healthy families, and what you can do about it - STRT Nov 2025

“Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.”

~ Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Dinner for the Lions

Photo by Leon Pauleikhoff on Unsplash

When I was in school, English exams were split into three segments: Compositions, Comprehension, and Oral.

English Comprehension was easily the hardest of the three, given that we had to read essays rich in subtext and interpret the motifs to understand the story better. The exam questions were never as simple as recounting the events in the story—we had to identify and infer the layered meanings that the author had carefully scaffolded into the story. And we only had an hour to answer all the questions.

One of the stories that has stuck with me is “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury. It is a short science fiction story about a wealthy couple who have purchased an expensive Smart Home, equipped with technology capable of performing their household chores, preparing food, and featuring a nursery that recreates interactive environments to create a lifelike experience on command.

Their children were raised in this automated environment, with the nursery becoming their sanctuary. The room used advanced technology to render vivid, lifelike simulations based on their thoughts. At first, it served as a playground for their imagination. But slowly, the nursery stopped reflecting their childlike wonder and began projecting their darker fantasies.

One day, the parents enter the nursery to see the African veldt, where vultures circled and lions ate their prey. At first, they assume it is a phase. Unfortunately, they never put the clues together that this environment was a reflection of their children’s true thoughts of them. In the end, the children lock the parents in the nursery, where the rendered lions are very much real.

By then, it is too late. The parents realize that the African veldt was a visual simulation of them being hunted and killed by lions…only this time, their fantasy had been manifested into reality. They could not manually override the nursery to shut it down, and the children relished in the dying screams of their parents.

I used to think a lot about this story because the idea of children hating their parents so much that they would resort to violent murder never sat well with me. I read this story for the first time when I was an alienated child, and I don’t think I would have wished that on my alienated mother.

As I grew older, I learned to understand the subtext of the story. On the surface, The Veldt reads as a warning about over-reliance on technology, but at its heart, it is also about emotional displacement—the slow transfer of attachment from parent to proxy. The parents in the story outsource nurturing to the machine, and in doing so, surrender the authority and intimacy that make parenting real. Their comfort and guilt drive them toward permissiveness; rather than guide their children through frustration or boundaries, they allow the nursery to pacify every feeling.

Alienation is not that much different. An alienated child projects their anger onto the parent not only because of manipulation from an external force but because the emotional scaffolding between them has already weakened. When the targeted parent finally tries to intervene—often with the conviction that they are “doing what’s best”—it’s met with resistance that feels wildly disproportionate. Each attempt to repair the bond seems only to confirm the child’s rejection. You begin to wonder when, exactly, you lost your place as a parent, and how something so natural became so adversarial.

In that sense, Bradbury’s story captures a psychological truth more than a technological one…alienation doesn’t erupt overnight. It unfolds gradually, in the quiet collisions between stress, exhaustion, and good intentions. Parents don’t set out intentionally to create distance. They adapt to circumstances that often leave them with impossible choices, where they must choose between working longer hours, relying on screens to calm their child, or trading presence for stability. Over time, these small concessions accumulate, and the emotional thread between parent and child frays. By the time you notice how far things have drifted, the veldt is already alive around you.

The Overwhelming Systemic Challenges for Modern Parents

No matter where you are in the world or the circumstances of your life, everyone has problems. We are all striving to earn enough money to live a meaningful life, support our loved ones, and find purpose in the process.

No one gets the same starting point, which can undoubtedly be vexing for those who are born in unlucky circumstances. Some inherit wealth, stability, and safety nets. Others begin life already in deficit—of time, energy, or opportunity—and spend decades trying to catch up. But regardless of where we start, most parents end up fighting the same two battles: one against the external world that demands more than they can give, and another within themselves as they try to stay emotionally whole while doing it.

These battles are exacerbated by alienation. Having your kids taken away depletes you of your sense of purpose and willpower. However, you don’t get many options. Parents are forced to juggle the complexity of being a modern adult while navigating the uncertainty brought by alienation.

While the first part of the article does not speak about alienation directly, it speaks to the challenges modern parents face every day. Knowing these challenges places you at a fork in the road. You either fold or play your hand with the intention to win, no matter how bad your cards are.

My goal is to empower you to do the latter.

External Challenges of Modern Parenting

The external challenges of parenting today are less about personal failings and more about the systems parents are forced to survive within. The modern world has created an environment where it is nearly impossible to raise children without feeling perpetually behind, guilty, or afraid. Every external structure—economic, social, educational, and cultural—demands more from parents while giving less in return. As a result, both the parents and children suffer.

Here are the challenges I see modern parents facing today:

1. Economic Precarity and the Rising Cost of Living

2. The Erosion of Community and Support Systems

3. Institutional Substitution of Parental Roles

4. The Pendulum Swing to Hyper-Protection of Kids

5. Gendered Double Binds in the Workplace

6. Information Overload, Moral Confusion, and Digital Media

7. The Commodification of Childhood

8. Breakdown of Trust between the Sexes

9. The Intellectualization of Trauma Psychology

10. Family Court, CPS, and Legal Challenges

Let’s go through each of them in detail.

Economic Precarity and the Rising Cost of Living

The modern economy is built on dual incomes. A single-earner household, once the norm, has become nearly impossible to sustain unless one partner holds a top-tier job. In 2024, the median household income for first-time home buyers reached $97,000, yet that figure still falls short against record housing costs and high interest rates—mortgage rates averaged 7.02 percent, peaking at 7.79 percent during the year.¹

Housing prices continue to climb, with an average price point of new constructions at $512,200², excluding the costs to maintain a home. Zillow estimates that homeowners have about $14,000/year of hidden home maintenance costs (higher in metro areas), and these prices rise with inflation.³

Here are some frequent repair costs:

• Roof: $6K–$13K replacement | every 20–30 yrs

• HVAC: $70–$200 annual tune-ups | replace every 15–20 yrs

• Plumbing: $150–$500 minor repairs | major $1K–$5K as needed

• Water Heater: $800–$1.8K replace | every 8–12 yrs

• Electrical: $300–$1K repairs | rewire $5K–$15K every 30–50 yrs

• Lawn & Landscaping: $500–$2K per yr | major projects 5–10 yrs

• Appliances: $100–$400 repairs | replace every 10–15 yrs

Statista: Average sales price of new homes sold in the United States from 1965 to 2024

If you run the numbers, a 97K annual income with a first-time homebuyer loan at 2% down payment can qualify you for a 30-year mortgage loan with 7% interest, ranging approximately between 235K-290K, depending on your credit health, location, and other financial markers. The estimated minimum mortgage payment comes out to roughly $2100/month. 512K-290K is $220,000 short, which means you won’t be buying your newly constructed dream house anytime soon. This means you will have to buy a smaller home, change locations, or buy an older home (which is likely to need more immediate repairs). Sure, these numbers will change as the Fed lowers the national interest rate, but this is just a ballpark figure.

