Father's Day weekend isn't automatically a time to celebrate. Dads must earn their holiday.

For adult children who have traumatic relationships with their parents, holidays like Mother's Day and Father's Day are complicated at best and at worst emotional scourges. Many survivors of childhood dysfunction are at a loss for how to celebrate these pseudo-traditions in a way that remains authentic to themselves and their healing.

Therapists’ offices and survivor-focused social media groups are replete with people exchanging ideas for how to survive family-oriented holidays in the face of problematic or abusive parental behavior. As the unwitting recipient of a dysfunctional childhood, I participate in online recovery groups for adult children where I’ve shared similar concerns myself.

There seems to be a growing awareness that not all parent-child relationships are cut from the same loving and nurturing cloth. Some companies are even starting to provide easy ways for customers to opt out of advertisements around Mother’s and Father’s Day. However, the taboos and stigma that follow adult children who distance themselves from their parents suggest that deciding to cut ties isn’t exactly widely supported.