‘I blocked parents on social media — and I have no regrets’

Rebecca Visser, a 36-year-old content creator and stay-at-home mom from California, permanently cut ties with her mother nearly three years ago, blocking her on social media and on her phone — and she has no plans to reverse the decision. It wasn’t something she took lightly. “Adult children don’t go no contact out of the blue,” Visser tells The Independent. “It’s something that’s been building up, and once they’d done it — nine times out of 10 — it’s a last resort. If they’re going no contact, maybe it’s time to look at the parent and not necessarily the child.”

It’s a dilemma that has made headlines recently due to the reported chasm that has opened up between 26-year-old Brooklyn Beckham and his famous parents, soccer icon David and former Spice Girl-turned-designer Victoria. Responding to reports last month that his parents had unfollowed their estranged son on Instagram, Brooklyn’s 20-year-old brother, Cruz, claimed it was Brooklyn who had, in fact, blocked Posh and Becks. “My mum and dad would never unfollow their son... Let’s get the facts right. They woke up blocked... as did I,” he wrote. Days later, the Beckhams were celebrating Christmas with their children, Cruz, Romeo, 23, and Harper, 14 — while Brooklyn was in Miami with his wife, Nicola Peltz Beckham, 31, and her billionaire parents, Claudia and Nelson Peltz.

While the reasons behind Brooklyn’s reported estrangement from his parents remain private, no two decisions to cut off contact with a family member are ever the same. For Visser, the turning point came in her twenties, when she says she tried to speak with her mother about alleged abuse she experienced as a child involving both her mother and her stepfather. According to Visser, her mother was unwilling to acknowledge the allegations.

By 2023, Visser — now married with a three-year-old son — says she had accepted that her mother was never going to take accountability for the alleged abuse. She sent her one last email, telling her, “I can’t have contact with you until something changes. And I just know those changes aren’t going to happen.” Visser says the decisive moment came when the dynamic began to affect her own family. “When I brought up things about adulthood and childhood, my mother would make me feel crazy and say none of this ever happened. Once, I started seeing her do this in front of my son and husband, I said, ‘I’m going to put a stop to this.’”

Since cutting off contact with her mom, Visser says her stress and anxiety levels have reduced significantly, making her a better mom. “My first year of being a mom, especially being postpartum, was so stressful because of the abuse my mother was putting me through. Now that I’m without that, it gives me more ability to focus on my son,” she says. “As the last two years have gone by, it’s become more and more apparent that this was the best decision I could have made.”

Similarly, 31-year-old Annie Emerson says her mother struggled to take accountability for her actions. The Georgia-based hospice nurse says things reached a tipping point after she tried to confront her mother about her strict upbringing, which she says was shaped by the belief that children should be seen and not heard. According to Emerson, her mother simply accused her of misremembering her childhood.

Although the pair had argued for more than a decade, Emerson says one incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back: her mother placing Emerson’s two-year-old daughter in the front seat of a car on her step-grandfather’s lap. “My husband and I learned that she did not have a car seat with her,” the mother of two says. “She intentionally kept it from us until after she’d driven our daughter. When we said, ‘Hey, we’re not OK with this,’ she essentially said, ‘Well, you guys are being ridiculous and making a mountain out of a mole hill. This isn’t a big deal.’”

Emerson says she had no choice but to end her relationship with her mother, who wasn’t taking accountability for her actions. Just four months on, she says the decision has changed her life for the better. “ I have so much peace now. I have a great support system, from my husband, close friends, and my in-laws,” she says. “ I'm very grateful to feel like I’m allowed to be who I am. There was a lot of shrinking of myself I did around my mother for a very long time, in an effort to try to keep a relationship with her.”

For many of us who have strong relationships with our parents, the decision to cut ties with them seems unfathomable. Ariel Rae — a 29-year-old marketing agency co-founder from New Jersey — made that choice a year ago, and hasn’t spoken to her mother since. However, she says she’s already grown accustomed to acquaintances describing the estrangement as “sad.” “If you don’t accept it or get it, that’s OK,” she says. “I’m grateful that you’ve never experienced this level of pain. But I know this was the right decision I had to make for myself to heal, to be functioning in society and in my relationships, and to grow as an adult.”