A few weeks ago, I texted my eldest for her address as I wanted to pop her shiny and sparkling college diploma in the mail. I only half-expected a response (well, maybe not even half) and, true to her current form, I did not (and will not) hear back. It’s not that I cannot have the address, you see, it’s that I have to get the address through my monkey-in-middle husband. Level of ridiculousness? High. Nearly as high as the frustration delivered to our home as our family navigates another round of adolescent behavior though, this time, the “adolescent” is twenty-four years old.
There are a lot of behaviors marked “excused” when the culprit is a tween or teen. Those same behaviors become less acceptable as that same culprit moves into adulthood, something our eldest child is not clocking.
In the latest round of “I cannot deal with her,” any communication from me is interpreted as baiting. Asking for a physical address for which to forward this young-adult’s mail? Baiting, though apparently having my husband collect the address so that I could then add said address to a mailing label is fine. Prior to this round, I baited our young-adult by sending her a rather large check with one easy request: “Text me before depositing, please, so we don’t overdraw our account.” The check was reimbursement for her 2025-2026 school year housing fees. There were a lot of zeroes on that check, more than we typically leave sitting willy-nilly in our bank account, lest the skimmers find us.
The simple request to “Text me before depositing so we wouldn’t overdraw our account?” Ignored. The result? A bounce bigger than a kangaroo on a trampoline.
In lieu of being baited by that simple request, our young-adult deposited the check on her terms, sans text. This kicked off an immediate red-alert from our friends at Wells Fargo, delivered while I was zipping down the highway with no ability to right the funds-ship quickly lest I veer into a guardrail while panic-punching buttons on the bank’s mobile app. Truthfully, there was a split-second in which I thought veering into the guardrail might be more enjoyable than dealing with the newest low in childish behavior.
For the record, if anyone would like to bait me by sending a check with a lot of zeroes, feel free. I’ll happily give you both my address and a text before depositing. For the other record, though the funds were rightfully hers, we could have made a great case for not sending it all, honoring her decision to remove herself from our family.
How’d we get here?
“No Contact” is the latest in Gen Z relationship trends and offers the extreme emotional whiplash that they seem to crave. I suppose in our home it is actually No Contact-ish. Our young-adult hasn’t spoken to me in nearly two years with nary a word of why though she does trade texts with my husband, on occasion. We’re not actually sure where she stands with her brother though, from our vantage point, it’s not in a positive light.
I actually wasn’t even aware I’d been dismissed from her life for nearly six months. The timing was very on-Gen Z-brand, landing in the months just prior to my mother’s death and when I was fully focused on getting every last minute with here while sitting at her bedside. I had no idea there was a noteworthy split until our young-adult skipped the traditional notes of sympathy, kindness and compassion given to someone whose lost someone they deeply loved. While I was grieving that devastating loss, I also had to deal with the realization that my child didn’t seem to care.
While I’ve never been gifted a conversation outlining my dismissal, at least it’s been made clear to me even if in the most awful of ways. For my husband and son, it’s been a much quieter dismissal. A whisper of indifference, perhaps, because verbalizing more is beyond her limits. She’s left them, instead, with a constant, low-level angst. They each feel sentenced to walking on eggshells lest they say “Hello” the wrong way, thus causing that final nail to drop into our family-of-four’s coffin.
“No Contact” fits perfectly into most Gen Z’s stories as it welcomes the overuse of words like “valid” or “triggering” or “my experience” or “boundaries” or “trauma bonds.” It doesn’t matter if their “experience” was actually “valid” or truly “traumatic” or actually “triggering” or worthy of “boundaries.” The only relevance is a blurred reality (accurate or not) and how much coddling that blurred reality earns from their inner circle. Bonus points if that inner circle actively discourages working through relationship pain points with a mature approach that includes conversations, empathy, and a willingness to understand different perspectives.
The truth is always more complicated when all sides are invited to the conversation. For No Contact Kids, however, there is only one seat at the table, filled with whatever their truth is, no questions asked.
It’s kind of brilliant, really. Refusing to offer space for those other versions of reality to live means never having to do any of the hard work required by lasting relationships. Am I little jealous that Generation X didn’t think of this approach, first? Maybe.
“What is she willing to bring to your relationship?”
A few months ago, a friend (also a therapist) asked me what our young adult was willing to bring to the table. “Ummmm,” I responded, stumbling to find an answer, “I guess nothing?”
“Well,” she replied, “If she’s not willing to bring anything to the relationship, then maybe you shouldn’t either.”
A really good point, though quite difficult to follow through on.
Exhibit A? That pile of mail sitting on our credenza. I am a doer. In a different world, that pile of mail would never have become a pile because I would have forwarded each piece on, minutes after pulling it from our mailbox and probably with a gift card to Starbucks tucked into the envelope.
“Nothing. She’s not willing to bring anything. She wasn’t even willing to give us a heads-up when she cut me out of her life. We went from being completely fine, getting along better than ever, to “I’m never coming home again as long as she (me) lives there.”
“And that,” my friend (also a therapist) continued, “Is exactly the problem with her generation. They want us to cater to their every whim, emotionally or otherwise, while refusing to offer solutions or reciprocate. It’s the curse of iterating with a generation fed by entitlement.”
Well, yes, that tracks.
But what about that pile of mail!?!?
More to come on this topic because, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s overthinking everything. For instance, why do we have a whole generation living under the belief that their reality is the only one that matters? Why do we have a whole generation demanding that their feelings are validated without offer the same validation to others?
And what if, after all of this researching and learning and pondering and self-reflection, I realize that it’s actually me who should be driving the No Contact Bus?
Sorry you’re dealing with this, but as always, your piece was great.