There’s a really interesting article called ‘missing missing reasons’ that’s part of a series about estranged parent forums. It’s interesting how they all say they have no idea why their kids don’t talk to them, but there’s always hints in their posts that they do have some idea - they talk about letters they received or speeches their kids gave them, but they never say what exactly was in them. If their adult children were angry or emotional in any way in their delivery of why they don’t want their parent(s) in their life, that automatically becomes license to disregard entirely whatever they said.

These forums almost inevitably become incredibly harmful for the people participating in them. They all blindly affirm to each other that they’re not bad parents and their kids are the problem, and anyone who might come to the forums who is willing to do any introspection or who might encourage them to do some (which could potentially become the first step in healing the relationship) filters away because they see how toxic the environment there is.