No Contact why are Parents always painted as the guilty party?

[Nanjizel]

I would like to hear attitudes to a child who has gone no contact. While I have had no contact for 40 months my child age indicates that this is a fairly recent decision. In the overlapping time span I have a relative who has suffered from aggresive cancer I am now preparing for their death. I cant help making comparisons with someone who is dying and someone who isn't but whom I feel is dead to me. I understand that my child may have numerous grievances with my parenting approach. This subject has an abundance of text online describing all forms of cruelty to Children during their development. What is minimal is the advice for the parent who has been thrown under the bus. Is blood really thicker than water? If I encountered someone who behaved like this our interaction would be minimal at best. Why do I have to accept narasistic gaslighting and selfishness? I am aware that a better relationship would lift my associated depression, but that's not going to happen. Over the last 40 months I have made numerous attemps to contact, calls. cards, emails and gifts all received no response. I am preparing to draw a line in the sand when my relative passes away and end all involvement with the child in question. Treat both people as deceased I have other children and this course of action will most likely have a negative relationship I have with my other children. The impact of not reaching out to me to discuss the family member in pallative care is shocking as I believe the silent ones grievance is miniscule in comparison to what the person is suffering with and the conversations their having to have with their family.
Without conversation there no solution, this comparisson between the unwell and the healthy is a real line that can't be forgiven, I think it defines selfishness!

OP, you say you don't know the reason your child has stopped contact with you but you also insist that their reason is "petty". You cannot know a reason is petty if you don't know what the reason is.

The problem with "giving an explanation" is the parent then sees a window to challenge. When you go no contact it means you don't want to enter into a dialogue. It's exhausting. Nobody is owed an explanation anyway when the NC shutters come down.

Sometimes you have to accept the way things are and leave things alone.

I really don't think it's fair to dismiss what they are feeling as 'petty'. Presumably this relative is also someone they care about, too.

You do come across as if you shut down all responses that are not exactly what you want to hear. I can't help thinking if you're not self-aware enough to realise you're doing that on a public forum where everyone will notice, then it may be you're not aware that you're doing it with your child.

Nonsense. What about drugs, personality disorders, abusive husbands and wives who are trying to isolate them? That's just a few examples off the top of my head. There are many reasons why it could be the child's fault.

OP it sounds like you have been given reasons if you think they're petty. You have to remember that they aren't petty to the other person if it's what's made them go NC. Even if all the posters on this thread agreed that it was petty that's irrelevant, it's for the NC person to decide if the reasons are enough.

Drug addictions, personality disorders and finding oneself in an abusive marriage do not rule out having endured an abusive upringing. Far from it.

I would be absolutely devastated if my child cut contact with me. I'm sure we all would.

But the thing is, I know my children don't owe me anything.
I hope they do grow up to love and respect me.
But I brought them into this world selfishly, I owe them but they don't owe me.

children do owe their parents in all sorts of ways. That’s a strange attitude.

No they don't, that's not how love works.

It may be as simple as your child is happier not being in contact with you. They find you, and their relationship with you, too stressful and painful. They don’t have any hope you’ll change so they’ve given up on the relationship.

children are hard wired to love their parents and forgive them for all sorts (ask me I know! I am still in contact with my dad and he has been pretty awful). For someone to go no contact it goes against the maternal and paternal bond. Something the parent has done to damage that

Funny thing is I don’t because I won’t ever become this blind to my own behaviour to and around my children or enough to compare one relationship to another. I’m good in my role and always will be.

No, they don't.
What could a child possibly owe their parent?

So you had a perfectly fine, loving and close relationship, and then all of a sudden one day with zero explanation or prior conversation, they just stopped contacting you?

If this is genuinely the case then my concern would be that they have an addiction or are being coercively controlled, which is causing them to behave entirely out of character.
Adults who have good relationships with their parents do not suddenly go no contact on a whim. Despite what social media would have you believe. There will be a reason. And the most likely one if no addiction or coercive control is that it is the parent.

Love
and respect, gratitude.

Those things are given through choice not owed.

Why would you owe someone those things automatically just because they're your parent?

Nope.

The thing is, all of those things are the default. Just like respect is the default when you meet someone for the first time.

What happens afterwards means that love, respect and gratitude can all be lost. They can be destroyed by the other person's behaviour. My grandmother did some absolutely heinous things in her relationship with my mother. My mother made her peace with it eventually and managed to maintain contact somehow, but it was never warm.

I have three DC. My middle one is fostered and does not have a functional relationship with his birth mother, for a variety of reasons. Let's just say there was serious social care involvement. The person he loves, respects and is grateful to is me. His mother resents that, but she brought it on herself. And she will never accept that she did. She lost him through the choices that she made.

You can’t owe love. Love isn’t a debt.
Respect is earned.
Gratitude for what? Grateful to be fed, clothed and housed?

This is toxic pedagogy. It's a repressive, harmful, manipulative, coercive, emotionally and sometimes physically violent mentality that aims to suppress a child's natural emotions and enforce obedience, aimed purely to serve the selfish parent. This is the opposite of good parenting.

You chose to bring your children into the world. They owe you nothing.

If you give 110 percent of yourself to your child every day all their lives, at the very least the hope would be as parents that they would love and respect us in return. Sadly, not always the case.

This is a ridiculous conclusion to come to

So children don’t even owe parents basic respect?

It’s actually incredibly painful to read this sort of statement . The heartbreak and isolation and unbearable pain is bad enough without spurious judgements from others who have never experienced it . It really really hurts.
This is to @MyJustCat