But housing is only one piece of the squeeze. Childcare costs now rival a second mortgage. According to the US Dept of Labor, 8.9% - 16.0% of the median household income is spent on full-day care for just one child, with annual prices ranging from $6,552 to $15,600 in 2022.⁴ The average costs decrease once the child enters school.

Groceries have risen sharply since 2020. Just the other day, I noticed that a box of orange juice had been reduced from 64 oz to 59 oz, yet it still carried the same high price. Healthcare premiums continue to outpace wage growth. Each necessity drains time and income, leaving parents with less margin for recovery or rest. Survival in the current economy requires both parents to work full-time, yet the very act of working leaves them with little energy to parent the children they’re working to sustain.

The pressure is uneven. In high-cost metro areas, homeownership costs are even higher per square foot, while renters face rental rates that are rising faster than their wages. Families without generational wealth or family support often fall into a cycle of debt dependency, where they work to pay interest rather than build stability or their retirement.

If the individual has incurred exorbitant student debt, their monthly payments can easily exceed what they can afford. In that case, most of their payment may only cover the interest, with little or nothing going toward the principal, making real progress on the loan nearly impossible, especially if they are unable to find a high-paying job in their field after graduation. Typically, you still need to climb the corporate ladder if you want to get a high-paying job. Unless you are graduating from an Ivy League University, you are competing with potentially hundreds of applicants.

Beyond money, time itself has become a scarce resource. Commutes, long work hours, and the mental load of constant multitasking leave many parents living in a perpetual state of triage.

The Erosion of Community and Support Systems

Third spaces—parks, libraries, cafés, and churches—where people once built relationships outside home and work have quietly vanished. Individualism has replaced community, and families find themselves raising children in social isolation. The old village has collapsed; family support now depends on whether grandparents are emotionally mature, geographically close, and healthy enough to help. For those outside these circumstances, there is no safety net.

Even when extended family exists, help is not guaranteed. Many grandparents are still working into their seventies to offset retirement insecurity. Emotional immaturity, ideological rifts, or sheer burnout can make them unreliable caregivers.

The absence of shared community compounds every other pressure. Without someone to watch the kids, errands pile up. Without trusted friends nearby, emotional breakdowns happen alone. Without local role models, children’s social lives are outsourced to screens.

Institutional Substitution of Parental Roles

Teachers, daycare staff, and coaches have become stand-ins for parental presence. This is an adaptation to the current economic constraints surrounding parents today. Most parents return from work exhausted, juggling chores, finances, and logistics, leaving little energy for connection. So where do the kids go? Educational institutions—schools, daycare centers, aftercare programs—that were never designed to carry the emotional, moral, or developmental weight of a family.

The cracks are showing. Many children now arrive at school with limited emotional regulation and underdeveloped coping skills. Teachers report that basic classroom norms—listening, focus, patience—have eroded, especially after COVID-19.⁵ Attempts to discipline or set boundaries are often met with aggression from parents, not support. In trying to defend their child, parents unintentionally undermine the very structure that helps the child grow.

At the same time, many children are emotionally raising each other online. According to a Morning Consult study of 1,000 Gen Z respondents, 57% of kids now say they want to become influencers,⁶ signaling a generational shift from vocational aspiration to performative identity. The screen has become both teacher and mirror—one that rewards attention instead of reflection.

Academically, the data are equally sobering. The 2024 State of the American Student report found that the average student has recovered less than half of pandemic learning losses. Literacy and math scores remain below pre-pandemic levels. Only about one-third of students have regained prior proficiency in math, and a quarter in reading. Younger children, especially those in elementary grades, are falling further behind in foundational skills, with researchers warning that many have “missed a critical window” for cognitive development.

These academic setbacks intertwine with deeper social and emotional deficits. Classrooms have become triage centers for stress and attention disorders, while teachers—80% of whom report feeling overwhelmed—struggle to manage behavioral outbursts and disengagement. Chronic absenteeism has nearly doubled since 2020, and a generation of children has learned that showing up—physically or emotionally—is optional.⁷

The Pendulum Swing to Hyper-Protection of Kids

In previous generations, children roamed freely—biking across town, exploring woods, and learning resilience through independence. Today, that same freedom could result in a parent’s arrest for willful negligence.

Take the story of Lenore Skenazy as an example.

When Lenore let her 9-year-old son ride the New York subway alone, she was branded “America’s Worst Mom.”⁸ It didn’t matter that her son had the maturity to handle himself in the real world, the mere possibility of danger was enough to bring about public outrage. Fear of litigation and public shaming has turned childhood exploration into a legal hazard, forcing parents to raise children in a climate of suspicion rather than trust. Parenting has become defensive instead of developmental.

This pendulum swing toward hyper-protection is rooted in collective trauma and amplified by the media. Stories of child predators, abduction, and abuse dominate headlines and online discourse, conditioning parents to see danger everywhere. The result is a culture where trust is treated as recklessness. Parents who deviate from the norm risk being reported to Child Protective Services or ostracized by their community.

Yet balance still matters. The goal is not to abandon caution, but to remember that freedom is an integral part of development. Without small doses of risk, children never learn competence, and parents never learn to trust.

When I was a child, some of my favorite memories were of sleepovers at friends’ houses. Those nights gave me something I rarely had at home—a sense of ease. Away from the tension of alienation, I could watch how other families lived, how they laughed together, how they disagreed and made up. I loved sleepovers because, for a few hours, I could just be myself. Today, many parents avoid them altogether, fearing the possibility of child sexual abuse.

These fears also extend to sports and other extracurricular activities. Cases like disgraced Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s conviction of 45 counts of child sexual abuse or Larry Nassar, who is alleged to have sexually assaulted hundreds of gymnasts over the course of two decades, are paralyzing to parents.

How do you adequately protect your child from these kinds of people? What do you do as a parent when you look up the sex offender registry in your area and see far too many red dots?

For this reason, government and legal institutions have upped the ante in an attempt to stop these abuses from happening, but even then, there are no guarantees.

So on one hand, you cannot expose your child to danger to teach them how to be self-sufficient without legal repercussions. And on the other hand, predators lurk about, escaping punishment for far too long.

