Choosing (And Surviving) No-Contact With A Parent, with Jinjara Mitchell (Filmmaker/Subject of The Ornament)

Have you ever seriously considered ending your relationship with a parent? If you think that sounds inconceivable, you wouldn’t be alone...but you would be wrong. In the U.S., there's a growing trend of adult children choosing to go "no contact" with their parents, meaning they sever all communication and interaction, often permanently. The exact stats on permanent no-contact are difficult to find and can overlap with temporary estrangement (estimated as high as 25% of US adults), but we do know both of those figures are growing.

So why would someone, in the absence of physical violence, choose to go no-contact with their mom or dad? Jinjara Mitchell is beginning to shed light on that with her recent film, The Ornament. A filmmaker, actress and media personality, she has been no contact with her mother for almost 10 years now. The Ornament is based on her experience at age 10 of completing a homework assignment describing what her mom did with her and her siblings at Christmas. A well-known author and motivational speaker at the time, Jinjara says her mom was a totally different person when nobody was watching.

The Ornament is an honest window in to how far a child will go to protect the image & ego of an abusive parent, how much she would endure for a glimmer of maternal love….and what it takes to give yourself permission to walk away from a parent-child relationship that despite the white picket fence, turned your first 18 years into a fight for survival. After you hear her story, if you didn’t before, you will see very clearly why a child might one day grow up to justifiably cut their parent entirely out of their own life.