When Cancel Culture Comes Home

The Parricidal Nature of Therapeutic Secularism

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All of us have been adversely affected by the sins and failures of our parents. This is true for the person who has maintained a good relationship with his parents for most of his adult life just as much as it is for the young adult acutely aware of his parents’ sins and failures. Domestic plight has been a reality for human beings since the fall of Adam and there is not a single person who is exempt from the stain of parental sin.

Making this observation is by no means an attempt to disparage the family. My project is just the opposite. Family is very good (Genesis 1:31). It’s God’s design for the kind of healthy, intimate community where its members can help each other flourish, especially in the health, welfare, and education of its youngest members—the children. Given its vulnerable nature, and because of inherited sin nature, the family is also the community where sin can be the most egregious.

Many have had the good fortune of growing up in stable, loving families while others have endured great hardships: abuse, abandonment, violence, sexual assault, and worse—the tragic death of a loved one. Most, however, have experienced some middle-of-the-road modern Western version of family that can be characterized as a mixed bag of good times and bad, hardships and blessings, failures and victories. Sometimes parents were kind and affirming and other times they were angry or emotionally distant. Sometimes they gave us hope and other times the were the source of disappointment or despair.

My point being, no matter how blessed or how terrible one’s home life is or was, the best parents are still sinners and their sins most certainly have some adverse effect on their children. That is the fallen world we live in and have since Adam sinned in the garden (Ecclesiastes 7:20 cf. Exodus 20:5).

Reconciliation of David and Absalom, Johann Gottfried Haid (1710-1776)

In recent generations, young adults (i.e., Millennials and Gen Zs) are, collectively, much more likely than previous generations to be vocal and activist about their parents' sins and failures. There is a growing trend amongst Millennials and Gen Zs across social media to “divorce,” “unfollow,” and “block” their parents because of offenses. Citing their own mental health needs, narcissistic or immature parents, and emotional neglect, the hashtag #nocontact has become the new #metoo for many young adults.

This is not to say previous generations were necessarily less critical of their upbringing. History is as replete with examples of dysfunctional, estranged, and even parricidal families. Scripture too offers numerous examples of and warnings about troubled relationships between parents and their children (2 Samuel 13-19 cf. Malachi 4:6 cf. Ephesians 6:4). My allegation is that parents of the contemporary generations here mentioned are not necessarily any more or less sinful than parents have been historically. But the contemporary generation of young adults are collectively more vocal and dramatically more activist with their criticisms than is duly warranted.

We might simply say the root problem is just as it always has been, sinful hearts in rebellious people (parents and/or children) who fail to obey God. It’s a matter fact that keeping God’s covenant brings blessings to a thousand generations while rebelling against the same brings a curse even to the third and fourth generations (Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 6:1-9).

Be that as it may, I contend that this generation’s version of the age-old domestic conflict manifests itself in a way that is unique in the history of man. This is because there are contributing factors that are distinctive to the modern age, including a novel therapeutic focus on the self, evolving social norms around parenting and child-rearing rooted in cultural secularism, and an increased access to news and information (i.e., social media is the new public square, one which features a global reach and an algorithmic echo chamber). 

Before attempting to unpack my theory, I first want temper my assertions with a few essential qualifications. I acknowledge that this trending vocality has, for the better, brought about an increased measure of transparency that is essential for dealing with real abuse. There is little doubt that the power of voice given to some victims has stopped or prevented legitimate abuse and in many cases has brought abusers to justice. It has further brought about awareness to certain kinds of sinful proclivities and their effects that are particular to domestic relationships. That will afford children who are victims of abuse the opportunity to seek real help so they can thrive and flourish as human beings. I can’t imagine any sane person arguing these gains are bad. So, I have no desire here to dispute the fact that sins should always be confronted and repented of; and, crimes should always be dealt with by the appropriate authorities. This needs to be established as a fundamental qualification before I discharge my proposition.

Nevertheless, what seems to have developed alongside the positive emergence of transparency and justice is, for the worse, a growing sense of “entitlement” among many constituents of the younger generations I’m referencing here.

Although the word entitlement—the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment—is admittedly somewhat deficient to capture the entirety of what I’m getting at, I’m choosing this word because in it’s essence, it apprehends the prevailing attitude in the contemporary youth culture that suggests no one in this fallen world should ever have to suffer, at any time, or for any reason, least of all they, and especially at the hands of their parents; and, if they do suffer, retribution is in order and justified; just ask their friends and their therapists; they will affirm.

