Rebecca Visser, a 36-year-old content creator and stay-at-home mom from California, permanently cut ties with her mother nearly three years ago, blocking her on social media and on her phone — and she has no plans to reverse the decision. It wasn’t something she took lightly. “Adult children don’t go no contact out of the blue,” Visser tells The Independent. “It’s something that’s been building up, and once they’d done it — nine times out of 10 — it’s a last resort. If they’re going no contact, maybe it’s time to look at the parent and not necessarily the child.”
It’s a dilemma that has bulldozed into the spotlight after 26-year-old Brooklyn Peltz Beckham launched an astonishing attack on his parents, soccer icon David and former Spice Girl Victoria. After months of a rumoured feud, Brooklyn finally confirmed he has gone no contact with his parents and has no interest in reconciling with them. In his statement, he accused his parents of planting stories about him in the press, pressuring him to adhere to “performative” family front and “trying endlessly to ruin” his relationship with his wife, Nicola Peltz Beckham, since their marriage in 2022.
The decision to sever ties with family members is never easy. For Visser, her story is different. The turning point came in her twenties, when she says she tried to speak with her mother about alleged abuse she experienced as a child involving both her mother and her stepfather. According to Visser, her mother was unwilling to acknowledge the allegations.
By 2023, Visser — now married with a three-year-old son — says she had accepted that her mother was never going to take accountability for the alleged abuse. She sent her one last email, telling her, “I can’t have contact with you until something changes. And I just know those changes aren’t going to happen.” Visser says the decisive moment came when the dynamic began to affect her own family. “When I brought up things about adulthood and childhood, my mother would make me feel crazy and say none of this ever happened. Once, I started seeing her do this in front of my son and husband, I said, ‘I’m going to put a stop to this.’”
Since cutting off contact with her mom, Visser says her stress and anxiety levels have reduced significantly, making her a better mom. “My first year of being a mom, especially being postpartum, was so stressful because of the abuse my mother was putting me through. Now that I’m without that, it gives me more ability to focus on my son,” she says. “As the last two years have gone by, it’s become more and more apparent that this was the best decision I could have made.”
Similarly, 31-year-old Annie Emerson says her mother struggled to take accountability for her actions. The Georgia-based hospice nurse says things reached a tipping point after she tried to confront her mother about her strict upbringing, which she says was shaped by the belief that children should be seen and not heard. According to Emerson, her mother simply accused her of misremembering her childhood.
Although the pair had argued for more than a decade, Emerson says one incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back: her mother placing Emerson’s two-year-old daughter in the front seat of a car on her step-grandfather’s lap. “My husband and I learned that she did not have a car seat with her,” the mother of two says. “She intentionally kept it from us until after she’d driven our daughter. When we said, ‘Hey, we’re not OK with this,’ she essentially said, ‘Well, you guys are being ridiculous and making a mountain out of a mole hill. This isn’t a big deal.’”
Emerson says she had no choice but to end her relationship with her mother, who wasn’t taking accountability for her actions. Just four months on, she says the decision has changed her life for the better. “ I have so much peace now. I have a great support system, from my husband, close friends, and my in-laws,” she says. “ I’m very grateful to feel like I’m allowed to be who I am. There was a lot of shrinking of myself I did around my mother for a very long time, in an effort to try to keep a relationship with her.”
For many of us who have strong relationships with our parents, the decision to cut ties with them seems unfathomable. Ariel Rae — a 29-year-old marketing agency co-founder from New Jersey — made that choice a year ago, and hasn’t spoken to her mother since. However, she says she’s already grown accustomed to acquaintances describing the estrangement as “sad.” “If you don’t accept it or get it, that’s OK,” she says. “I’m grateful that you’ve never experienced this level of pain. But I know this was the right decision I had to make for myself to heal, to be functioning in society and in my relationships, and to grow as an adult.”
Rae says her relationship with her mother was fraught throughout her childhood, marked by frequent conflict and comments that steadily eroded her self-esteem. Her mother struggled with alcoholism and displayed narcissistic behavior, often denying or failing to recall the hurtful things she had said. Instead, Rae says, her mother would turn the blame back on her, calling her a “bad daughter.”
She realized that no matter how much she begged her mother for an apology, she would never get one. That brought a harsh clarity: the relationship was no longer worth having. Rae sent a final goodbye text and then blocked her mother’s number. The changes since ending the relationship, she says, have been profound. “I’m feeling happy and showing up as my best self with my friends and family and boyfriend,” she explains. “I used to just like throw my emotions out there and like kind of expect the other person to regulate them, and that is no way to be an adult. If I get emotional, I now have self-talk that I can start saying out loud to myself, and it calms me down. Without my mother, my negative self-talk stopped because she’s where it sources from.”
Nothing can erase the sense of loss that comes with breaking off contact with a parent. On difficult days, Emerson allows herself to sit with that sadness. “I also remind myself that the motherly love that I’m missing is not actually love that my mother ever gave me, or was capable of giving. I think it’s just that deep-seated desire of a child wanting to be loved by their parent.”
Today, neither Rae, nor Emerson, nor Visser regrets keeping their mothers out of their lives. They’re moving on from the resentment and disappointment they felt, which once felt impossible to manage. “I weirdly see some women sometimes that look like her, and it makes me feel pity or sad. Like, ‘Oh, like maybe she’s doing better,” Rae says. “ I think I’ve gotten to a point where I’ve done so much work on myself, and I’m so grateful for that, that it has allowed me to not hold as much anger towards her. I’ve healed a lot of my internal turmoil.”
Visser sympathizes with Brooklyn, “Your parents could have all the money in the world, but if they treat you poorly, you don’t have to stay in contact with them.”
Originally published at The Independent – Lifestyle
