Missing the Children I Never Had
I miss the children I never had. I was never pregnant. I never miscarried. There is no medical chart, no ultrasound photo folded into a drawer. And yet, there are two girls I have known for quite some time—two girls conceived in my mind. I’m not exactly sure when this little mental game started. Maybe […]
How Estranged Parents and Adult Children Can Heal
A recent Cornell study found that 27% of adults are estranged from a family member. Research from Ohio State finds that 26% of fathers are estranged from an adult child—and that fathers are 22% more likely to be estranged from a daughter than a son. Other studies estimate that 11% of mothers have little or no contact with an adult child. And a […]
How Children Are Influenced by Their Neighborhoods
Parents want what’s best for our children—and our current parenting culture offers an endless stream of suggestions for how to set kids up for success. Though most of this advice focuses on individual actions—parenting strategies or weekend enrichment, for example—our children are also hugely influenced by factors outside the home, such as the neighborhoods they […]
7 Reasons Adult Children Stay Connected to Toxic Parents
Parent-child relationships are often portrayed as inherently loving, but this isn’t true for many adult children. Instead, they endure ongoing emotional harm or mistreatment from their parents that undermines their self-worth. If you find yourself in this situation, you might question why you remain in contact with parents who consistently belittle you, manipulate you, ignore […]
Eldest Children Suffer Under Coercive Control Domestic Violence
Co-authored with Julie Nee All children suffer in families where one partner abuses and controls the other (Stark, 2023). In our work, we have seen that first-born child often suffer the most. In coercive control, one person dominates their partner through tactics including intimidation, isolation, and emotional, physical, sexual, and financial abuse (Fontes, 2015). Coercive […]