While I agree there is never any excuse for a parent’s sin, and we should attempt to alleviate as much suffering in this world as we are able, what I hope to demonstrate is there is amongst these “entitled” an inherent motivation to identify with their peers, such that the parental offenses instigating their retributions are often trivial, exaggerated, or even fabricated. 

To state my contention succinctly, while increased transparency and subsequent justice is most certainly a good thing, the potential for goodness that it brings is being undermined—sabotaged even—by a concomitant and growing shift in contemporary youth culture toward this sense of entitlement.

What I further hope to demonstrate is that while I am not dismissing real cases where young people need to set boundaries with deviant or malicious parents, more often than not, there are far more appropriate responses to their parents’ sins and failures than estrangement or pillory.

Finally, as an aside, I’m tackling this subject because I believe the trending entitled activism that is breaking up families unnecessarily (symbolic parricide) is rooted in the same sense of entitlement that we are witnessing on college campuses in the form of “safe spaces” and in the culture at large where “canceling” someone demonized as toxic or narcissistic is the default response to someone with whom someone else disagrees or whose beliefs are considered offensive.

Unless any suspect I exaggerate my case, allow this lengthy excerpt by Gen Z blogger, Nia Cherie, to serve as a launching point representative of the narrative and activism I’m addressing. Cherie writes,

Generational differences affect the way we see the world and what we deem normal. People in older generations grew up in a world where it was okay (or more okay than it is now) if a child was seen, not heard. Where instilling fear in your child was appropriate, and boundaries were not as normalized. But now, mental health is and continues to be a large conversation among younger generations…[people in younger generations] realize their parents actually made them feel unsafe or were toxic, and it didn’t have to be that way. They realize, yes maybe my parents paid for the bills and housing, but the parent was emotionally unavailable, or abusive, or wasn’t emotionally attuned or present (just to name a few). In previous generations, maybe you realized this but still decide to stay with your parents out of respect and obligation. But in younger generations, we realize the relationship with our parents needs to change to remain intact. And if the parents can’t change, the relationship moves into what we call “no contact” where the adult child makes the decision to no longer pursue a relationship with their toxic or emotionally immature parent. Yes, a child can be grateful that their parent took care of their physical needs, but we also inherently understand that’s your legal and moral responsibility, especially if the child did not ask to be brought on this Earth. Parenting requires selflessness — to the extreme. Why? Because the relationship is nonconsensual, the kid didn’t ask for this, the adult parent wanted (or agreed to) it. And secure parenting requires not just taking care of your child’s physical and financial needs (e.g., food and shelter), but being there for your child’s emotional needs too (e.g., being supportive and present, listening to them when they are in need, having attunement and loving conversations regularly, etc) without expecting your child to “owe you” anything in return.¹

While Cherie makes several valid arguments in terms of a parent’s sacrificial responsibilities, what is most glaring is the conflation of experiences that serve to color her narrative. Expressions like “made them feel unsafe,” “were toxic,” “emotionally unavailable,” “abusive,” “not emotionally attuned or present,” and “emotionally immature parent” are inevitably subjective. And in this case, the expressions being left undefined and then thrown together are served up like a fallacious therapeutic fruit salad.

Not only is psychological concept creep inherent in Cherie’s diatribe, it is also filled with a complex mixture of straw man, hasty generalization, and equivocation fallacies. This reckless admixture of rhetorical fallacies may or may not be intentional, but she certainly paints the issue with a brush broad enough to hide important nuances and thus creates the illusion that concepts like emotional pain and real trauma are synonymous.² That is, she treats poor parenting and abusive parenting exactly the same; and, by doing so, she blurs the line between categories of appropriate responses.

In the posts that follow, I will explore the development of the modern therapeutic self and concept creep that has accompanied it, the secular influence on parenting methods, some of which are now pervasive even among Christians, and the increased access to social communication that has enhanced what Sociologist Emile Durkheim has described as “the collective punishment of deviance,” a kind of tribal ritual that enhances cohesion and solidarity within peer groups. 

1. Cherie, Nia. “Why Are Gen Z and Millennials Separating from Their Parents?” Medium, May 11, 2024. https://medium.com/change-becomes-you/why-are-gen-z-and-millennials-separating-from-their-parents-5bc570b46842.

2. In the field of psychology, emotional pain (my parents divorced or neglected my emotional needs) and real trauma (I was raped or physically beaten) are categorically different, but have been made synonymous by this generation. Lukianoff, Greg, and Jonathan Haidt. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2019.