50 Parents Who Went No Contact With Their Children Share What Happened

I disowned a family member, not a child though. We were very close, until he ended up being caught in a p**o sting. Then I turned my back and haven’t looked back. I have a sister the age of the girl he was supposed to meet. I can’t associate with s**m like that.

FYI, according to my sister, nothing was ever done to her.

Not my kid, but my sister I raised for several years. I was a senior in HS when my parents had my sister - completely unexpected. They were 58 and 55. I never really got to know her much as I went away to college when she was 5 months old, and was in the Air Force by the time she was 1 1/2. I saw her twice on leave, and got pics, but the way life was working out we never really got time together. Fast forward, our dad dies when she is 2, and my stepmother is raising her. She was a terrible parent, like the kind that saw one of her kids run away at 16 to halfway across the country, another runaway at 15 and get married, and one that is just a loon who spent his life bouncing around whatever hot MLM program was out there as a career. She also convinced my dad to send me to a pray away the gay camp in TN. when I was 15. So when my sister was 11 and begging for help, I took leave and went to her. Surprisingly, my stepmonster was happy to get attorneys to draw up the paperwork for me to become my sisters guardian, and even pay for it.

-- So I'm raising my sister and things are okay until she is about 14. Then I caught her doing these videos online talking dirty trying to get guys to j*rk off. So that was a mess of trying to get those down and suing the people that hired her to do them.-- Ran away for a week, hiding out at a friends house, found her when she was caught shoplifting.-- A B&E charge at 14, trying to steal the phone of a boy she was dating to se if he was talking to other girls. It happened on base and I managed to talk it out of being a bigger thing.-- A second B&E charge with friends breaking into the NCO club to try to steal beer. I was told I had to leave base housing at that point, my secuirty clearance was suspended to make sure she wasn't putting me in a position I could be compromised.-- still 14, arrested with a stolen military ID trying to get into a bar.-- 15 escapes rehab.-- 15 escapes rehab again-16 things seem good and she is taking school seriously.

At 18 she was accepted to RISD, graduated with honors, and had an actual decent paying job with a web company with benefits and everything. Started getting s****d a lot, lost her job. Sold her car to pay bills. Lost her apartment, still hadn't bothered looking for work. Got her trust fund at 24, blew over $400k in two years, nothing to show for it. Had multiple cases against her for d***s. Was restricted to the state, but decided to go follow Phish around anyway and sell molly. Got picked up for hooking and possession out of state, was returned to RI where she was detained and somehow released pending trial yet again. While awaiting trial she was caught holding enough packaged for sale h****n to qualify as a distribution charge. By then, I hadn't heard from her for almost 7 years, and only managed to keep up with her reading the police blotter or from the occasional attorney that she had contact me to verify I would pick up her legal tab - I wouldn't. Against any logic, she was out of prison in under three years. I heard she dimed a bunch of people out to make it happen. She showed up at my house, asking for a place to stay. I said I couldn't have her in my house, but I'd get her a place for the night and then help her locate a place of her own. That night she broke into my house, nearly got shot by me while doing it, and tried to spin some story that she was looking for something she dropped in my house earlier that day, despite never actually entering my house. I told her she had to go, she threatened she would call DCFS and tell them I was abusing my kids if I didn't go with her to an ATM and give her all the money I could withdraw. Told her to GTFO before I exercised the castle defense law and dropped her.

took out a restraining order the next day, and in doing so found she once again left state when she wasn't supposed to have and violated her parole, so back to the clink. Since then she's been dead to me.

Not the disowned child, but my older brother is. He has been a petty crook as long as I could remember, into hard d***s since his pre-teens, and pretty much a full-blown sociopath.

He treated every girl in his life like meat. I remember him as a teenager calling his girlfriend a s**t and because she didn’t want to blow him. When he knocked some chick up years later, he had a daughter, and one of the first things out of his mouth in the hospital after her birth was “she’s gonna grow up to be a w***e like her mom.” Let’s just say that child is better off not having him as a father figure (she’s been adopted since then and is living a happy childhood last time I checked).

