Familiar strangers: What’s behind the trend of family members severing relationships?

BUFFETED BY DYNAMIC social and technological changes, a growing number of adult children are choosing estrangement from their parents, grandparents or siblings.

Typically initiated by one person, estrangement involves the decision to go “no-contact” or to severely limit interactions, perhaps to as little as once a year, with a family member or members. Although there is currently no national database tracking such family rupture, social scientists and psychologists say the problem’s spread is ripe for discovery.