Why more Americans are going ‘no contact’ with their parents
Dec 6, 2025, 5:00 AM
The decision to go “no contact” with a family member, particularly parents, is gaining traction across social media.
“No contact” is when a person decides to cut off ties with their family.
A Cornell University study reveals that one-third of Americans are actively estranged from a family member.
The episode on Oprah Winfrey’s podcast regarding this topic garnered more than 4 million views in just 10 days. Additionally, there are two billion hashtags for “toxic family” and millions of videos of adult children saying they have gone “no contact” with their parents.
Dr. Joshua Coleman is a psychologist and best-selling author of “Rules of Estrangement.”
“The old days of ‘Honor thy mother and thy father, respect thy elders, families forever,’ have given way to this much more of an emphasis on personal happiness, personal growth, my identity, my political beliefs, my mental health, so much so that, today, protecting my mental health is the single most common thing that I see,” Coleman said.
Nedra Glover Tawwab is a licensed therapist and relationship expert known as the “Boundary Queen” on social media.
“It’s our work to help our clients determine, ‘Is the relationship just toxic, or is it annoying?’ Are these some behaviors we can live with people? Is it possible for us to have less contact instead of no contact?”
A study done in 2016 showed that ideas of what constitutes harm, neglect, trauma, and abuse have expanded.
“So generations are talking past each other,” Tawwab said. “I mean, it’s kind of incumbent on us as parents to really learn how to speak the language of our adult children if we want to have a relationship with them.”
A mother named Christy posted this on social media.
“Your children are not estranging from you to hurt you. They’re doing it to protect themselves,” Christy wrote. “I call BS. What are they protecting themselves from? Us loving parents who’ve always supported them?”
Christy said she has had “no contact” with her 25-year-old daughter for 3.5 years. According to Christy, the reason is because her daughter didn’t get her way.
“I have thought to myself, did I teach her how to communicate? You know, because a lot of things in my marriage were shoved under the rug, not on my end, but it takes two people to talk, and if there’s no communication. So I’ve thought, did we teach her that?” Christy wrote. “But I can’t make her talk to me like she has to be wanting to come to me and say, Let’s sit down. Let’s go to therapy. Let’s talk about this.”
Experts said we have to learn to deal with the conflict in our families, whether it’s the parent or the child.
“If you are disconnected in a relationship, you have to look inward, and you have to own your part of it and not just assume that this other person is wrong,” Coleman stated. “It’s two people. Perhaps we both did something.”
Some experts believe self-reflection is the key to any relationship getting better.
