<!-- bryant-content-generator:start --> # One of the loudest personal-life wars of September... > One of the loudest personal-life wars of September 2026 is the estrangement war, adult children cutting off parents and grandparents, and it has finally produced its counterattack. Psychology Today ran a piece on the third of the month explaining why parents claim to be blindsided; ten days later the Deseret News announced that the backlash to the no-contact movement had begun, citing a New York Times op-ed titled "Cutting Your Parents Off Isn't the Answer," a Free Press confession titled "I Went No Contact with My Parents. I Regret It," a new book calling estrangement a seductive ideology, and therapists warning that the cutoff damages the one who cuts. Interviews with sixty-eight estranged adults describe the dispute as loyalty, duty and forgiveness on one side against autonomy, accountability and respect on the other, and Reddit is full of both, the young defending the exit and the old asking whether their children now leave over ordinary disagreement. Both sides believe they are the injured party, and both sides are correct, because the thing that happened injures everyone it touches and always has. {{When both sides of a family war insist they are the victim, look for the expulsion, because expulsion is the one act that wounds the expeller and the expelled at the same time.}} {{Estrangement is not a new pathology of a therapized generation. It is the oldest thing a troop does, wearing new paperwork.}} **Source:** [[books/Chimping Out|Chimping Out]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “One of the loudest personal-life wars of September 2026 is the estrangement war, adult children cutting off parents and grandparents, and it has finally produced its counterattack. Psychology Today ran a piece on the third of the month explaining why parents claim to be blindsided; ten days later the Deseret News announced that the backlash to the no-contact movement had begun, citing a New York Times op-ed titled "Cutting Your Parents Off Isn't the Answer," a Free Press confession titled "I Went No Contact with My Parents. I Regret It," a new book calling estrangement a seductive ideology, and therapists warning that the cutoff damages the one who cuts. Interviews with sixty-eight estranged adults describe the dispute as loyalty, duty and forgiveness on one side against autonomy, accountability and respect on the other, and Reddit is full of both, the young defending the exit and the old asking whether their children now leave over ordinary disagreement. Both sides believe they are the injured party, and both sides are correct, because the thing that happened injures everyone it touches and always has. When both sides of a family war insist they are the victim, look for the expulsion, because expulsion is the one act that wounds the expeller and the expelled at the same time. Estrangement is not a new pathology of a therapized generation. It is the oldest thing a troop does, wearing new paperwork.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/passages/passages-loudest-personal-life-wearing-new-paperwork ``` <!-- bryant-content-generator:end -->