20 Million Brits Are Not Speaking To Family Members
Nearly 20 million Brits are not speaking to their family members after bitter bust ups, according to a study of 3,000 adults. The stats revealed that we are more likely to stop taking to our mothers than anyone else.
The research revealed that arguments over money, favouritism and disliking a partner were the top reasons behind family fall outs. Most are resolved within a year but incredibly 1 in 5 families have gone more than 3 years without talking to a loved one, with one in ten refusing to speak to someone for more than 20 years.
The statistics emerged from a study by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, carried out to mark the launch of Family Guy Season 9 on DVD today.
Many of these family feuds never get resolved with one fifth of adults admitting that a family member had gone to the grave before making peace. A third would go as far as calling their families ‘dysfunctional’ and that they are happy to go for long periods of time without talking to someone.
Another revelation that came out of the research was that everyone could imagine their family being more dysfunctional if they had a celebrity relative in the mix. Sharon Osborne as a mum and Gazza as a dad came out on top, with Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty also considered the worst people to have as relatives.
Yesterday a Twentieth Century Fox spokesperson said: "It seems the Griffin family are perhaps not as unusual as we like to think they are. It seems that we all have difficult family members and that we all struggle to get along from time to time.
"Although mums were the family members we were most likely to fall out with the study showed that women were much more likely to recognize if their family behaved dysfunctionally and if there were problems.
"It is sad that so many people don’t talk. As dysfunctional as the family in Family Guy are they still get along and talk to one another. It’s also interesting to see that as much as we love fame in Britain, we certainly wouldn’t want certain celebrities in our family
"Another revelation that came out of the research was that everyone could imagine their family being more dysfunctional if they had a celebrity relative in the mix. Sharon Osborne as a mum and Gazza as a dad came out on top, with Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty also considered the worst people to have as relatives."
Forty per cent of Brits admitted to actually disliking members of their family. Females are more likely to dislike someone and this increases if that person is a step-relative.
After mums, dads were in second place and sisters in third for family members to fall out with. Females took the blame for family feuds with eight out of ten people surveyed saying that it was women that were responsible for starting any trouble.
Most Brits wish that their families would get along and would like to make peace as soon as possible but half admit that they often feel they get dragged in to things through family loyalty. More than half think there is at least one black sheep in every family.
Tagged in Parenting