For Gordie, he was constantly being compared to his late brother, Denny. We could see how Gordie took second chair to his brother in a scene in which Gordie and his family were sitting around the table; and, as they were talking, all of the discussion was focused on Denny, Even when Denny tried to switch topics onto Gordie's writing, his father would immediately redirect the conversation back onto Denny. While reflecting on the death of his brother, Gordie mentions that, "This summer I had become the invisible child." This statement displays how removed Gordie feels from his parents. While Ellen and Gordie feel more emotionally detached from their parents, Holden experiences both emotional and physical separation from his parents. Being constantly moved from one boarding school to another, Holden lacks a certain intimacy with his parents. At the beginning of the novel he stated, " my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them." (P. 1) The not being able to discuss personal matters further stresses the issue that Holden and his parents" relationship was deficient of any closeness, and he was therefore both emotionally and physically detached from his parents. Each of these characters displays a certain confusion in their struggle to understand themselves which, at the cause of it, is a parental relationship in turmoil.
As the ends of the three stories drew nearer, it became more evident that Ellen's relationship with her parents and Holden and Gordie's relationships with their parents had evolved and were no longer at similar stages as they were in the beginning. Each of these three characters took different paths in resolving their issues with their parents. Where Ellen was able to start anew with her foster family, Holden and Gordie were forced to find resolution through other means, such as siblings or friends. At the end of Ellen Foster, there is a moment in which Ellen is lying in bed and says, "I have laid in my bed many many days since that first afternoon I heard her in the kitchen and I am always as glad to rest as I was then.