He treated my parents like trash. He would be in and out of jail and they would take him in whenever he was out. Then he’d find a job, lose it, and go back to jail. Rinse and repeat. He would get in physical fights with my mom, dad, me, he’d kick our dogs, cats, etc. We’d have to get new drywall to replace the holes he punched through those walls. He’d have freakouts and smash things all around the house. Living with him was a nightmare.

The last straw was him walking out on his kid and her mother, and starting a g**g fight at our house over a d**g deal gone wrong. Things got really violent and I’m pretty sure weapons were involved. He left the house, and on that very same night, he came back because he needed a place to stay. When my dad said no, he started fighting my dad. I stepped in at that point and almost beat the hell out of him (no one f***s with my dad, no one). It ended with my dad having to hold me down to stop me from k**ling him, and my brother walking away down the street yelling obscenities. Haven’t seen him since. This was 6 years ago.

At this point, he’s either in jail or dead. I may have every reason in the world to hate him for everything he’s done, but I don’t. He’s a tortured soul who has let his demons get the absolute best of him, plain and simple. I just hope that he finds some kind of peace, even if it takes death for him to do so.

Bill, if you’re reading this, you’re my brother and I still love you, and I hope you’re okay, wherever you are.

Yes lol my mother has hated me my whole life, I can’t have a relationship with her because of it.

And I don’t love her either because I can’t love a person who despises me.

She should never have had kids - not everybody is made to be a parent and I think that’s okay.

Normalise not forcing everyone to have kids, some just shouldn’t do it, some people are born with no maternal instinct what so ever.

I am not sure if this counts. I didn't disown him, but I went through a dissociative episode after some really intense trauma, and I honestly couldn't feel any attachment and parental love that I had for my son. I tried not to show it, and behave as normally as possible because he was a child at the time and couldn't possibly understand what I was going through. It was pretty disturbing to not be able to feel any sense of bond with him. I eventually got better, but I definitely did not feel what I or most people would call love for him.

Not the mom, just her 15 yo daughter.

Often my mom used to say that I didn't love her. Each day it got worse and worse. The affirmations from her saying that started getting to me, and soon enough, I really did stop loving her.

She's not an alcoholic, but there have been quite a few nights where she came home very intoxicated and said horrible things to my brother and me.

She lies often. I've caught her stealing my money for her gambling a*******n. She wastes 200-300 dollars weekly on lotto tickets. About 80% of the time she's not even paying with her money.

She is so irresponsible that she's been fired from around six jobs in the span of two years.

I get called many horrible names daily by her. One major things she does that bugs me is after her screaming session, she'll try to "make it up to me" and when I don't reciprocate her affection, she blames our horrible relationship on me.

Didn't wanna make this super depressing but I guess that escalated quickly

Edit: Wow, I wasn't expecting this to even get the slightest bit noticed, but thanks guys.

I don't think this is bad enough to call CPS, since I'm actually living with my grandma, grandpa and mom (my brother is in college right now). My grandma is our main source of income and we do have a healthy relationship. No, I don't have a dad to fall back on if you were confused about that as well.

Tl;dr: My mom steals my money, calls me horrible names and is irresponsible.

I'm not a parent, I've never disowned a child. My parents disowned my oldest sister. I'm the youngest of three girls. My oldest sister had a horrible relationship with my father, blames me for getting in the way of their relationship. She had her first baby (to spite him) when she was 16 years old. My father refused to give her money because she met a deadbeat child predator, and got pregnant again, the again, and again. She constantly put herself and deadbeat before kids. Dad would send money to girls for Christmas and birthdays and never heard a thing, he finally gave up... She's 30, has six daughters, and lives in a mobile home in North Carolina.

We hadn't seen or heard from my sister until June of this year. My oldest niece contacted me asking to come to Florida (where I live) for the summer to get her and her sisters out of the trailor. I agree, contact sister and she agrees, I set up plane tickets and organize the rooms they'll stay in. When they got here, they were completely disheveled. Clothes visibly dirty, smelled foul, so covered in lice that my white towels stained gray from removing them. My niece informed me that they had been without water and electricity for 6 months. They live in a 2 bedroom mobile home, there are holes in the roof, bugs and rats everywhere. As a family, we decide the girls aren't going back to North Carolina.

