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There are a few times each year which serve as poignant reminders that my family isn’t as happy and loving as you might assume. I do not have contact with either of my parents, so Christmas, birthdays, Mother’s Day & Father’s Day are disquietingly uncomfortable. According to the UK charity, Stand Alone, latest research from Ipsos MORI, shows that 1 in 5 families in the UK will be affected by estrangement, and over 5 million people have decided to cut contact with at least one family member.
Log on on any of those ‘special’ days, and you
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are bombarded on FB, Instagram & Twitter by pictures and updates and memes, all celebrating love & familial bonds. For me, it shines a spotlight on that part of my life which nags away at me, like a scab I just can’t stop picking at, never letting it just heal.
There are a myriad reasons why, as adults, we choose to distance ourselves from family members, and among my close friends, I am not alone. Horrors such as childhood abuse & neglect; the realisation that our parents are fallible, imperfect people; and deciding these are people we
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would not necessarily like were they not related.
I haven’t spoken to my father in about 27 years, save for one email exchange after he contacted me via Friends ReUnited (now, there’s a misnomer), in which I told him, rather unreservedly, that his failings as a father meant I wanted nothing more to do with him. My estrangement from my mother is more recent, coming up for 2 years now, and was borne out of my feelings of being repeatedly let down, abandoned and un-loved. I decided that throwing off the mantle of this toxic relationship would free me
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to live without always feeling this ongoing loss.
Seeing my friends post their pictures of their obviously loving families, generations together, does make me feel sad, sorry for myself even, and sorry for my son, who, given our circumstances, is growing up without his maternal grandparents, his father and his paternal family.
It really is just him & I. But, we are a team. A small, loving, close, supportive team. And for Mother’s Day, he made me copious cups of coffee & let me eat the last bar of Galaxy. Beat that!
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Kay Stratton - 6 Mar 16
There are a few times each year which serve as poignant reminders that my family isn’t as happy and loving as you might assume. I do not have contact with either of my parents, so Christmas, birthdays, Mother’s Day & Father’s Day are disquietingly uncomfortable. According to the UK charity, Stand Alone, latest research from Ipsos MORI, shows that 1 in 5 families in the UK will be affected by estrangement, and over 5 million people have decided to cut contact with at least one family member.
Log on on any of those ‘special’ days, and you are bombarded on FB, Instagram & Twitter by pictures and updates and memes, all celebrating love & familial bonds. For me, it shines a spotlight on that part of my life which nags away at me, like a scab I just can’t stop picking at, never letting it just heal.
There are a myriad reasons why, as adults, we choose to distance ourselves from family members, and among my close friends, I am not alone. Horrors such as childhood abuse & neglect; the realisation that our parents are fallible, imperfect people; and deciding these are people we would not necessarily like were they not related.
I haven’t spoken to my father in about 27 years, save for one email exchange after he contacted me via Friends ReUnited (now, there’s a misnomer), in which I told him, rather unreservedly, that his failings as a father meant I wanted nothing more to do with him. My estrangement from my mother is more recent, coming up for 2 years now, and was borne out of my feelings of being repeatedly let down, abandoned and un-loved. I decided that throwing off the mantle of this toxic relationship would free me to live without always feeling this ongoing loss.
Seeing my friends post their pictures of their obviously loving families, generations together, does make me feel sad, sorry for myself even, and sorry for my son, who, given our circumstances, is growing up without his maternal grandparents, his father and his paternal family.
It really is just him & I. But, we are a team. A small, loving, close, supportive team. And for Mother’s Day, he made me copious cups of coffee & let me eat the last bar of Galaxy. Beat that!
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Single mum to disabled son. Writer, blogger, Twitter addict, recovering alcoholic (sober date 28/4/09)
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