Gendered Double Binds in the Workplace

Motherhood and fatherhood both exist within frameworks that undermine them, and by extension, the family. Mothers (particularly in the US) are granted at most a mere 90 days of maternity leave—frequently unpaid—while fathers receive little or none, forcing mothers to shoulder the early burden of care. During the first three years of life, when attachment is most critical to a child’s emotional development, this imbalance takes a lasting toll, especially if the mother does not have support networks in place. Attachment theory tells us that secure bonds in infancy (especially with the mother) form the foundation for a child’s emotional regulation, trust, and resilience later in life. When mothers are pressured back to work before that bond fully stabilizes, or when caregiving must be handed to strangers in the name of financial survival, the relationship becomes fragmented, resulting in the child being more likely to develop attachment issues growing up.

For mothers, the economic design leaves few real choices. Given the cost of living, many mothers return to work out of necessity rather than desire. Those who stay home often face career penalties that can take decades to recover from, especially after divorce or widowhood. Either path carries loss—the loss of time with their children, or the loss of financial independence. Pick your poison.

Fathers, meanwhile, face a different kind of crucifixion. The modern economy is built for dual incomes, but still expects men to be the primary providers. A father who wants to be more present must often do so at the expense of his career trajectory or family finances. In practice, this means most fathers are locked into the provider role, their worth measured by income rather than presence at home. They are told to “support the family,” yet the system ensures that this very act keeps them absent from it.

As a father myself, I find it troubling that I am always working when I would rather spend more time with my family. However, I was a late bloomer in my career due to the lagging start caused by alienation, so I don’t have much choice but to push hard now so that my daughter can have a better life than I did.

Ultimately, both parents are working against a structure that prioritizes productivity over presence. Without community support or workplace flexibility, they are stretched beyond capacity—each doing their best to hold a family together within an economy that quietly works against them.

The financial and emotional issues take a toll on the marriage and their capacity to parent. Left unchecked, they sow the seeds for divorce down the road.

Information Overload, Moral Confusion, and Digital Media

Parents are bombarded with contradictory advice on every subject—from screen time to gender identity to nutrition—each backed by influencers claiming expertise. Social media algorithms amplify whatever generates the most engagement, not what’s true.

For example, according to a 2024 study, 52% of TikTok videos about ADHD were misleading, and 27% contained inaccurate medical advice.⁹

We can assume that the veracity of content on parenting is likely to be similar. Videos may layer subtle sales techniques into “advice,” pushing products that promise to fix behavioral problems or accelerate child development. Parent influencers often present themselves as experts (usually coaches, educators, or therapists), yet their guidance is frequently shaped by personal experience, not evidence.

You might find videos debating the nuances of “gentle parenting,” while others promote strict discipline, and still others claim that too much empathy leads to weakness. Each philosophy gains traction not because it’s effective, but because it’s provocative. Algorithms reward polarization. The more extreme the take, the more engagement it earns.

Caught in this crossfire, parents lose trust in their own instincts. They scroll endlessly for reassurance but find anxiety instead. The result is a generation of parents who feel perpetually inadequate. Despite being armed with information, they are starved of wisdom.

This is not to say there are no good videos or articles out there. Instead, what works for some people is likely to have a different outcome for others. Also, semantics play a massive role in our understanding of the content being shared.

Just think about how many videos or articles you might have seen where it starts with, “[Topic] is not what you think it is… it is actually this….”

That constant redefinition erodes confidence and clarity. The more parents consume, the less confident they feel about what’s right for their own child.

Entertainment media compounds the problem by distorting the emotional baseline of relationships. Sitcoms caricature spouses as incompetent or manipulative. News cycles thrive on outrage. Online fiction and fan communities romanticize cheating or emotional detachment. Pornography reduces intimacy to a biological function, while romance novels idealize betrayal as passionate love. The fantasy of control or the perfect rescue seduces both sexes into thinking that is the missing piece in their relationship, often with dire consequences.

Very few stories model what real love looks like, where it is slow, patient, and imperfect. Films like About Time, When Harry Met Sally, or Before Sunrise stand out precisely because they center on emotional presence rather than sensational conflict. Yet these are the exceptions, not the rule. Conflict sells better than connection, and so connection fades from the cultural imagination.

The deeper tragedy is that these fantasies speak to unmet needs. Both men and women long to feel desirable, loved, respected, and emotionally safe. When these needs aren’t met in reality, they migrate online, forming parasocial attachments to creators, characters, or ideologies that offer validation without needing to be vulnerable themselves.

This serves as a proxy for a real relationship, with the kids growing up watching their parents embody it.

The Commodification of Childhood

Children are profitable, and childhood has become a competitive marketplace.

Education, sports, and extracurriculars are no longer experiences—they are investments meant to yield performance. Parents feel compelled to optimize their children’s lives like portfolios, fearing that any gap might foreclose future opportunity. Even play is packaged and monetized. The result is a subtle but pervasive shift: love becomes management, and childhood becomes a brand.

The shape of this commodification varies across cultures. In the United States, the arms race centers on college admissions, where the average cost of attendance now exceeds $38,270 per year—or more than $150,000 for a single bachelor’s degree.¹⁰ Parents who came of age when a degree guaranteed stability still see college as the safest path to security, even as that promise collapses under student debt and wage stagnation. The child, raised to believe they are “investing in their future,” instead inherits a financial trap.

Social media deepens the pressure. Parents scroll through highlight reels of other families’ achievements and quietly ask themselves, Am I doing enough? The shame of falling behind—financially, socially, or emotionally—cuts deep. Those without the means to compete feel guilt; those who can afford to compete often feel hollow.

This cycle of optimization disguises itself as love, but it teaches children a dangerous lesson that affection must be earned through achievement.

Breakdown of Trust between the Sexes

Modern dating has been reshaped by mutual suspicion. Across genders, people approach each other more out of fear than curiosity. On the male side, red-pill communities and online echo chambers stoke resentment and distrust toward women. On the female side, viral debates like “man versus bear” reflect deep cultural anxiety about male violence.

Each gender absorbs horror stories that confirm its worst anxieties.

For women, the fear is tragically well-founded.

• Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old French woman, was secretly drugged by her husband for nearly a decade and raped by dozens of men he recruited online. When the truth surfaced, over fifty men were convicted, including her husband, who received twenty years in prison. Pelicot waived her anonymity, insisting that the world see what was done to her.

• Elisabeth Fritzl, held captive by her father in Austria for 24 years, was raped repeatedly, forced to bear his children, and hidden beneath the family home while her father deceived neighbors and authorities alike.

