A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

> 26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity, as "normal, natural, healthy."

When Stalin came to power, homosexuality became a topic unfit for public depiction, defense or discussion. Homosexual or bisexual Soviets who wanted a position within the Communist Party were expected to marry a person of the opposite sex, regardless of their actual sexual orientation

The Khrushchev government believed that absent of a criminal law against homosexuality, the sex between men that occurred in the prison environment would spread into the general population

The first Khrushchev-era sex education manual...described homosexuals as child molesters: "...homosexuals are aroused by and satisfy themselves with adolescents and youngsters, even though the latter have a normal interest towards girls

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Thousands of people were imprisoned for homosexuality and government censorship of homosexuality and gay rights did not begin to slowly relax until the early 1970s

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In 1984, a group of Russian gay men met and attempted to organize an official gay rights organization, only to be quickly shut down by the KGB

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On 27 May 1993, homosexual acts between consenting males were legalised

> 40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

The 1944 Edict... sought to preserve the family unit by making divorces even more difficult to obtain

You'll have to provide some evidence that your list is anything to do with McCarthyist Commumism fears

In therapy circles and attachment theory land, this is exactly what's supposed to happen when you receive "good enough parenting". Good enough parenting means your parents actually tried and either worked through any of their issues preventing them from giving care to their children, or didn't have those issues in the first place. So the idea goes, you end up developing a relationship based on mutual respect, love, and level-headedness.

The problem is, not everyone is lucky enough to receive that kind of childhood care, even though it seems like it should be universal. Lots of people are massively fucked up and still have kids anyway, either accidentally or otherwise. And then their kids are put at a massive disadvantage in life and in human relationships.

It's usually difficult for people with decent upbringings to even conceptualize why a child might willingly remain estranged from their family. But there are a lot of people out there with really good reasons to do that.

Children. Or grown children. Or offspring.

Huge agreement on including abuse.

It's hard to make this question grounded in data, but here's an anecdote I do think is accurate.

My grandfather was a horrific man. He died of complications due to alcoholism before I was born. That said, I've heard a lot about just what he was like, including from people outside the family. I've also seen 16mm film footage of him at family holidays, and it's shockingly clear every single other person in the room is straight up terrified of his potential temper. I'm not exaggerating on this point. I think he must have had something going very, very, wrong inside that skull.

My grandmother, who otherwise was a fiercely independent woman, stayed with him despite the abuse. My Dad, hitchhiked to Mexico one summer to escape him, but otherwise still tried to be the good son.

Why? Why not just divorce/disown the asshole?

The norms against that half a century ago were so much stronger. I do think that's an important shift that's happened recently. There's still plenty of people that stay in a bad situation due to loyalty, but the stigma, in the sense of victim blaming, has definitely eroded within my lifetime.

This is a very good thing in my book, even if it looks like a decay of society to some idiots.

*sowing

Also, you're bringing up the textual source of the term, not its general connotation. The connotation is when an abuser, cheater, or otherwise harm causing individual decides to try to rewrite history or attack the competence of the individual bringing the grievance rather than address the grievance in good faith. There is a big difference between disagreeing on the facts of a situation and trying to invalidate someone's perception of the situation in a manipulative way to avoid blame. If your first instinct when someone says "you hurt me" is to argue why it's not your fault, you should probably talk to a therapist about that. That is how a lot of families work, and will even couch it in terms of "tough love" despite it being frankly abusive behavior. To use the word of the day, that's toxic.