“Pray That Your Children…”: The “No-Contact” Phenomenon
“… A son debases his father, a daughter rises up against her mother…” -Micah -7:6
The strongest bond that exists in nature is not between atoms, but between parent and child.
It transcend all geographical and temporal boundaries, as well as all species. Doubt that? Step between a grizzly and her cub.
On Bellevue’s psychiatric prison-ward, I encountered serial-killers who would unhesitatingly kill any human (including me) for any reason, or no reason, but remained devoted to their children. Beowulf to War and Peace to The Sopranos to Dune, villains, even hardened, remain ardent about Mama.
Why then the exploding phenomenon of adult-children going “No-Contact” with their parents? Parents know nothing about their children, or grandchildren.
Alternatively, some choose the “Gray-Rock” approach, sharing only essential information, i.e., be aware your grandchild graduated kindergarten, or, celebrated his bar mitzvah (but you weren’t invited), even more torturous.
This is often described as a “Divorce.”The metaphor is inaccurate. Couples who divorce were independent entities before choosing to unite. Newborns had no choice in the union. They aren’t even aware they are separate beings from Mama.
All parents feel “My child is a part of me.” When, tragically, they lose children, they wail: “I lost a part of me!”
When parents and children implode, it is not a divorce, but a literal disintegration, as devastating as an atomic bomb, when atomic bonds disintegrate.
It is even worse than a child dying since, in addition to losing a child, it has been “With prejudice”, I.e., the parent has been rejected by them.
But one example, 2023, a New York attorney suffering from cancer chose Switzerland state-sanctioned suicide because of “a nightmare like no other”, her three daughters’ “No-Contact” with her.
Professionally, and personally, I have, painfully, witnessed innumerable examples.
There is no single cause. In some cases, the reasons are not only understandable but justifiable, e.g., grandfather molesting his granddaughters as he had his daughters. (Why did the daughters allow him access? Because his psychologist assured them he was “A dried up old man”; the rabbi pointed out the Commandment to honor your father.)
Children who rob or betray their parents (e.g., Prince Harry.)
The most common, and tragic, cause however is when either or both sides can’t, or won’t, respect each other .
Parents feel they retain the right, indeed the responsibility, to tell their children how to conduct their lives, particularly how to raise their grandchildren, e.g., “If you don’t send my grandchildren to yeshiva, then…”
Children feel they have the right, indeed the responsibility, to criticize their parents’ choices, e.g., “If you support X, you’re not welcome in our home.”
Both sides feel they can win this contest of wills, parents because it was the previous paradigm and they retain financial superiority, children because they possess the ultimate Trump-card, the grandchildren.
Within this narcissistic crucible, ultimately, there are no winners, only losers.
The most innocent of them are the grandchildren.
Being the child of two Auschwitz-survivors, raised in a community of survivors, to my pals and me, grandparents were like cars. We knew that both existed, but didn’t know anyone possessing either. We coveted the former even more than the latter, perhaps knowing we could eventually acquire the later, but could never receive the former.
When grandchildren are old enough to inquire about their grandparents, they’re told either they are: 1-dead, 2-unable to be contacted, 3-uninterested in any contact, or, 4-bad people.
When they eventually discover the truth, they might resent being deprived of the relationship, but by then, it’s too little, too late.
An Asian fable tells of an agrarian working family. One morning, father tells young son to build a sled. Son inquires why. Father explains that grandfather, living with them, has become too feeble to work, is now a parasite weakening the family. That evening, father will feed him a potent drink. After he sleeps soundly, father will transport him on the sled to a distant mountaintop and leave him there.
Son protests he loves his grandfather. He’s ignored. Father’s decision is final.
That evening, father is surprised to discover son has constructed two sleds. He inquires why
Sun replies: “The first is for you to use. The second, for me to use.”
After the family sleeps, father burns both sleds
There is, of course, one critical advantage of “No-Contact” over physically losing a child. (In too-rare instances,) the decision is reversible..
I recall, growing up, many buddies’ mothers reprimanded them when they misbehaved: “Pray that your children never behave the way you do.”
My mother never said that. Until the end of her life.
She became too diminished to take care of herself, too paranoid to allow us to hire help. After leaving a pot on the stove, almost incinerating the building, we had no choice but to involuntarily place her in an assisted-care facility.
Feeling betrayed, she was incandescent with rage. She would not talk to me on the phone, “Gray-Rocked” me on my weekly-visits.
One week, she uncharacteristically insisted we take a walk. I only realized why when she hailed a cab, quickly entered, ordered the driver to take her “Home!”
He asked the address. No longer remembering, she demanded I give it to him. (It was now long occupied by other tenants.)
When I didn’t, she told him she did not survive Auschwitz to be imprisoned again, calling me “Worse than Hitler!” He glared at me. I brought her back to her room.
As I was leaving, she spat derisively: “Isaac, pray your children never treat you the way you’re treating me!”
I should not have responded. You can’t reason with dementia. I should have ignored her, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Mom, you know what I pray for? I pray I never treat them the way you are treating us.”
She looked at me. All of us, at any and every age, are created in the image of God. I witnessed the divine spark return to her eyes.
She started crying. I started crying. I hugged her. She begged me to remind her “Puchkies” whom she used to be.
I didn’t have to. They remembered. So did I.
That incident did not reverse her dementia. It eventually progressed to the point she could no longer speak. It did however remediate our estrangement. She accepted she needed to be where she was and, that we had placed her there for her own safety.
Carl Sandberg wrote: “A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.”
Justified or not, “No-Contact”, “A nightmare like no other”, betrays God’s opinion.