• Chahinez Daoud, a young mother in France, was set on fire in the street by her ex-husband after years of domestic abuse and failed protection orders. Her murder became a symbol of institutional neglect toward victims of femicide.

Each story reinforces the collective terror that intimacy can turn fatal—that the person you love might also be the one who destroys you.

For men, the fear takes a different form.

• Gary Dotson was convicted of rape in 1979 and spent six years in prison before DNA evidence exonerated him—the first American ever cleared of a rape conviction by genetic testing.

• Christopher Travis Jones, a devoted father from Bradford County, Florida, was shot and killed at a daycare while picking up his two children. As he buckled them into the car, their mother, Mindy Osteen, approached, hugged the children, and then pulled a gun from her bag. Witnesses say Jones tried to flee, but Osteen fired multiple shots, trapping him inside the daycare entryway. As she reloaded, she shouted, “Please, let the monster die.” Jones, bleeding and terrified, managed only to respond, “I’m not killing nobody.” He later died from his injuries. Six other children and two staff members witnessed the scene.

• Johnny Depp, though not a case of wrongful imprisonment, became the modern symbol of reputational collapse by accusation alone. His defamation trial against Amber Heard unfolded under global scrutiny, showing how public narrative and social media can convict a person long before the law does.

These stories linger in the male psyche as warnings that accusation itself—true or false—can end a man’s life or destroy him socially, professionally, and/or financially.

This breakdown of trust reverberates far beyond the courtroom. The myth that “half of all marriages end in divorce” still dominates cultural imagination, though social scientists have long disproved it. Divorce rates peaked in the 1980s and have declined ever since. About 70 percent of marriages begun in the 1990s reached their fifteenth anniversary, and those formed in the 2000s are even more stable. Yet fear of divorce, betrayal, and exposure persists. Many postpone marriage indefinitely, waiting for emotional or financial safety that rarely arrives.¹¹

Paradoxically, as divorce declines, marriage itself becomes rarer. Economic precarity, ideological division, and algorithmic echo chambers all reinforce isolation. The institution built to bind love now feels like a liability.

Both sexes are haunted by different ghosts—women by violence, men by vilification—and both are reacting to genuine wounds. The sad part is that the majority of men and women in the world are good people who are building walls due to the actions of the minority. Love has become a risk assessment.

When these fears are triggered during marriage, arguments between spouses become more volatile, making it far more challenging for couples to resolve their differences because they are both in a survival state.

The Intellectualization of Trauma Psychology

Mental health awareness has become mainstream. Terms like “gaslighting,” “attachment style,” and “trauma response” now circulate in everyday conversation. This shift has helped reduce stigma, but it’s also created a new distortion known as the intellectualization of trauma. In trying to understand emotional pain, many have begun to analyze it instead of feeling it.

Intellectualization, in psychological terms, is a defense mechanism to manage anxiety or grief by turning emotion into abstraction. A person may be able to explain their trauma in perfect academic language, yet remain untouched by it internally. They can quote therapists, cite research, and diagnose their loved ones, but still struggle to sit with pain, forgive, or reconnect. Knowledge replaces processing. Healing becomes theoretical.

A perfect example of this dynamic appears in the film Good Will Hunting. Will, a brilliant but emotionally guarded young man, hides behind his intellect, dissecting everything he encounters through logic and analysis. In a pivotal scene, his therapist Sean confronts him in a park, saying:

“You’re a tough kid. And if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written… But I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling.”

Sean’s point cuts to the heart of intellectualization. Will knows about life but hasn’t lived it. He uses knowledge to protect himself from emotional pain. Many people do the same with trauma—they can name their attachment style but can’t sit through a hard conversation; they can recognize a trigger but can’t stay present through it.

This dynamic is reinforced by the medicalization of normal emotion, a process that has become immensely profitable. Sadness becomes depression, restlessness becomes ADHD, and everyday stress becomes anxiety disorder. Each new label opens a pipeline for therapy sessions, coaching programs, and pharmaceutical subscriptions. Parents who hesitate to pathologize are judged as neglectful, while those who comply often feel they’ve surrendered their child’s development to professionals. The line between care and commerce blurs.

Over time, families internalize the belief that discomfort is something to eradicate rather than understand. Emotional resilience erodes. A bad week is cause for panic, and imperfection becomes pathology.

Online culture amplifies this confusion. Mental health content—often shared by unqualified “keyboard therapists”—turns psychological nuance into moral certainty. Phrases like cut off toxic people or protect your peace become mantras of self-righteous detachment. Ignorance is treated as malice. Children accuse parents of toxicity; parents retreat into guilt or defensiveness, leading to the rise of estrangement.

The irony is painful. The more fluent we become in trauma language, the easier it is to avoid vulnerability. True healing demands something much more complex than knowledge—it requires presence. Until we stop trying to think our way out of pain, we’ll remain trapped inside it.

Since mental health information is widespread, there is an underlying belief that it is common knowledge, leading to a two-part effect.

1. It raises the expectations of the parents' ability to recognize these traits within themselves.

2. It raises our expectations of ourselves beyond what we are currently capable of, leading to an innate belief of unworthiness due to a moving goalpost.

Today, the concept of being a parent has even been called a selfish endeavor, where people would argue that the child “never asked to be brought into the world.”

Take a moment to read that again… as if the gift of life was such a burden or curse thrust upon them. Knowledge without emotional resilience is a slippery slope to nihilism. Many kids who have intellectualized their trauma possess an existential crisis and blame their parents for being inadequate as a means to project their own internal inadequacies. It has contributed to the proliferation of estrangement, bringing about a chicken-or-the-egg situation.

Did the parent fail to instill emotional resilience in the child, or did the child attach themselves to an identity of victimhood that made their growth impossible?

The truth is rarely clean. Some parents made mistakes they never knew how to repair, while others raised children in a culture that rewarded fragility over endurance.

Estrangement becomes the modern excommunication—a way to “cancel” one’s family under the banner of self-preservation. Yet beneath the surface, many estranged children still crave the very relationship they reject, just as many parents ache to reconnect but fear making things worse.

Yet beneath the surface, another darker impulse is emerging, which I call the Fight Club mentality.

It’s the quiet satisfaction people take in watching others fall apart, a modern form of Schadenfreude disguised as justice.

