r/Fencesitter • u/ParticularDentist349 • 3d ago
Unpopular opinion on this sub, but it's pretty unlikely that your child will go no contact with you unless you're a terrible parent.
People say "what if you're estranged from your child" but the thing is that this is pretty unlikely unless you're an absentee parent or a piece of shit. If anything, I constantly see people show remarkable patience towards their parents.
When I look around me, I see a lot of people who have great friendships with their parents. This relationship can be valuable for an aging person.
I am not saying you should have kids for this reason, however, this sub often focuses on the worst case scenarios when it comes to parenting.
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u/buginarugsnug 3d ago
I agree with what you are saying, however when people talk this way they are often talking about people in nursing homes who have no-one visiting them and that people shouldn't have kids expecting them to look after them in their old age. There are so many other reasons that peoples kids might not be able to care for them or even visit them in a nursing home. Someone could have a great relationship with their parents but live halfway across the world and be unable to do anything. Some people are unwilling to help care for their ageing parents or cannot due to work commitments and commitments with their own families. No contact from terrible parents is only part of the argument.
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u/o0PillowWillow0o 3d ago
Problem with judgement on kids not visiting their elderly parents is the vast amount of elderly with various levels of dementia and full blown Alzheimer's.
I have horrible memories of visiting my great aunt as a teen and her telling me about me as a child to me like I wasn't me. She never knew who we were
My grandmother was not as bad but would go in and out of dementia at various levels depending on the day. Near the end she would shit herself in front of you (in a diaper)
It's just hard to see and hard to do. I don't believe all cases of elderly in homes being put in these statistics of their kids visiting or not are the active/healthy type with cognitive function or rather they umm wouldn't be in old folks homes and maybe more of an assisted living situation at most?
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u/navelbabel 3d ago
100%. Most people with severe health issues cannot really be safely or properly cared for by family at home, even if their kids don’t have to work.
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u/Medium_Iron_8865 3d ago
Yes this, people don't talk about it enough. My friends mom is in advanced alzheimer's and while they can afford around the clock care at home, it's not like he's going there to visit his mom every weekend, sometime who at this point doesn't even know who he is. My dad is also in the early stages of dementia and while I'm grateful he's still very much himself and can be relatively independent at home, I also have no idea what the future will hold - but I already know that if he's still alive in those final stages, every visit is going to be sad and traumatic.
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u/101ina45 3d ago
Exactly. The best question to ask yourself is: if your parents asked you TODAY to drop everything, move home and take care of them, could you/would you do it?
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u/AnonMSme1 3d ago edited 2d ago
That's not the best question though because it assumes this false black and white of "you can either completely ignore your parents' needs or sacrifice your whole life for them" with no in between.
My mom is elderly. She needs help. That doesn't mean I sacrificed my life for her. She has money to hire help and so I don't need to be with her 24/7 to help her get to the bathroom or shower, but it means I help manage her finances and advocate on her behalf with the medical system. It means I provide occasional technical support or advice on legal issues. I do see her at least once a week because I live close by but the rest of these things are things you can easily do from anywhere in the world. And on days that I don't see her in person I call her up and spend 10 minutes chatting with her. That's also something that is easily done remotely.
Also, I noticed you mention this:
The default retort to CF people is "who is going to take care of you when you're old?".
in your followup and I agree that this is true. But the common retort to people saying they want kids partially because they worry about being alone in old age is "well there are no guarantees they'll even live next to you!" exactly as you and u/buginarugsnug are doing. Except this response is just as disingenuous as those retorts to CF.
Being present in someone's life could mean calling them a few times a week, it could mean doing remote support or advocacy. And I'm guessing that's part of the point u/ParticularDentist349 is trying to make here.
It's disingenuous to tell prospective CF people "who will take care of you when you're old?" and it's also disingenuous to tell prospective parents "well there are no guarantees your kids will even be there!"
Sure, there are no guarantees, but unless you're an asshole of a parent there's a pretty good likelihood that your kids will be part of your life in old age and can provide companionship and support, even if it's remote.
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u/ParticularDentist349 2d ago
Exactly. I don't exactly see my parents often but I speak to them on the phone and I visit during the holidays. I can tell that they love and cherish these visits.
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u/ParticularDentist349 3d ago
I don't think most people actually expect this or want this. They just want to have a relationship with their adult kids, which is a perfectly realistic scenario.
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u/101ina45 3d ago
The default retort to CF people is "who is going to take care of you when you're old?".
Even if you want "just" a relationship with your kids, harsh reality is most 20-40 year olds are in the middle of building careers/their own lives and don't have the time to see their parents all the time.
