Arthur C. BrooksThe Art and Science of Happiness

38% of Americans Are Estranged From Family

1 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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In this monologue, Arthur C. Brooks highlights that roughly 38% of American adults are estranged from at least one close family member—parent, child, sibling, grandparent, or grandchild. He examines why adult children typically end communication with aging parents, identifying two primary self‑reported reasons: (1) perceived toxic behavior by the parents and (2) a feeling of being unsupported. Brooks notes that these explanations reflect contemporary therapeutic language that would have been unfamiliar 75 years ago. He then contrasts this with parents’ perspective, stating that when parents are asked why estrangement occurred, the most common answer is “I don’t know,” suggesting that in most cases the break is initiated by the adult children rather than the parents. The discussion underscores a communication gap and asymmetry in perceived responsibility for family estrangement.

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About 38% of American adults are currently, right now, estranged from at least one close family member. And that means either a parent, a child, a sibling, a grandparent, or a grandchild. That's high. So, why does it happen? Turns out that there's two big ones for why adult children stop talking to their aging parents. Reasons number one and two that adult children report not talking to their parents is number one, that their parents have so-called toxic behavior. And number two, that they feel unsupported. That's why they distance themselves. A lot of this is sort of therapy speak. I would hypothesize that if you go back 75 years and you talk about toxic behavior, people wouldn't really know what you're talking about. And then feeling of being unsupported— like, your job is to support me, support me through thick and thin, thick and thin. What does unsupported actually mean? They feel like they're creating an environment where their adult children can be responsible, and their adult children can say, now you're just being unsupportive. And that leads to the number one answer when you ask parents, why do you have estrangement from adult child? The number one answer is, I I don't know. Literally, I don't know the cause is number 1, which suggests, by the way, that in the vast majority of estrangement cases of adult children and their aging parents, it's not the parents who are saying bye-bye. It's the adult kids who are saying bye-bye. The kids are saying you're toxic. And the parents are like, what, what, what did I do? Which might be feigning ignorance, but you decide.