We see it everywhere in the comments sections, cheering someone’s downfall, in the viral videos of public confrontations, in the stories of “toxic parents” or “narcissistic exes” that rack up millions of views. Every collapse becomes content. Every human flaw becomes a lesson for someone else’s moral branding. And if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of that collective pleasure — the subtle delight others take in your suffering — you know how isolating it is.

This Fight Club impulse is about emotional spectacle. It thrives in a culture that has intellectualized pain but forgotten empathy. People feel powerless in their own lives, so they reclaim control by watching someone else lose theirs. They tell themselves it’s accountability, but often it’s vengeance.

The cruel irony is that both sides participate in it — they celebrate when those they dislike fall, and others celebrate when they do. The cycle feeds itself, numbing them further. They stop relating to one another as people and start relating as symbols.

That’s the endpoint of intellectualized trauma. The cycle only breaks when someone stops intellectualizing and starts feeling. That is when awareness turns into responsibility. Healing does not begin in the mind but in the body.

Family Court, CPS, and Legal Challenges

Few forces strain parents more than family court, child protective services, and the legal system. Divorce and custody disputes dissolve marriages and fracture financial stability, emotional safety, and trust in institutions designed to protect families.

In the United States, the average cost of divorce ranges between $10,000 and $15,000, depending on the complexity of the case and the willingness of both parties to cooperate. Attorney fees alone average $150–$400 per hour, with experienced attorneys charging even higher.¹² These numbers rise rapidly in contested divorces, where parents cannot agree on custody or property division. It is not uncommon for alienated parents—especially those caught in prolonged litigation—to spend hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars over the course of several years.

Each filing, mediation, and court appearance adds not only financial weight but emotional exhaustion. Beyond attorney and court fees, parents must often pay for psychological evaluations, mediation sessions, custody investigations, parenting coordinators, supervised visitation, and therapy for themselves or their children. Each requirement—framed as a “child-centered safeguard”—also serves as another reminder that their competence as a parent is under scrutiny.

Family court cases involving alienation are particularly brutal. Many parents find themselves trapped in a paradox: the more they fight for their child, the more the system interprets their persistence as instability or control. False accusations of abuse can trigger CPS investigations that leave parents isolated and stigmatized, even when later cleared. The process itself—lengthy, invasive, and public—often does more harm than the initial claim.

The deeper problem is structural, not personal. Family court was not designed to handle chronic psychological manipulation or the emotional nuances of alienation. Its focus on legal fairness often overlooks relational truth. Judges, bound by limited time and evidence, tend to default toward “shared blame” or “parallel parenting” solutions, which often reward the alienating parent’s tactics of obstruction and hostility.

Meanwhile, the alienated parent is expected to stay calm, compliant, and endlessly patient, all while hemorrhaging money, time, and credibility. One emotional outburst, one poorly phrased email, or one misstep in court can be weaponized to fit the alienator’s narrative of unfitness. The process becomes less about justice and more about endurance.

Divorce and custody litigation are, by their nature, asymmetric battles. Those with greater financial, social, and/or emotional resources win by attrition. For parents without those resources, every billable hour cuts deeper into their capacity to fight for reunification.

The Burden of Atlas

“Those who walk through fire leave sparks of light everywhere they go.”

~ Anonymous

Source: Atlas Carrying the World Possibly by Clodion

Parenting is an incredibly challenging task, even in the best conditions.

Given the pressures described above (economic instability, eroded communities, family court battles, and the emotional violence of alienation), it takes extraordinary courage to keep standing, let alone raise a child prepared to take on the world on their own terms.

I began this article by articulating in extreme detail the challenges facing parents today, as they are real. They go beyond minor inconveniences or petty gripes. Chances are that most of these problems significantly affect you, and it is essential to acknowledge them because that is how you can start planning to address them. Of course, this is before taking into account your alienation from your child.

Alienation and toxic separations can knock any parent off their feet, leaving them wondering whether they still have what it takes to get back up. Between alimony, child support, attorney fees, and the invisible emotional toll, many parents collapse under the sheer weight of survival.

For most parents, every rejection from their alienated child is a knife to the gut, leaving them staring in the mirror, asking themselves, “What’s the point?”

How do you survive in a world where it feels like everything is stacked against you?

Many parents, faced with all these obstacles, lose hope and give up. I cannot tell you how many parents have told me they would die for their child. And I do not say this lightly, many have. Some have taken their life, others have had their life taken from them, and countless more spend decades of their life in an emotional purgatory where they wait to die.

There seems to be this notion that if you martyr yourself, then you have some moral high ground, as if your child would one day realize they were wrong once you are gone…as if suffering publicly would show everyone (including your child) how you were wronged and prove to them what was really going on in the background.

I strongly disagree with this. And it only solidifies the alienator’s hold on your child.

Yes. You are Atlas, carrying the crushing weight of the world with no one to bear that weight for you. That's why I want to say this as loud as I can…

Do not die for your children. Live for them. Live so that you can show them what to do in the face of adversity and impossible odds. Let them see what courage and strength look like so they can find those same values within themselves to end their alienation.

A phoenix endures great pain as it burns itself, but it is reborn in the ashes of its old self and takes on the world again. You too, must be reborn after great strife. That is how you guide your child back to you, regardless of the economic, legal, and social constraints highlighted above.

If you are committed to your reunification, this is what is required. Make no mistake, these are daunting and deceptively simple tasks. However, if you can find the courage and strength to endure the pain of alienation, you can find a way to reunite.

If you’re working multiple jobs, attending every court hearing, documenting everything, going to therapy, and staying consistent with outreach, and you’re still hitting a wall, this next section isn’t for you. You’re already doing the work. Continue doing it and learn from each failure and success so that you can bridge the gap to your child.

But if you find yourself saying, “I can’t do it” or “It’s impossible, my kids will never come back to me…” then you have to ask yourself, are you saying this because it is 100% absolutely true, or is it because it feels unbearable right now?

It is normal to feel overwhelmed, but remember that if you do not believe wholeheartedly in your reunification, then it will be much harder for your child to believe in it.

One way you can frame it is to say to yourself, “One day in the future, my children have reunited with me. I don’t know when that day will be, but every rejection is one step closer to that day. And every day is an act of love where I am preparing for that moment of reunification.”

Talking about mental fortitude in the alienation space is difficult because every parent carries a different history, threshold for pain, and a different set of obstacles. I want to be clear that nothing I’m saying is meant to dismiss your suffering or minimize what you’ve endured.

But I also cannot pretend that avoiding hard truths helps anyone. The longer alienation lasts, the more it harms both you and your child. My intention in everything that follows is to support the parents who are unsure of themselves. I want to help you find enough clarity and confidence to try again, even after being rejected more times than you can count. If you look deep within yourself, you will find that love can help you find the courage and strength to keep moving forward, no matter how hard things get.