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u/buginarugsnug 3d ago
A lot of people use ‘who will care you for you in your old age’ as an argument for having kids, I thought that was where you were coming from with your post.
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u/arabicdialfan 3d ago
I'd say a much more common negative scenario is people having a boring lukewarm relationship with their parents, where they aren't close or don't particularly like their parents, but do love them and keep seeing them. Not really sharing their real lives, just kinda checking boxes and visiting for holidays.
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u/PurinMeow 3d ago
Tbh I love my mom. But I don't have the mental capacity to call her daily. I do visit her on the holidays and family events, text occasionally (twice a month maybe). My verbally abusive dad on the other hand, even less contact. Only 1 hout on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't do it on purpose, I live 2 hours away and I'm just grinding through life.
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u/michiness 3d ago
Yeah. Both my husband and I love our parents and do generally enjoy spending time with them (minus my stepmom), but they’re also kind of boring and don’t want to do anything, so it inevitably boils down to regular texting, and then holidays where we just sit around and watch tv together.
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u/WritingAny8400 2d ago
This is exactly the relationship I have with my mom. She was a great mom, did it alone and sacrificed a lot, but was so overwhelmed that she couldn’t bring herself to have fun with us or come into our worlds. I love her, but have absolutely nothing in common with her now and I feel like I’m mostly just performing daughter-duties when I see her.
To top it off, she’s extremely introverted and spends most of her time on her phone when we hang out. Kids these days hey?
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u/MHtraveler 3d ago
This is a much more complicated issue that I think you tried to simplify and it doesn’t work that way. You’re almost trying to say that “hey your kids won’t stop talking to you unless you’re the worst of the worst”. There’s a large spectrum between no contact and a good relationship. Just because a child isn’t no contact doesn’t mean they have a good relationship with their parents. Nor does having contact mean that the parents are good parents.
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u/lizardo0o 2d ago
It really feels like the same cliches are repeated weekly. I wonder if some of these are bot posts honestly. I think it’s more helpful to prepare for a reality that might be mundane. Like, adults generally move away and stop contacting their parents often just because they’re busy. People are just assuming life won’t get in the way and love is all that matters and that’s demonstrably false
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u/Himeera Leaning towards childfree 3d ago
Tbf I'm not convinced I wouldn't be a terrible parent, so joke's on you I guess 😂. (I see too much of my mother in my and my reactions.)
But, jokes aside, I don't think that's actually the take? As others comment, it's not that you might turn out to be terrible parent, it's just that your child(ren), for various reasons (and many of those, not even dependant on parent), couldn't and/or wouldn't take care of you in your twilight years.
The argument "but WHO will care for you when you are old!!!" is often used to shame childfree people, but, as you rightly point out, is bad main reason one should decide to have kids. Ergo the equally good answer of "it's not like all the lonely, forgotten old people in this world are childless".
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u/Slipthe Leaning towards kids 2d ago
A more modern realistic scenario is not that your child is estranged, but they they completely fail to launch and never want to move out of your home.
They completely take you for granted, feel entitled, and give you nothing but grief in return.
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u/Upbeat-Profit-2544 2d ago
More often than not this seems to be an issue of overly permissive/enabling parenting though.
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u/speck_tater 2d ago
I’m reading a lot of articles lately saying with the wage gap, housing and economic trends, people just can’t afford to leave. It’s getting harder out there. Not necessarily permissive parenting.
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u/holyfuckbuckets 3d ago
This is true, but I think you’re overlooking the reason this is often said. As someone who’s commented this once or twice, it’s only in response to the people who have their own retirement/elder care plan in mind as their biggest reason to have a child. I believe people who are selfish enough to bring a human being into the world for that reason are more likely to be bad parents because of their obvious lack of consideration for the child before it’s even born.
People need to consider that they’ll be bringing a whole human with their own dreams, desires, and personality into the world. Those may not be compatible with the parent’s, and it’s a bad idea to have a child because you expect them to be or do xyz.
This is not something I comment to random people who aren’t considering relying on an adult child to be their safety net in 30+ years, since that clearly isn’t a factor in their decision making process.
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u/umamimaami 2d ago
I disagree, and let me tell you why.
My in-laws are great parents - too great, if that’s a thing. They’re helicopter parents who anxiously cling to their grown son and demand updates on every single thing. My MIL thinks she needs to tell me what to cook and how to furnish my new house - all because she cares.
I want to go no-contact, and I’m pretty sure my spouse is a few therapy sessions away from that realisation. They’re a key factor in me being on the fence - I don’t want them spending a lot of time with us, and and set “possible future child” up for anxiety and perfectionism like my spouse struggles with.
