Kui Mwai
Appearances
It's Been a Minute
Blocking your mom: why adult children are going no contact
wow, yes, actually, family is an institution, right? And I think that transition of, oh, we're starting to think of family as an institution, that is something that needs to be critiqued. You know, I think that's the tension between that changing reality and what we've always known family to be as this core, as a stable, as this personal, very personal thing.
It's Been a Minute
Blocking your mom: why adult children are going no contact
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
It's Been a Minute
Blocking your mom: why adult children are going no contact
I think a lot of it is freedom and space. The folks that I spoke to, and even in my own experience, for a lot of people, it seemed like it came down to identity, right? Like my parent isn't seeing this core part of who I am, or they're not hearing about this core experience that I had that made me who I am today. So for a lot of people, myself included, it's an opening up, it's a freeing of space.
It's Been a Minute
Blocking your mom: why adult children are going no contact
But I think it is just like that room to be who you are, to feel how you feel, to live the life that you want to live. I know with my dad this year, as we've kind of gone back and forth and ping ponged in and out of estrangement, I decided to make the decision to be estranged because I was like, I need to have the room to be me again. This is taking up so much space.
It's Been a Minute
Blocking your mom: why adult children are going no contact
So I really think the biggest thing is freedom.
It's Been a Minute
Blocking your mom: why adult children are going no contact
I just feel like when I talk to them, it causes more harm than good. You see people that get along with their parents so well or have like really good parents. Like nobody's perfect, but like it sucks that you like feel like you don't have that.
It's Been a Minute
Blocking your mom: why adult children are going no contact
Yeah, well, I definitely think that the pandemic changed everything. And so I think that people are thinking about themselves differently. I think it's completely transformed interpersonal relationships. And even though we're a few years out from the pandemic, I find that we're in something of a puberty of an adolescence when it comes to interpersonal relationships now.
It's Been a Minute
Blocking your mom: why adult children are going no contact
And I think that we're sort of trying to figure out, okay, how do we find those healthy boundaries? How do we take what we learned in the pandemic about ourselves and what we care about and what we want to surround ourselves with and even what community building looks like? And how do we translate that now to a world in which we're not as isolated? There's still a learning curve there.
It's Been a Minute
Blocking your mom: why adult children are going no contact
I think that's happening. I think technology also too plays a huge role, right? Like I think TikTok being a platform not just for getting snippets of information, but also really finding community and being more comfortable to open up about certain things.
It's Been a Minute
Blocking your mom: why adult children are going no contact
Like now if I'm feeling silenced in a relationship, I can go on TikTok and I can find a whole group of people who can rally around me in that feeling, right? I can find support not just in the IRL, but on the online too in a different sort of meaningful way. So I think that those sort of things are playing together.
It's Been a Minute
Blocking your mom: why adult children are going no contact
Oh, yeah. You're grateful you accept what it is because everybody's family has hardships and it's always hard, but we always love each other. I think builds a pressure that a lot of people either live with or they crumble under.
It's Been a Minute
Blocking your mom: why adult children are going no contact
Oh, yeah. I think that really, I think the biggest nuance is that extra added layer of pressure and of obligation. You know, the family structure is not just induction. It's also a form of survival, right? Like when you come from these communities of people that have been historically oppressed, right?
It's Been a Minute
Blocking your mom: why adult children are going no contact
Like that mentality of like, it's us against the world and we have to protect each other is so, so deep. And even in my own experience of estrangement as a black woman what does it mean to have to carry this idea that the world sees you as a pillar of your family of your community but you've made the choice not to be that pillar and to take a step back what a difficult thing to wrestle with