Step 1: Avoid the Virtuous Victim Mentality

“Just remember, you can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets.”

~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

After being in the alienation movement for about 12 years, I have noticed several patterns among alienated parents, regardless of their background or story.

The ones who reunite are the ones who never stop trying. They pick themselves up after every rejection and keep their momentum going.

I have also seen parents who quit because nothing seemed to be working. They tell themselves, “Well, my child/children will know where to find me…but their minds are too far gone, so they won’t.”

This is especially common in cases where the child is an adult who self-enforces their alienation. Often, it bleeds through into the grandchildren, who are told that their grandparent is someone to be avoided. One of the most common questions parents have is what they should do in situations of severe alienation where the child completely ignores their messages.

Stopping alienation can feel like you are chasing a runaway train on foot, hoping to jump on, get your child off, and return to some semblance of normal life.

At this point, parents will look back on the history of rejection and throw in the towel. They lose hope, and often those depressive feelings will bleed into every facet of their life.

As a frequent reader of Shortening the Red Thread, you will notice that I strive to maintain a strongly optimistic tone in all my articles. Every article is built on the values of showing your child unconditional love, patience, empathy, and wisdom. Why? Two reasons…

1. Grief and depression left unchecked can be catastrophic for your mental health and well-being.

2. Reuniting requires a lot of emotional energy. Emotions like depression drain you of energy. Emotions like anger burn you out or lead to lashing out.
   
   The only emotion that can continue to fuel you indefinitely through hardship is love.

Yes. You were wronged, misjudged, and your child has been taken from you. The legal system likely has mistreated you, friends may have withdrawn or been unsupportive, and even your own child may lie about you. The economic, legal, and social challenges I mentioned earlier are legitimate barriers to your success as a parent.

If you succumb to the narrative that you are the victim of your story—my ex did this, the court did that, my child won’t see me—that becomes part of your identity. It leads others to pity you while offering you no support in your reunification. Misery loves company, so the only people you will attract are people who will try to one-up you on who had it worse.

The virtuous victim is a mentality in which the victim focuses entirely on sharing their pain rather than changing their situation. They share their story with anyone who will listen for sympathy because, as humans, we naturally feel sorry for those who are hurting and admire them for enduring pain. This is a typical response within human neuroscience. Sadness, as an emotion, is often called a cry for help for a reason. Our brains use it to attract others to support us when we are overwhelmed.

But everyone has a threshold for how far they will try to help you before walking away. People want to help, but they also fear making things worse or saying the wrong thing. There is also a give-and-take dynamic (the law of reciprocity). If someone offers support and does not see tangible change or receive a reciprocal action, they will leave.

As a result, the parent in this situation feels dejected, thinking that no one cares and cannot see their pain. They spend their time trapped in liminal grief—a place between mourning and denial where they are constantly reliving the past, even though it will never change.

Nostalgic yearning follows close behind. The parent is longing for how things “used to be,” before alienation took hold. Together, these patterns lock the parent in the past. When they think about their future, they look back at all their failures. Every rejection and insult combined, and they think to themselves, “This is what my future will look like if I keep trying to reconnect with my child.”

This creates an emotional pendulum, with them oscillating between grief and nostalgia. The parent is reinforcing their brain that these two feelings are important, and it shifts their focus away from the present.

What many parents do not realize is that their alienated child will not care if they tell them about how they are a victim of alienation and abuse. That only comes when they choose to reunite with you. Until then, you will only see apathy in their eyes. If you are not prepared to see apathy in their eyes, you are more likely to be emotionally triggered, which often exacerbates alienation. And the thing is, you shouldn’t be going to your child for emotional validation of your pain anyway. Your child is not responsible for your emotions.

Here’s the truth… what you feed your brain determines what it sees.

Repetition teaches our brains that something is important. It can be used for both positive and negative results.

For example, your alienated child has been fed lies about you over and over until those lies became reality to them. They believe it because that is the only thing they have heard, and they have not had an opportunity to see that it is a lie, because they haven’t been around you enough.

The same principle applies to you. If you feed your mind only stories of defeat, you’ll start to see proof of failure everywhere.

That’s why you must deliberately nourish your mind with truth, even when it feels forced or cliché. Listen to motivational talks. Watch educational content that strengthens your perspective. Journal the things you can do, instead of the ones you’ve lost. Rewire your focus from despair to agency. Write down personal affirmations and read them multiple times throughout the day.

It won’t happen overnight, but after about 90 days of consistently feeding your brain positive and motivational content, you will start to believe it. After 180 days, it will feel like second nature. You might not need it as much, since your brain will default to positive thinking.

After 1 - 2 years, you will have rewired your brain and will notice a dramatic shift in your day-to-day mood, despite all the challenges you face.

I speak about this at length in my article, Escaping the Prison of the Mind.

When you fixate on things outside of your control, you surrender your power to external factors. This is also known as an external locus of control.

The internal locus of control is where you focus on what you can do and what you are responsible for. Taking that ownership gives you far more freedom while relieving you of the emotional pressure of feeling powerless. You cannot undo the past, but you can recondition how you interpret it. Every moment you spend strengthening your mind makes you harder to break.

Remember, the past does not equate to the future. And the only way to change the future is to be in the present moment and do something right now.

Now, let me be crystal clear…no one can stop your child’s alienation but you and your child. Not the law, not your favorite politician, not a salesman, and not even me or any formerly alienated kid who shares their insights.

At best, I am a collection of experiences that can help you contextualize what to do next. Shortening the Red Thread exists to help you reclaim your agency, step into your strength, and rebuild the bond with your child. However, it is up to you to commit to taking action and learning from each rejection.

You are the best person to help your child heal from alienation. Not me, not the experts, and not some book. The question then is, are you going to be that person for your child?

If you are committed to doing so, write it down.

Write it on a piece of paper, “I will do whatever it takes, no matter how difficult, to help my child heal from alienation,” and place it somewhere you read it several times a day until it becomes etched into your brain. Read it so many times that there is not even a shred of doubt left.

Because if you commit to being the best version of yourself, you can empower your child, and in doing so, you have already won half the battle.

Again, I understand why some parents stop fighting. The pain is unbearable. The alienator seems to win every time. Your child’s rejection feels permanent, and walking away would hurt less. And in a purely rational calculation of pain versus likely outcome, quitting might even make sense.

