I would have thought that the lack of technology would distance kids from parents more. My great grandparents hopped on a boat to another country and never saw their parents again. The lack of cheap air travel would have made visiting family cross country impractical for most in decades past, but I would fly back to see family on mere long weekends.

Good point. Unless you were the first-born and inherited the family farm you were probably forced to find your luck elsewhere and even 20 or 30 miles would mean effectively being separated from your parents for all but special occasions.

I would be curious to know when the median human in each century saw their parents for the last time in Western society. As there were so many events where soldiers went off to war and settled where they conquered or colonists sailed off around the world never to return or conquistadors decided to just stop somewhere and marry a local woman.

I bet for the median human over history that they typically lived with their parents until they passed. You still see that in a lot of families.

The context and interpretation is always shifting and different. The human condition is always the same. So much comes back to simple communication. Things people often struggle with that are required for honest communication: listening, empathy, vulnerability, patience. It isn't some great unsolved puzzle in most relationships. I have often found it only takes one side to start bridging the gap to start truly communicating. It is when both parties insist on being right and aggrieved and conceding nothing that estrangement happens. Of course there are many complex situations, mental illness, etc. It works the same way in business. Everything is so much easier when you can listen and empathize with people. Actually empathize, not just empathize with the goal of making a point or convincing someone of decision, etc.

I think the article really under-emphasizes the role of capitalism in this. If I need help with my kid, I don’t call my mom, I hire a babysitter. If my mom needs medical help, she won’t call me, she’ll pay a nurse. Goods and services that used to be procured through social bonds are now procured with cash - which creates a feedback loop where people then neglect their social bonds to acquire more cash.

Yeah, my pet theory is that there were two major shifts in human societies: nomadic to settlers and barter to money - everything else is details.

Of course I'm an engineer and know next to nothing about anthropology.

>and barter to money

>Of course I'm an engineer and know next to nothing about anthropology.

You're probably wrong here.

>There is no evidence, historical or contemporary, of a society in which barter is the main mode of exchange;[32] instead, non-monetary societies operated largely along the principles of gift economy and debt.[33][34][35] When barter did in fact occur, it was usually between either complete strangers or potential enemies.[36]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money#Non-monetary_...

“Barter” may not be the best term for it, but until the 18th/19th century (varied a lot by location), most people procured the physical goods they needed through their own family’s effort (subsistence); through in-kind payments and mutual exchange (old contracts used to specify that people would be paid in firewood, or candles…); and through favors. The switch from that model to a model of surplus and specialization, where people were paid in cash which could then be exchanged for any number of products, procured from distant places and from strangers, was indeed one of the most dramatic transformations in human history. I think we still don’t appreciate how much it shook up our old systems, and we blame things like divorce rates or child estrangement on newfangled values or bad morals when in fact they are a natural result of structural changes.

In a lot of ways having a close family or network of close friends brings you back into this gift economy. Sometimes you can do the job yourself but you just need an extra set of hands, and you return the favor in time.

Indeed. In Marxist theory this is called Alienation, or rather, this is one aspect of alienation. Humans no longer engaging in productive labor for the common good and providing what they can to their community, but existing as atomic economic units existing to produce and consume.

The divorce rate is higher and it's easier to be comfortable living independently, both of which are stated in the article and are unquestionable. There might be other reasons, but these are definitely breaking down relationships.