I was asked for my opinion on advice to adult children in a recent article in the Washington Post (How soulmate parenting can lead to parent-child estrangement). Whilst I stand by the thoughts I gave, the premise of the article really got me thinking.
The piece basically argues that parents today are under this overwhelming pressure to be not just caregivers, but true soulmates to their children. The article suggests that if parents don’t meet this ideal, if they fail to form this intense, unbreakable emotional bond, they risk their children estranging them later in life. The idea is that failing to be their child’s best friend—someone who understands them perfectly and is always emotionally available—might lead to emotional distance or even full-blown estrangement.
While I get where this perspective is coming from, I can’t help but feel like it oversimplifies things. The way the article frames estrangement—like it’s just a natural consequence of not being a “bestie” to your kid—really misses the bigger picture. It clouds the real, serious reasons why children estrange themselves from their parents. I believe that estrangement happens because of ongoing, deep harm: emotional abuse, neglect, manipulation, or even neglect of basic emotional needs over time. It’s not about whether the parent was their best friend or not. That’s not the cause of the break in the relationship—it’s the harm that’s been inflicted that leads to the rupture.
I feel like this kind of framing, this "Soulmate Parenting" ideal, minimizes the real reasons kids estrange. It makes it seem like estrangement is some minor fallout from unmet emotional expectations, like the child didn’t get enough emotional validation or understanding from their parent. But in reality, estrangement is often about much deeper trauma and lasting harm. For many children, the pain of estrangement comes from years of unmet needs—things like feeling unloved, unseen, or mistreated by the very people who were supposed to protect and nurture them. The focus should be on these kinds of hurts, not on whether a parent was their child’s emotional “soulmate.”
By framing estrangement as a result of not being close enough, we risk invalidating the trauma that many children experience before and because of estrangement. So many kids go through real emotional pain because their parents failed them in profound ways—whether through neglect, verbal abuse, or emotional manipulation. These aren’t small things to brush aside with the idea that the parent simply didn’t “connect” with their child. To make estrangement about whether a parent was their best friend or emotional soulmate almost makes it seem trivial, when in reality, estrangement is often a last resort for children who have endured real harm for a long time.
It makes me wonder—how can we start a more meaningful conversation around estrangement? How can we approach it without reducing it to this superficial expectation of emotional closeness? I hope that the focus should shift to understanding that estrangement isn’t just about a lack of closeness, but very often about deep emotional scars. These scars may be years in the making, and often, estrangement is a painful but necessary response to self-preservation. It’s not always about rejecting a parent’s love; sometimes it’s about protecting oneself from a harmful environment.
I think we need to stop looking for excuses around why children really estrange, rather than looking for social media worthy phrases or soundbites that distract from the deeper conversation. Of course, real emotional safety comes from meeting a child’s needs consistently and respectfully—not from trying to be their best friend. And estrangement deserves a more nuanced approach, one that takes into account the harm, the trauma, and the real reasons children sometimes have to cut ties with their parents.
This could open up the door to more understanding, less judgment, and a lot more healing for families who find themselves struggling with estrangement. There has to be space for children to be heard, and their pain to be recognized, without it being diminished by unrealistic expectations of what a parent-child relationship should look like.
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