We’ve Been Subverted—And It’s Showing Up in Our Families

How demoralization, destabilization, crisis, and normalization are reshaping our understanding of kinship—and why we need to talk about it.

By Rachel Haack, MA, MFTI

I want to start by saying—I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I’m a therapist. I’m also a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, and a friend. I spend my days sitting with real people, real pain, and real relationships. I don’t live in an echo chamber or wear a tinfoil hat. But I also can’t ignore what I’m seeing.

There are patterns—deep, cultural patterns—that don’t just stay in politics or academia or social media. They trickle down into the way families function. Into the way we understand connection, conflict, harm, and healing. Into the way people decide whether to stay in relationship or walk away.

A few months ago, I came across Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s essay 'We Have Been Subverted', published in The Free Press. In it, she outlines a four-stage process used historically to undermine institutions and cultures: demoralization, destabilization, crisis, and normalization.

Her argument draws from the Soviet playbook—the ideological warfare used during the Cold War, where the goal was not direct military confrontation but psychological weakening. The idea was simple: if you could shake a society’s moral foundations, erode trust in its institutions, destabilize its inner cohesion, and then offer a new “normal,” you could reshape it from within—without firing a single shot.

And while her article speaks to civilizational decline, I couldn’t help but see the same sequence playing out in a more intimate arena: the family system.

This isn’t about political paranoia. It’s about patterns. And when I put on my therapist lens—trained to think systemically, to consider both the internal experience and the external forces acting on a relationship—I see clear signs that something bigger is shaping the way we relate to one another.

What follows is my attempt to map these four stages—demoralization, destabilization, crisis, and normalization—onto the modern family in the West, especially through the lens of estrangement ideology.

Because it’s not just that people are growing apart. It’s that we’re being taught to believe that growing apart is the most enlightened thing we can do.

Demoralization: The erosion of meaning in family relationships

This is where it starts: we stop believing that family is worth holding onto. That it’s sacred. That it matters.

I see it in the way people talk about parents now. Not as human beings with flaws and histories, but as emotional liabilities. "My mom is so toxic." "My dad's a narcissist." Every difficult relationship gets pathologized. Every mistake gets turned into a trauma label.

Let me be clear: some families are harmful. Abuse is real. But most of what I see? It’s not abuse. It’s just human pain, unhealed misunderstandings, mismatched expectations, personality differences, hurt that never got named, and love that was there—but maybe not in the way we needed it.

And demoralization doesn’t just show up in the language we use—it shows up in the broader cultural trends too. More people are opting out of having children or forming families altogether. And I want to say clearly: I support the freedom to make those choices. I’m grateful we live in a time when people can decide for themselves what kind of life they want to build.

But I also notice that this isn’t just about autonomy—it’s often about despair. There’s a widespread sense that this kind of work—raising a family, sacrificing for children, tending to generations—isn’t worth it. And honestly, I understand why. Look around: parents are constantly berated for their failures. The cultural message is loud and clear—“You owed me everything because you chose to have me. But I owe you nothing in return.”

It’s no wonder people feel demoralized. The idea that parenting is a lifelong one-way street, with no meaningful reciprocity, makes it feel like a terrifying investment. And worse—if you even admit you want something back from your children one day, you’re labeled selfish or entitled. Who would want to pour their whole heart into something that might end in isolation?

Destabilization: When therapy language replaces relationship skills

Once we devalue the intergenerational family, the next phase hits fast: destabilization. We don’t know how to relate anymore. Instead of growing in emotional maturity, we just get better at diagnosis language.

Boundaries are good. I teach them. But when boundaries are used like emotional walls instead of bridges, when every conflict is seen through a trauma lens, when “communication” just means sending a long text and blocking someone—we’re not healing. We’re just isolating.

And ironically, we often use boundaries in a way that mimics the very authoritarian parenting we say we’re breaking free from. We don’t call it punishment—but it often functions the same way. "If you don’t do what I say, you’re in time out." "If you do it again, you’re in time out longer." "If you do it again, I’m leaving you altogether." We’ve flipped the roles—now it’s adult children disciplining their parents for failing to live up to their standards. And it’s worth asking: is that really healing, or just reenactment?