But this isn’t a purely rational situation. This is your child. And the path that hurts less in the short term is the one that will haunt you forever.

Some of you are already committed, which means you can jump to step 2.

Step 2: Do the Inner Work Before the Outer Work

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”

~ James Baldwin

When a parent realizes they are alienated from their child, they are usually left with two choices…Seek out support from other alienated parents via support groups or intellectualize their trauma by reading extensively about cluster B personalities, alienation, and trauma.

While both can help you make small steps to understanding what is happening to you, they do not move the needle when it comes to reconnecting with your child.

That is why I propose a third option.

Focus on building yourself up. It seems counterintuitive, given that every day you wait, your child endures more pain from the alienator. However, you do not know when they will return to you. There may be legal barriers, such as custody agreements, or they may outright refuse to talk to you.

If you do not do the inner work first, you won’t be prepared to do the outer work.

Inner work includes but is not limited to:

• Physical Health
  Your body is the foundation of everything else. Eat well, move daily, and sleep properly. When you neglect your health, your patience shortens, your reasoning gets duller, and exhaustion becomes your default state. You’ll burn out long before your child ever has a chance to return, and when they do, you’ll be too depleted to meet them with strength or calm. If you cannot afford a gym membership, consider doing some calisthenics at home or going for a run. You don’t need to be a bodybuilder, being healthy is more than enough.
  
  The last thing you want is for medical conditions to drain you of your finances and leave you too weak to do anything. While many conditions like cancer and autoimmune diseases may arrive unexpectedly, they are often exacerbated by other health issues.
  
  My mother, unfortunately, has Lupus, and I suspect the stress of her life has contributed to it. Despite the challenges posed by Lupus, she religiously goes to the gym to stay healthy. That act of defiance has helped her immensely in slowing the decline of her body. Many people underestimate the power of good nutrition and consistent exercise.
  

• Financial Stability
  Money is not about greed. It’s about autonomy and freedom. By managing your budget, reducing debt, and building savings and retirement funds, you reclaim the power to make thoughtful decisions rather than react to crises. If you ignore your finances, you live at the mercy of circumstances, and desperation will bleed into your parenting, communication, and relationships.
  
  Financial stability gives you the option to buy gifts, set aside money for your alienated child, and even list them as a benefactor in your estate planning. While I advise caution when using money as a tool to reconnect with your child, having the option is better than not having it at all.
  
  I want to acknowledge that the start of this article posed real economic challenges that are ongoing. Unfortunately, these are forces that restrict our options and are beyond our control. The only thing we can do is play the game and try to find ways to grow financially. Take the time to learn more and build your financial literacy so that you can ensure you have an action plan for yourself.
  
  Here are a couple of books to consider for building financial literacy:

  • I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi

  • The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
    

• Education and Mastery
  Knowledge compounds faster than money. Study psychology, leadership, finance, communication, trauma recovery, and emotional intelligence. Read widely, fiction and nonfiction, and apply what you learn. Without continued learning, you’ll default to outdated strategies, repeating the same cycles that alienation already punished. A stagnant mind cannot lead a family toward healing.
  
  Additionally, education is the fastest way to develop yourself professionally. As you gain expertise, you get paid more, which improves your financial situation.
  
  One of the biggest epiphanies I had when learning about alienation came from personal development and business books. For those who are not marketing savvy, you might be surprised to hear that many of the techniques I teach are based on marketing fundamentals—knowing your target audience, product development, sales, and solving problems for your key customers.
  
  Solutions will come to you from the most unlikely places.
  

• Leadership Skills
  Parenting after alienation is leadership under fire. You must learn to inspire through steadiness, not control. Leadership training sharpens decision-making, resilience, and emotional discipline. Without it, you’ll vacillate between anger and helplessness, setting no example for your child to trust or follow.
  
  A strong leader commands respect, while a weak leader demands respect. The nuance lies in maintaining your composure during high conflict and extinguishing the charged emotions by validating them and identifying the correct solution.

  
  One of the best ways you can build this skill is to start by learning about the three brain states, which you can read about in my article, Seeing through the Eyes of the Alienated Child.

• Communication Skills
  Communication determines connection. Learn to listen without defense, speak with clarity, and time your words wisely. Miscommunication is the most common reason reunification fails because a parent’s intent is lost in tone, context, or timing. Without skillful communication, every conversation risks reopening old wounds rather than repairing them.
  
  Some of the best communication techniques you can learn and practice today are Labels and Mirrors. I speak more about them in my article, How to Talk to Your Alienated Child When They Don’t Want to Talk to You.

• Emotional Regulation
  Alienation thrives on emotional chaos. Learn to soothe your nervous system through therapy, meditation, breathwork, or exercise. If you struggle with self-regulation, every text, rejection, or court update can feel like an attack. You’ll react in ways that confirm the alienator’s narrative and make reconciliation harder with each exchange.

• Empathy and Self-Awareness
  Your child needs emotional safety more than explanations. Reflect deeply on how your words and energy land, even when you mean well. If you lack empathy, your child will feel unseen; if you lack self-awareness, you’ll repeat the same emotional patterns that drove them away. Healing demands humility, not justification.

Personal development is complex. It demands that you maintain complete honesty with yourself and that you stretch and push yourself to be better. Some days, it may feel like you are making no progress at all.

This does not mean you pause outreach to your child; it just means that your well-being comes first. I am sure you have heard it a 1000 times before, but if the oxygen masks drop, you put yours on first before putting them on your child.

Because the magic comes when your alienated child tests you. They will come to provoke you, and you will need to maintain your calm. When they come to you in pain, you will need to know how to lead them to their strength.

That is why you need to start preparing now. Practice communication and leadership skills with your coworkers and those closest to you. Make lifestyle changes to support your physical, emotional, and financial well-being.

It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not get it than to receive an opportunity and not be prepared for it.

It all comes down to what you decide is a priority. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. Take inventory of how you spend your time and determine whether you are spending it well.

The inner work precedes the outer work. Most people try to do the outer work (start a movement, enact an alienation law, become an alienation influencer, etc) because they are actively avoiding the inner work.

Here is the kicker.

Every formerly alienated child I have spoken to has told me that one of the biggest things they looked for when reuniting with their alienated parent was emotional intelligence. They wanted to know whether their parent had the emotional maturity to guide them as they reconciled the truth of their alienation.

You are their lighthouse in a storm. And if you can’t weather the storm, how do you expect to guide your child?

Step 3: Become the Safest Place in Your Child’s World

“Perhaps it takes courage to raise children.”