We tell my sister to come to my parents house in Florida to get her life together and get back on her feet. She refused because deadbeat is not invited. Ironically, she found out that deadbeat is cheating on her. She confronts him and he kicks her out of s**t hole trailer. Deadbeat said "I would rather be homeless than live with you". Sister now works for the dollar store and doesn't pull her weight with kids. At least the girls are safe now...

Edit: I never really finished my point with the story. My parents had disowned my oldest sister when she moved to North Carolina with deadbeat for six years until my niece reached out to me through Facebook. I had never even met my two youngest nieces until this event. I regret turning my back on my sister. I really hate her and what she put her babies through, but if we stayed in her life for those six years we maybe could have prevented this.

I feel a lot of _people_ dislike their children. Because it’s not specific to gender.

Especially people with unresolved trauma, emotional issues, or low self esteem.

Children can reflect the most challenging parts of yourself right back at you, acting like a mirror being held up to the parent. And so the parent projects their own self loathing onto their kid.

My parents are very narcissistic and very disconnected from themselves. My mother im convinced is a covert narcissist. My dad has anger issues and low self esteem. I was acutely aware they didn’t always like me and my siblings growing up, but I also understood on a level it was because they couldn’t fully connect. For example, my sister grew up with difficulties with managing her anger ( naturally, she didn’t have any healthy mechanisms modelled for her). My father often disliked her because she exhibited his own weaknesses back at him.

Specifically to gender, I think motherhood in patriarchal/former patriarchal societies is heavily romanticised. From the Virgin Mary to the Angel of the Home, women for hundreds of years have been told to content themselves with being mothers and wives. In reality, a lot of women simply don’t enjoy it, aren’t good at it and don’t have much aptitude for it. But they are told it’s the ultimate role for them to aspire to, so I can see why many won’t feel able to admit to not liking their children. Which is why I find it a positive that as a society, many women are finding fulfilment in roles outside of motherhood and sometimes even eschewing it altogether.

Other way round. My father had this incredible stupid b***h as a wife. She is just terrible. She left him, owned me quite a bit of money, cheated on my father and on and on. After 3 years of marriage. She is around 36 and my father is 50. he did everything for her and she just made him miserable, but he kept going.
When she left my father he became really really depressed and I cared for him. Hoping that he would get over the whole situation etc. We even fought the whole divorce together. He got better and everything. I was really happy for him.
Then came the day, that she had no money left and she came back to my father. He told me about it and I was so angry that he didn’t learn from the story before. I told him that I don’t want to see her ever again and I won’t do anything with him if she there as well. The day came when my father and I wanted to meet for lunch. As I arrived I saw her sitting there with him. I went to the place and said that she had to leave or I’m gonna leave. He became mad at for that and I left. He tried to do the same move again. I told him to f**k off and never spoke to him again.

I never trusted this woman. It became better and then I found out about her cheating, lying and everything. She told me to f**k off when I wanted my money back. I won’t trust her ever again but I can’t help my dad. I told him everything and he is still blind through those love curtains.

I can answer for my mother. I cut contact from her but from what I hear nowadays she hates me for ruining her life.

First awful thing I did: my mother purchased her first home when I was 12. She had always had this vision of me having a house and playing in the backyard as a child, and I think she felt like I was missing out by living in apartments all my life. Thing was, I had no desire to move out of where we were, and probably more importantly, she couldn't really afford a house plus this was just around the housing crisis as well so the price was super inflated and dropped significantly a year later. We only lived there a year before moving in with her at the time boyfriend and renting it out. I apparently was the sole reason that she purchased that house, she did that for me. So it was my fault that she bought a house she couldn't afford.

Second awful thing I did: She got pulled over while driving to a nearby city because she was swerving on the freeway. I was 13 at the time and had fallen asleep, but got woken up by the car shaking back and forth and almost hitting a semi, while she was asleep at the wheel. I woke her up and she insisted on pushing through, and not too long after she was pulled over by an undercover cop. I watched as she was failing the sobriety test hard, she fell a couple of times trying to walk in a straight line. I cooperated with police and gave over the prescriptions she had in the car with her. So basically that was an act of betrayal. She was in the medical field and was struggling to find/keep a job that would hire her with a record (charged with child endangerment). So she was driving while heavily medicated, but I took most of the blame because I wasn't loyal to her and sold her out to the police.

