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 author of the forthcoming “Traitor Within,” told the New York Post that blame functions diagnostically. “Blame tells you where the wound is; it doesn’t close it,” she said. In her view, acknowledgment is a prerequisite, not an indulgence. In nearly four decades of practice, she says she’s never watched a client actually heal without first reckoning with what was done to them and that it wasn’t their fault.
The conversation has moved well outside the therapy room. On TikTok, Gen Z is working through its family history in real time, with comment sections full of people nodding along. “My fatal flaw is because my own parents failed me, I think everyone is going to fail me,” one poster told her followers. “If I ever go mentally insane, just know it’s my mom’s fault,”said another.
it be like that #traumatok #fatalflaw #childhoodtraumacheck #damagedgoods
Therapists Say Gen Z Blaming Their Parents Can Be a Step Toward Healing
The numbers give that venting some context. A May 2025 survey of over 1,000 Gen Z Americans found 42% are currently in therapy—up 22% since 2022—and they’re going primarily for anxiety, depression, and trauma. The Edubirdie study adds another layer: 52% of Gen Z respondents said they’d been physically or verbally abused by a parent, which puts a lot of the TikTok confessionals in a different light.
What Pressler and other clinicians are careful to note is that blame is a doorway, not a destination. “You need to go into your childhood and bear witness to the relationship that you had with your parents, not to get stuck, but to gain insight,” she told the Post. The point isn’t to stay angry—it’s to get clear on what actually happened and why it followed you here.
For those who can’t get there yet, nearly 10% of Gen Zers have gone no-contact with a parent entirely. Pressler told the Post she supports that call when it’s rooted in safety rather than avoidance. “The concept of no contact exists to keep a person safe,” she said—and for anyone who experienced physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, she considers it entirely understandable, whether it’s temporary or permanent.
The goal, most clinicians will tell you, is to understand your parents well enough that they stop running your life from the inside.
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