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Gen Z Is Blaming Their Parents for Their Problems, and Psychologists Say They Have a Point

Therapists say blaming parents can reveal old wounds, but healing means turning that anger into insight and reflection.

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Gen Z didn’t invent the idea that your parents mess you up. They just decided to say it out loud, on camera, to several million strangers.

A new study from Edubirdie found that a significant slice of Gen Z has landed squarely on their parents as the source of their struggles—25% blame their parents for their physical or mental health problems, 17% say their family is the reason they have trouble in relationships, and 15% attribute their low motivation directly to how they were raised. A smaller, more unequivocal 5% take it further and put everything going wrong in their lives at their parents’ feet.

Therapists, largely, are not here to argue with them.

Jessica Anne Pressler, LCSW, a Columbia University-trained psychotherapist and........

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