My theory on why parental estrangement has become a more common talking point is that the advent of technology fundamentally changed how parental estrangement works and is seen by others.
Pre-internet, if you wanted to get away from your family, you moved away far enough for it to be unrealistic to be visited without planning (eg needing flights or boats or multiple days of travel), and you might send letters to your family or not, and you might visit them once a year or not, and that was all seen as fairly normal behaviour for someone who moved that far away. The parents neighbours have no way of keeping tabs on you, and your parents dont either - theres no facebook or anything, so theres no gossip that your parents are kept out of by being blocked online while your neighbour isnt.
Compare that to the modern day, where the parent can SEE the estranged child active online, can digitally stalk them, and so can the neighbours/other friends/family, so other people can notice that their kid isnt posting a mothers or fathers day message, they arent being tagged in photos of family events, theres no mention or sight of them on their kids page...... and their kid looks a LOT happier and MUCH different than they did when they lived at home......
Basically, tech has enabled estranged parents more access to their missing children than ever before, and has made their estrangement much more visible to their community than before, hence why the topic is talked about more. If a neighbour comes over and sees an old photo of your kid, and asks how they're doing, you can laugh it off and say "oh they send letters all the time, but they forget to send photos, so i pick them up when i visit, and i havent gone in a while on account of (injury/price/other minor issue), you know how it is", and the actual fact that their child hasnt spoken to them in 5+ years and they dont know where they live now is not mentioned. Compare that to the much more visible and much harder to argue or defend against - facebook post about celebrating adoptive mothers on mothers day, with their child celebrating with their partner's mother, and no mention of their biological one, which might be seen by any friends/family left behind locally, who are then made aware of the reality in a way that the estranged parent cannot control.
Its all about control, and in some ways, tech has removed the estranged parent's control over the narrative as well as their child, and thats what has them so riled up, imo
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