Crisis: Estrangement becomes a cultural milestone

This is the part that breaks my heart. Estrangement is no longer something we mourn—it’s something we celebrate for the estranger.

Influencers tell you that if your mom hurt your feelings, it’s emotional abuse. If your dad didn’t validate every emotion, he’s emotionally immature. The bar is getting lower, and the diagnosis list is getting longer.

We’ve hit a tipping point where estrangement isn’t a last resort—it’s increasingly seen as a rite of passage, a marker of emotional evolution. But we need to question that framing. Even in religious spaces, this narrative is gaining traction. I’ve seen pastors and religious influencers online emphasize the importance of cutting off parents as a show of strength in one's marriage—turning what was once a biblical passage about the prioritization of the marital bond into justification for total cutoffs. It's become a black-and-white interpretation: leave and cleave means sever and discard. But that was never the spirit of the text. Prioritizing your marriage doesn't require abandoning your family. It requires maturity, boundaries, and balance—not estrangement.

And I know what some people will say: "We’re not subverted, we’re just finally refusing bad behavior." Or, "We’re not estranging—we’re cycle breaking."

And yes, sometimes cutting off contact really is the healthiest choice. I support anyone’s right to make that decision thoughtfully. But I also think we need to slow down and ask: are we cutting off dysfunction—or cutting off discomfort? Are we refusing to tolerate abuse—or refusing to engage in the repair work that all long-term relationships eventually require? We’ve flattened family life into a binary of healthy versus harmful, but most real relationships live in the space in between. Families are full of ambivalence—conflicting needs, unresolved histories, love tangled with frustration. That doesn’t automatically mean someone is on a power trip or trying to control another. Sometimes, the needs really do conflict. And navigating that tension—holding space for multiple truths, negotiating without erasing—is the heart of mature relational work.

Sometimes reciprocity, loyalty, moral obligation, and behaving relationally require us to be deeply uncomfortable or to sacrifice a portion of our own convenience for the greater good. That’s not self-betrayal. That’s not being abused. That’s what it means to live in community with people who are different, imperfect, and irreplaceable.

There’s a difference between breaking cycles and burning bridges. One is healing. The other is just erasure dressed up in therapeutic language.

And here’s something else we rarely talk about: why is it that most relationships are assumed to be reciprocal, except the parent-adult child relationship? Why do we expect friendship, romantic partnership, and siblinghood to involve give and take—but act as if only one party in the parent-child dynamic must continually earn their place, while the other holds the power to revoke connection at will? That kind of imbalance wouldn’t be acceptable in any other relationship, yet it’s often quietly justified here. We need to reflect on that.

Normalization: A new family narrative takes hold

Finally, we arrive at the new normal: families are optional, replaceable, non-essential. We tell ourselves that chosen family is better than biological family. That we don’t need parents or siblings as long as we have “safe people.”

But here’s what I see: it’s not working. People are lonelier than ever. Anxiety and depression are higher than ever in the West. Adult children who cut off their parents often feel adrift. Parents walk around with invisible grief—grief that is chronic, complicated, and largely invisible to the outside world. It’s a grief that has no rituals, no casseroles, no sympathy cards. Just silence. And it doesn’t just affect the parent-child relationship—it cascades outward. Grandchildren grow up never knowing their grandparents, robbed of a legacy and a wider sense of belonging. Siblings are divided, cousins drift apart, and entire family systems fracture—not because of outright abuse, but because two people couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do the painful work of reconciliation. The collateral damage of unresolved estrangement reaches beyond the immediate relationship—it ripples across generations, reshaping identities, histories, and emotional landscapes.

Real family—while imperfect and often painful—is one of the only places where we’re asked to stretch, grow, forgive, and learn what it means to be deeply human.

What do we do now?

We start by telling the truth. Estrangement ideology isn’t neutral—it’s a cultural movement with real costs. And it’s time we examine it with more honesty and less certainty.

We need to re-moralize family. We need language like loyalty, forgiveness, responsibility, and repair. Because if we want a future where families can thrive, we need more than boundaries. We need wisdom.

And wisdom doesn’t always sound like a TED Talk. Sometimes it sounds like:

“I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t know that hurt you.”

“I want to try again.”

That’s what saves families. It’s also what holds civilizations together.