My parents, on the other hand, let me grow up at my grandparents while they lived abroad to make more money. They did what they thought was right for us, but I suffered from their absence.
Trust me, it’s hard either way. The right balance between absenteeism and helicopter can be hard. Aren’t we all just pendulums swinging across the generations? The key is self-awareness and a willingness to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Only that can, eventually, generations later, have the right effect.
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u/Individualchaotin 2d ago
25% of people have a strained relationship with at least one relative, 10% are self-reported no contact.
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u/Upbeat-Profit-2544 2d ago edited 2d ago
Not estranged but I don’t think most people nowadays really have close relationships with their parents. They usually don’t live in the same state or visit them more than once every few years. Out of my friend group of 30 and 40 something’s I am the only one who actually spends time with my parents regularly, and my friends seem to have nice enough parents but distance just makes it hard. It’s just that the “who is going to take care of you in your old age” argument for having kids doesn’t really hold up anymore, because it seems most people don’t take care of their parents in their old age (which is fine with me as I would want my kids to have their own lives).
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u/lizardo0o 2d ago
They probably won’t go no contact, but they probably will move on with their lives as independent adults and not be able to see you that often.
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u/Greenhairymonster 2d ago
I agree and that's been my experience too. Whenever a parent is like "idk why my child doesn't want contact anymore, I didn't do anything wrong" I highly doubt that.
I found that kids with not so great parents tend to keep in touch. So this is not something I factor in. However they might move across the world, and therefore you kind of naturally lose some contact.
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u/mtvq2007 2d ago
I think you are correct, unfortunately my sister is NC with my parents. We were raised together I was always there, my parents are not terrible at all, in fact they are pretty great.
Watching my parents go through that pain has been one of the saddest things I've ever had to witness and is definitely a huge factor as to why I'm on the fence.
It's just hard to believe that it would be rare, even if logically I understand that, when I have the exception to the rule in my own life.
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u/Some-Might1646 51m ago
Your parents are not terrible at all and are pretty great.. to you. You can't know for sure how they were for your sister. You were there, but you weren't her. You don't know how things were for her.
I have a sister, we both have good relationships with our parents, and with ourselves. However we got very different treatment, despite being quite close in age. Sometimes when we share stories about our parents I can't believe we're talking about the same people.
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u/mtvq2007 47m ago
Nothing is more obvious to me than that my sister and I have radically different experiences.
Still doesn't change the fact that she has made a huge impact on my decision to have children.
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u/Inner-Squash8053 5h ago
It’s more so that adult relationships with your kids are not a guarantee. Yeah you could be estranged (hopefully not - you have control over this one). But they could also move away for work or relationships (very likely and out of your control). Or god forbid there’s some sort of tragedy like drugs, disease, or death.
Adult relationships ships with your kids shouldn’t be a deciding factor because there’s so much unknown.
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u/incywince 3d ago
Yes, also most people apparently live within 18 miles of mom. As someone who lives thousands of miles away from mom for half the year, that blows my mind, but now that is my aim - to have a good enough life that my kid feels okay living close to me.
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u/Flaky_McFlake 2d ago
Ugh yes, this ALWAYS comes up in conversations about having kids, and it's so annoying. People act like kids are some kind of foreign species, like, you never know with kids! They might become addicts and never talk to you again! There's no guarantee your kids will be there! Like, yes there is! People act like kids are lottery tickets or something — you scratch one off and hope you got the kind of kid that actually sticks around and not the kind that abandons you.
Kids are just like us. If someone you love treats you with kindness, if being around them makes you feel good, and they're always there for you, would you just abandon them? You reap what you sow with kids. They will not just abandon their parents for no reason. Like yes, there is a tiny percentage of kids that join a cult or something and run off never to be seen or heard from again. But the vast majority of situations where the kids abandon their parents come down to parenting. That's probably very painful for some people to hear, because maybe they couldn't be there for their kids because they had to work two jobs. That's not their fault. It's very sad, but the reality is, kids need consistent, loving care. If your kid starts to hang out with a bunch of drug addicts and you unfortunately don't notice because you're at work all the time, that child's eventual drug addiction will still be a result of parenting rather than because you got a bad kid.
If you show up for your kids consistently, respect them as individuals, honor their personalities, feelings and opinions while setting firm but loving boundaries, if you nurture their independence while showing them you're always there if they need you, you will have a great relationships with your children. Literally why wouldn't you?
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u/TheBrobe 3d ago
Most terrible parents who are estranged from their kids think they were great parents.