When Letting Go Protects the Heart: A Reflection on Parent–Adult Child Estrangement
Sif Brookes Brookes 
Why the hardest boundaries can become the gentlest acts of self-care.
When Letting Go Protects the Heart: A Reflection on Parent–Adult Child Estrangement
Why the hardest boundaries can become the gentlest acts of self-care
By Charlotte Pardy MA The Mother Wound Whisperer
Growing up, many of us believed that belonging meant staying, staying hopeful, staying kind, staying responsible for someone else’s feelings. That narrative comes through clearly in the recent article from The Independent on why breaking up with a parent is sometimes the right choice.
Yet for many women I work with, especially those healing their mother wounds, estrangement isn’t a dramatic act of defiance, it’s a gentle but firm statement of self-worth: I matter, too.
Why the decision isn’t sudden
What the article captures well is that estrangement often comes after years of trying: trying to be seen, heard, safe, loved.
When the dynamic doesn’t shift, the emotional cost becomes unacceptable. You stop being a daughter for the parent and instead become their emotional manager, parenting your parent. The turning point often arrives quietly, in fatigue, sadness, or simply the realisation that love shouldn’t feel like collapse.
When “no contact” is not the same as “no care”
Setting boundaries or stepping back from a harmful relationship isn’t the same as giving up on love. In fact, it can be a mature way of protecting the love you hold, for yourself, for your own children if you have them, and for the truth you’re choosing.
As I write in Breaking Free, Blooming Wild:
“You are allowed to lay down what was never yours to carry.”
Breaking Free, Blooming Wild, p. 242
In the context of parent–child relationships, that quote holds particular weight: you did not sign up to carry trauma, emotional labour, or to parent your own parent. Doing so doesn’t make you unloving, it means you’re finally being honest about how much emotional projection one person can carry.
From guilt and shame to clarity and peace
Guilt remains one of the hardest emotions to untangle in the wake of estrangement. We’re taught that loyalty means staying, even when it hurts.
But guilt isn’t always the voice of morality, sometimes it’s the echo of conditioning. Many adult children feel judged for choosing safety over sacrifice, especially daughters whose worth has long been tied to keeping everyone else comfortable.
My work through Daughters of the Roses invites a different story:
What if the right choice isn’t staying until you break, but stepping back so you can be whole?
Healing doesn’t always look dramatic. It can look like quiet breathing, reflection, and the gentle rebuilding of a life that rests, rather than fights.
What you might reflect on today
🕯️ Have you been holding responsibility for someone else’s emotional state longer than you should?
🌿 What would it feel like to let yourself receive instead of always give?
💭 Can you recognise that stepping back might not be betrayal, but a brave act of self-care?
🌹 Who can support you, therapy, community, trusted friends, so you’re not carrying this alone?
A closing word of compassion
If you’re reading this and the article hit a nerve, know this: you’re not broken. You’re brave. Choosing peace doesn’t mean the pain disappears. It means the pain no longer has to live in silence.
The journey of healing your mother wounds often includes saying “enough” to carrying burdens that were never yours. It includes learning to love yourself through quiet acts of boundary and truth. And sometimes, it includes stepping back so you can step forward, into life lived with more freedom, wholeness and rest.
With warmth,
Charlotte Pardy
The Mother Wound Whisperer 🌹
Categories: : boundaries, estrangement, mother, adult