So now her finances are in shambles and can't keep a job in her field because of the awful things I did as a teenager. Her career is ruined because of me. A lot more happened to damage our relationship but I think she would identify these two things as the main reasons having me as a child ruined her life.

My parents got divorced and my mother decided she didn't want to be a mother any more so she neglected my sibling and I and kicked us out of her house. Because the court system favours the mother, she got custody despite nobody asking us or looking too far into it and my dad had to give her the house and child support.

Despite this, she didn't do anything for us and we ended up living with him anyways and she spent our child support on world travels and wouldn't ever buy us anything.

She met a guy, sponsored him, he had a son and that became her son. I was now nothing to her.

They divorced, he stole all her money and she ended up homeless until family took her in and it's been shaky since.

She went off the deep end about a year ago and I tried to get involved to help her but she kept being demeaning and went crazy, got arrested and I cut off ties. She threatened to come shoot me and I called the police and even went to try and make a police report but nobody would listen to me and the guy at the counter at the police station laughed at me. It was very bizarre.

My son and I got into a heated argument recently. He went crazy and bit me and then took a p**s all over my floor. I told my wife that this was the last straw and I wanted him gone. But she told me that he was just a baby and didn't know any better. The struggle continues, I guess.

My parents have disowned me to some degree. We still talk a few times a year but we are very low-contact. During college they had gestured that I was going to be 'fully' disowned after I graduated so I built a life away from them.

I figure they still love me but my "lifestyle choices" (transgender) are untenable with their own. My dad told me we weren't related when it came to business and didn't want others at his company finding out. My mom told me she didn't like being around me in public. My siblings and relatives all have worked at my dad's company, but nope, not me. One of my siblings bounces between being employed there and not, due to basically sucking at holding a job. I had to figure out everything myself while my siblings get chance after chance.

I am the only child who has a college degree, got their own job, stable relationship and support themselves. But I am the bad one.

I haven't seen most of my grandparents for years. I haven't seen my oldest grandpa in about 6 years. I am figuring one day I am going to be told he died and I am not allowed to go to his funeral. Or he will die and I just won't be told.

I haven't seen most of my cousins in years. My uncle threatened me as a teenager over being gay (I am in my late 20s) so when I officially came out (in my late teens) my parents stopped inviting both of us to the same events; score +1 for my parents I guess. I haven't seen those cousins in maybe 3 years.

The closest collision with my uncle was 5 or 6 years ago. My dad was selling a car to him at the house, so my dad ordered me pizza then rushed me upstairs before my uncle got there.

One of my other uncles is dying apparently and I haven't seen him in probably a decade despite growing up seeing him 2 - 3 times a year.

---

So I just have my siblings and my parents. I see them 2 - 3 times a year for a few days each over the holidays. They send me a text on my birthday, but otherwise we don't really talk about life.

My parents have warmed up over the last 10 years, but when you go through your late teens and 20s thinking you have lost your family, you find another one. I would love to rekindle a good relationship, but I have no idea how or if they're even interested.

I try to be a safe space for people and kind, as such I'm a person others confess and open up to.

I've had mothers (I'm 35 so many peers have kids) admit to regretting having children way more than disliking their child. It's always more they disliked motherhood itself, the demands that they didn't know what they signed up for. The constantness of it. They wished they weren't a parent or they disliked how their kid was being, they loved them but wished they didn't go down this road they were now stuck on.

A lot of mothers seem depressed.

My mother and her sister were both adopted into a great family.

Recently, my Grandfather fell ill and we were told to prepare to say goodbye. So the family gathered. My Grandmother has had a hard time with her memory since she had a brain hemorrhage, but she welcomed my aunt into her home during this tough time.

Whilst my Grandfather was in his final week, Wendy (aunt) took my Grandmother's atm card and proceeded to spend well over a thousand dollars on herself and get herself a motel room. She alsp attempted to steal their car. When my uncles found out, she basically disappeared into the wind.

After my Grandfather passed and his funeral was all sorted. My Grandmother went to an attorney to write Wendy out of any inheritance she would get from their estate when she passes. She didnt press any formal charges, because the whole process would have been lengthy and more painful for her. She didn't need the extra stress.