~ John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Lifeguards undergo a great deal of training to help a person who is drowning. They approach with a sense of calm and they never let the person grab them because there is risk of being overpowered.

When someone is in a survival state, the rational part of their brain shuts down. They cannot process nuance, context, or intention. That’s why the rescue protocol is so structured. The lifeguard has to approach slowly, keep their own breathing steady, give clear and simple instructions, and always introduce a flotation device between them and the swimmer. The buoy is for both the swimmer’s safety and for the lifeguard’s. It gives the panicked person something to hold onto so the rescuer can maintain enough distance, composure, and leverage to guide them toward shore.

There are also countless tragedies where an untrained bystander, seeing someone in distress, swims out heroically only for both people to drown. Their intentions might have been in the right place, but because they underestimated how powerful panic becomes in the water. Fear makes people unpredictable, reactive, and physically volatile.

The same rule applies to alienation.

Alienated kids are in a constant survival state where they will do whatever it takes to protect themselves, including being hostile to you.

Doing the inner work is like alienation lifeguard training. You are preventing yourself from being pushed underwater and teaching yourself how to lead your child to shore.

• Staying healthy is an act of love for your child because it keeps you strong enough to meet them when they return.

• Every dollar you save is an act of love because it prepares you to protect and support them when they need you most.

• Each rejection from your child is progress, even if it feels like nothing is working. There are lessons to be learned, no matter what.

And behind all of this, you need systems, habits, and routines that make you consistent, including but not limited to:

• Scheduling for exercise, sleep, and healthy meals
• Budgeting, creating a spending plan or savings routine
• Journaling or therapy practice for processing emotions
• Using scripts and communication templates for outreach
• Planning for how to respond to silence, anger, or hostility
• Educational routines (books, courses, reflection)

The alienated parent who thrives does not measure success by how often their child responds to them. Every rejection is information. Every ignored message, every cold encounter, angry outburst—it all tells you something about what your child can or cannot yet handle.

So become a scientist. Observe their behaviors. Test to see what works and what doesn’t work. Then adjust your methods accordingly. Learn what resonates and discard what doesn’t. There is no room for mourning an unanswered text or a failed visit. The goal is not perfection, but persistence.

At first, it may seem cruel to try so hard for such a little return. But slowly, you’ll realize that each act of effort—exercising, saving money, reading, meditating, building—remakes you into the kind of person your child will one day recognize as safe.

Final Thoughts

“The POSITIVE THINKER sees the INVISIBLE, feels the INTANGIBLE, and achieves the IMPOSSIBLE.”

~ Winston Churchill, My Early Life, 1874-1904

Winston Churchill would often recite a poem he had memorized (Horatius by Thomas Macaulay) to give himself strength and courage when he was filled with doubt. It is a long poem, so I will share just a snippet of it below.

Then out spake brave Horatius,

The Captain of the gate:‘

To every man upon this earth

Death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers,

And the temples of his Gods,

If reading this article challenged you or frustrated you—I understand. You may be thinking, “Andrew, you don’t know how hard I’ve worked. You don’t know what I’ve survived.”

And you would be right. I don’t know what you have gone through. The thing is, you don’t have to prove yourself to me. I am just a guy on the internet writing about alienation. I have also experienced alienation on both sides, and I beat it twice.

I was once alienated from my mother, and I teach what she did that led to my reunification 12.5 years later.

Afterwards, I was cut off from my brother by the same alienator for 5 years. Everything I share in my articles ultimately helped me break through and reconnect with him. There were nights when I stayed up to 4 am trying to contact him (12-hour time difference). After realizing I couldn’t connect with him, I dedicated years to studying communication techniques, leadership skills, and relationship psychology, seeking more effective ways to initiate conversations. I have failed more times to start a conversation with my formerly alienated brother than I can count.

But in 2019, I was able to start small conversations with him. And by 2021, I was able to talk with him for hours.

I challenge you because it is hard. And I will never lie to you about it getting easier.

And here is the hidden truth: the lesson you need to learn to get a breakthrough in your alienation case may not be the one anyone else is teaching. And that includes me.

That doesn’t mean it is all hopeless, nor does it mean everything I share is useless.

Bruce Lee, one of my personal heroes, would always say, “Research your own experience. Absorb what is useful. Reject what is useless. Add what is essentially your own.”

Sometimes the path forward requires courage to test new approaches. Your situation is unique. The whole recipe for your success is deeper than what anyone can hand you. Sometimes the right move is the opposite of what seems wise. Sometimes love demands that you take the long way home.

The point isn’t to follow someone else’s map.

You must rediscover your capacity to navigate, experiment, fail, recalibrate, and keep moving forward. That is why I focus so much on mindset and personal development.

Because abusive people will try to separate you from your own power. Then, they dangle your child in front of you to hurt you.

Reclaiming that power is the first step to helping your child heal. No one wants to experience alienation, divorce, or abuse. And in a perfect world, I think we would all choose a simple life with our families. Unfortunately, alienation is an arduous challenge thrust upon you, and you have no choice but to face it head-on. The responsibility and burden of an alienated parent is a thankless job until your child heals.

You have to recognize that the only person who can transform your future is you. No one can carry the weight for you. Don’t get wrong, with all the other challenges highlighted in the beginning, it can feel overwhelming. But you have to keep pushing forward so that you can lead your child to shore.

It will start to feel like purpose, and you will find strength within you that you never knew was possible. You can be the parent your child needs.

And when the day comes for them to reunite, they will be able to follow your footsteps to becoming the adult you always knew they could be.

Until next time,

Andrew Folkler

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If this article was helpful, be sure to check out my other articles below.

1. Finding Meaning in Alienation When All Hope is Lost

2. Escaping the Prison of the Mind

3. Finding Love after Alienation Part I

4. Finding Love after Alienation Part II

5. Finding Love after Alienation Part III

What’s coming next?

Many parents have been asking for articles addressing the challenges of advanced alienation, such as reaching out to adult children who are self-enforcing their own alienation, dealing with estrangement, and knowing what to do when the alienation is happening in real-time.

I have about 10 article outlines that I have been working on covering these topics and others. I will admit, some of them are lackluster at the moment and require a great deal of research. My hope is to share insights with you that you cannot find elsewhere, so these articles sometimes need more time to cook in the oven.

Next month, I will be sharing tips on how parents can celebrate the holidays despite their child being actively alienated. I will share more about my plans for 2026 at the end of the December article.

Thank you for your continuous support and for sharing these articles with parents who are struggling with alienation.

Much love to you all.

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