The bond between a mother and adult child is more likely to fray over clashes in personal values than the child’s violations of societal norms, such as trouble with the law or substance abuse issues, a new study suggests.
The study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, sought the causes of estrangement between mothers and adult children. Because the mother-child relationship is often the strongest in a family, the researchers thought it would take a serious offense by the child — perhaps a crime, or chronic drug or alcohol abuse — to cause a rupture.
Yet after interviewing 566 mothers of adult children, including 64 who were estranged from at least one child, they found that these sorts of offenses and other violations of societal norms were not linked to estrangement. (To note, no adult child in the study had been convicted of a serious violent crime, such as rape or murder.) A significantly stronger predictor was differences in values or beliefs.
“Divorce, choice of spouse, or work ethic — things that might not be seen as a big deal outside of the family, but are very important to mothers — can put a strain on the mother-child relationship,” said Megan Gilligan, lead author and an assistant professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State University. “[Mothers] can become so upset that they pull away, physically and emotionally.”
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More than 1 in 10 families in Gilligan’s study included a mother who was estranged from at least one adult child. Estrangement was defined as having no contact for at least a year, or as having very little contact and an emotionally distant relationship.
Past research has shown that shared values are an important predictor of closeness between mothers and adult children. It has also shown that adult children’s deviant behavior can have harmful psychological consequences for parents, such as guilt, shame, and even social sanctions from others who see parents as responsible. Because of this, Gilligan and her colleagues expected mothers might pull away from children who had had run-ins with the law or problems with drinking or drugs, in order to minimize the negative consequences.
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Yet interviews with mothers estranged from their children suggested they saw differences in values as more personal and hurtful. One mother, a devout Catholic, described growing distant from a son after he divorced and remarried and said it was “painful” to be judgmental, but that she was compelled by her religion and morals. She remained closer to a younger son and daughter who both had been arrested for drunk driving and had a history of substance abuse, and called her younger son her “success story” because he was married.
The researchers found other factors linked to risk of estrangement. Last-born children and those who lived closer to their mothers were less likely to be estranged. Mothers who were married were less likely to have an estranged child. Fathers may serve as a “buffering” presence in some cases, the authors write.
“It may be the fathers pulling children back in, and saying things like ‘yes, we are going to invite him for Thanksgiving,’ ” Gilligan says.
Ami Albernaz can be reached at ami.albernaz@gmail.com.