I'm pretty sure one of my uncles also threatened Wendy to make sure she stayed away from my Grandmother from now on too.

I've disowned one of my siblings (still have 5 other siblings). My sister is just a horrible person. She's the youngest of the seven, and she's been rotten since she was a teenager. She is much younger than the rest of us, so while the other 6 grew up together, she was almost like an only child. She treats everybody in her life like they're here to serve her needs. Some of the things she's put our mother through are truly horrible. I wouldn't give a s**t if she disappeared forever.

>cliché not me but...

My mum got taken out of my grandparent’s will, and she only got to know so because of her sister. Her side of the family has always been very conservative and rather “communal”, so ‘til death do us apart’ is serious business with them.

When she ran away for over a week without giving any notice, leaving me an my sister alone, only to come back with some stranger we couldn’t tell anyone they were living with us, it was obvious things were about to get hairy.

She divorced, and remarried in the span of about 6 months trying to keep everyone in the family out of the loop. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone learned about it through the invitation to the party. Cries and drama ensured that day. She wasn’t invited to the Christmas family reunion, and she used me and my sister as bargaining chips.

They took away from her any thing that was still in their name. She moved away, and only recently has she been trying to connect back.

My mother was disowned by her her parents for her interracial relationship.

Edit:
There's been some discussion below so I'm going to put it up here along with a little more detail.

Yes, we are from the south (Arkansas). There are parts of this that are weird too. My mother initially lied to her parents and said she was dating an Arab man. This was fine but they found out she was lying leading to her being disowned. I guess in the early 70s Arabs were ok but blacks were no nos.

They disowned my mom but it was fine if we came over. My older sister was close with them but me and my younger sister always felt weird going over there. They adored my older sister though and she stayed over and went on vacation with them among other things. I remember asking my grandfather why he didn't like my mother when I was about 8 or 9 years old at a cousin's birthday party. He just walked away.

These same people who essentially pushed her out of their lives were the same ones she took care of and comforted in their darkest times. She sort of went back to them and they didn't push her away for what I am assuming is they knew the end was near and they were trying to right their wrongs. I have no idea just an assumption. She was there with them until their ends though. My mom might not be perfect but d**n that made me look at her in a completely different light.

D***s, violence, theft, repetitively trying to destroy his younger brother, becoming a danger to myself and others, mental health issues that he refuses to deal with any longer or take his meds for anymore. Just plain off the chain behavior that was too much for all of us. I wouldn't call it disowning, as much as putting down boundaries and setting up fences to protect people who don't deserve his treatment. He also tends to be very manipulative and leans toward narcissistic behavior, in that he will habitually lie about you to others and try to play the victim. This can be very damaging to relationships with people that don't understand what's going on, so I'd rather just not bring myself into the equation anymore, because it's too costly and it's not worth it. He lacks empathy and doesn't know how to stop himself from his harmful behavior due to a developmental disability, although he will also admit that he knows what he's doing and he knows that he is manipulative and playing games at times. When he was younger and was under the rules of being a minor, then he had all the help in the world and it was easier to deal with.

My son was in college and not doing the work. I was paying for school. He started withdrawing from classes in the last month of the term, then just hanging around with friends instead of going to class. He kept just enough credits to sign up for the next term, so I was unaware of his lack of progress until he needed to sign up for a fifth, then a sixth year to complete his degree. He eventually graduated but looked for work so slowly it took almost two years to land any job at all. I was at my wits end what to do and friends, family and even some professional counselors I consulted told me he was in need of "tough love" and I should kick him out; with the expectation that faced with cold reality he would suddenly get a lot more responsible.

I demurred. While I was very unhappy with his attitude and progress in launching his life, I could also imagine a lot worse things could happen to him (such as d***s and criminality) if I withdrew the only stabilizing influence he seemed to have (living at home being supported by me). In the end, he hated his first job, worked hard to get a better one and then a few years later a really good one. He's fully on his own, he's got an active circle of professional friends, he's financially responsible and may buy a house next year. I'm so glad I ignored all the well meaning but harsh advice and just let him mature on his own timeline. Sometimes a harsh limit may work for some kids, but sometimes it isn't needed. Hard to know what's right in the heat of the moment.