Honoring and Breaking the Art of Shunning

A Good Shunning

My family has long practiced the art of shunning—naturally, practically, and with a kind of stubborn elegance.

In a cultural diversity class years ago, I explored my Scandinavian roots and found a theory that felt uncomfortably familiar: when winters are long, cold, and dark, families stay inside together for months at a time. In that environment, open conflict may be less adaptive than silence. If you can’t escape each other, you learn to withdraw within the room. You survive by not speaking.

I was very good at shunning.

I was raised in it.

My grandmother once did not speak to her own mother for over a year. When my granny died, my grandmother asked why she hadn’t been told—though she had been. The shunning was simply too complete to be interrupted, even by death.

When I was around ten, I watched a year-long shunning unfold between my mother and my grandmother. My grandfather was elderly and ill, in and out of the hospital. My grandmother believed her children were not caring for him adequately. This criticism did not truly apply to my mother—who had given deeply, consistently—but at a family meeting she was still nearly spanked out the door.

I was shamed too. My crime was asking my grandfather to help me with a school project. I didn’t know that his help meant my mother would “owe.” I didn’t know love could incur debt. For that, I am still sorry.

My mother and I were excellent shunners. She learned it from her mother, and her mother before her. I suspect I may be even better than my mother—though we’ll never know for sure, because my father wouldn’t allow in-home shunning to last longer than a week. When he’d had enough, he’d call us together, make me apologize, and restore peace to the house. Order, returned by force. Silence, broken.

I have shunned my husband.

It’s effective—though in healthier terms we now call it taking space.

I’ve shunned my daughter, who is impressively immune to most consequences. Shunning at least cues her that I am deeply upset; she either reflects or enters her own parallel silence.

I’ve shunned my son too—but he is a master shunner. The rule of a good shun is that it must be used rarely. We both know this. We cannot shun each other. It’s too painful.

I committed the cardinal sin of shunning: I named it.

I told my children that shunning is a skill I possess and use when necessary. Now they recognize a good shun immediately—and it doesn’t last long. A day, maybe. The spell breaks quickly once it’s exposed. If I weren’t such a fan of clear, assertive communication, I might be more upset.

So, apologies to the long lineage of shunners before me.

You served a purpose, I’m sure. You kept peace when words felt dangerous. You offered protection when repair felt impossible.

But I choose something else now.

Dialogue. Humility. Responsibility. Forgiveness.

So far, it has nourished us better.

🌱Good Beet Reflection:

What would it look like to feed this relationship with words instead of withholding them?