Estrangement has always existed. What’s new is the language we now have for pain earlier generations often had to swallow. This article explores how parents and adult children can tell the truth about hurt without losing compassion, humility, or the chance for repair.

Every decade asks a different question of us, and most family conflict comes from two people answering different ones. This is the introduction to the Generational Clues series, a decade-by-decade look at what each season of life is quietly asking of us, from the 20s through the 70s and beyond.

Today’s 20-somethings are not becoming adults in the same world their parents did. They are trying to find themselves in a louder, faster, more expensive world — while parents are learning that distance is not always rejection. Sometimes, it is the space young adults need to become.