How common are cutoffs nowadays? In a 2025 YouGov poll of 4,395 U.S. adults, a whopping 38 percent were currently estranged from at least one family member. Sibling estrangement is the most common, with a prevalence of 24 percent, but 16 percent indicated a parent, 10 percent a child, 9 percent a grandparent, and 6 percent a grandchild (YouGov, 2025). Cornell’s national survey found 27 percent of US adults had cut off contact with a relative, but estrangement from fathers is four times more common than from mothers—26 percent versus 6 percent in a nationally representative data set (Pillemer 2020). This striking statistic might reflect other dynamics not discussed here, such as parental alienation.
Why Estrangement Happens
The reasons most frequently cited for estrangement (YouGov, 2025) are manipulative behavior, betrayal, lies, physical/emotional abuse, and conflicting beliefs, values, and expectations. What sorts of beliefs, values, and expectations? Mismatches may center on differing notions of what duty, loyalty, growth, and emotional safety look like across generations within families. In a specific example, Reczek and colleagues (2023) found that smartphones can create “expectations of constant contact and connection within families” where family members find themselves “fielding regular requests for connection through texts, phone calls, and social media.” This can be experienced as stressful and poses an interesting challenge when it comes to establishing mutually agreed-upon boundaries.
Another Source of Conflict
Conflict can ensue “when one member insists that biological or origin ties and hierarchies reinforce the family unit, and another insists that behavior does” (Recsek and colleagues, 2023). Often the older generation points to age and hierarchy and insists, “We do things my way because that’s what’s always been done.” Alternatively, younger generations seek to “redo” family ties and relations on the basis of being people first, and sons and daughters second.
Impacts of Estrangement
Research by Hank (2024) found that family estrangement is associated with lower life satisfaction, increased symptoms of depression, and grief over a loss of connection. Over time, members can experience regret for the years lost.
Reasons for Hope
Research indicates that 81 percent of adult children eventually reconcile with estranged mothers and 69 percent with estranged fathers (Reczek and colleagues, 2023). How can this happen? The trend across the vast majority of studies is that estrangement is typically temporary, not permanent. But a willingness to change and to find common ground is crucial to reconciliation. Patience and a repeatedly demonstrated capacity to listen and validate family members’ experiences, perceptions, wants, and needs are also critical.
Therapeutic Suggestions
Estranged members often feel confused, hurt, and angry, and may employ words from the helping professions as a sticky diagnostic label or accusation. “Toxic,” “narcissistic,” and “gaslighting” are prevalent terms that evoke a kind of moralization that makes compromise difficult.
“I” statements rather than “you” statements are another good idea in communication, as well as trying not to use absolutes such as “always” and “never.” When these terms are utilized, one recommendation is to pause before reacting with an immediate denial, dismissal, or minimization. People want to feel heard and emotionally validated.
Instead, family members can ask a question or seek further elaboration to find out what specific actions or behaviors felt toxic or abusive, and what a family member would want to see now for it to feel safer and to open space for a possible reconciliation. If an escalation can be avoided, both parties can attempt to focus on underlying conflicts around beliefs, values, and expectations and begin to create common ground in order to move forward.
