Family estrangement has become a fixture of the current cultural conversation, from bestselling memoirs to viral social posts about cutting off parents. A new national poll of older adults, however, finds that most are still closely connected to their grown children and grandchildren.
The Marquette Law School Poll, released in July, surveyed 1,514 adults nationwide from June 9-16, 2026, with a subsample of married respondents carrying a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
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Sixty-two percent of respondents said they trust their immediate family “a great deal,” a number that climbs with age rather than falling. Among adults 70 and older, 78% reported that same level of trust, compared with 47% of those 18 to 29, according to the poll’s published results.
Proximity told a similar story. Forty-five percent of parents with adult children said all of their kids live within 50 miles, and another 37% have at least one child nearby even if others live farther away. Only 18% said all of their adult children live more than 50 miles away.
Key Points
- 78% of adults 70 and older say they trust their immediate family “a great deal.”
- 82% of parents with adult children have at least one child living within 50 miles.
- 50% of grandparents provide childcare at least monthly, rising to 56% when grandchildren live nearby.
That geographic closeness translates into hands-on involvement with grandchildren. Half of grandparents surveyed said they provide childcare at least monthly, a figure that rises to 56% when their grandchildren live within that 50-mile radius and falls to 18% when all grandchildren live farther away.
The poll’s own summary put it plainly: “Relatively few of those in later life, including after 70, are isolated from their children.” That conclusion runs counter to the impression left by a steady stream of estrangement narratives in recent years, even though the poll doesn’t dispute that estrangement happens or that it can be painful for the families involved when it does.
What the data suggests instead is a split experience: a vocal minority of families dealing with distance or disconnection exists alongside a much larger group of older adults who see their kids often, trust them deeply and stay actively involved in raising the next generation.
Trust levels also varied by other factors the poll tracked, including marital status and income. Married respondents reported a great deal of trust in family at 71%, compared with 50% among those who have never married, while trust climbed from 51% among households earning under $50,000 to 76% among those earning more than $100,000.
The poll’s authors did not frame their findings as a rebuttal to estrangement coverage specifically, but the numbers land at a moment when family cutoffs have become a recurring topic in books, podcasts and social media. Both realities can be true at once: some families are genuinely fractured, while a larger share of older Americans remain woven into their children’s and grandchildren’s daily lives.
