Wall Street Journal: Most people agree that adult children are sometimes justified in creating boundaries or breaking ties with their parents, especially if they were physically or emotionally abusive.
But now, psychologists say young adults’ definition of harmful parental behavior is changing. Among some 1,000 estranged parents surveyed earlier this month, 82% identified the increased use of labels such as “toxic,” “abusive” or “unsafe” as contributing to the family cutoff, says Peter Anderson, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Beverly, Mass., who helps families with estrangements and conducted the survey.
“Young adults consider ordinary conflict to be much worse than it once was,” he says…