Another woman on Xiaohongshu, @Qianqian, said she had cut ties with her relatives, who kept prying into her private life and comparing her with their children, while taking advantage of her resources.

The 34-year-old single woman said she also resented relatives who pushed her to get married “because her parents are getting old”.

She said real filial piety is to support her parents whenever they need help, not to sacrifice her own life.

Hu Xiaowu, a sociologist and associate professor at Nanjing University’s School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, told the Post that the older generations’ disrespect of social boundaries is a significant reason behind the phenomenon of cutting ties.

A survey he did last year revealed a diminishing attachment to family in the younger generation.

Fewer than 30 per cent of people between the age 18 and 30 keep in touch with their family and relatives, and for those under the age 18, more than 60 per cent almost never contact home unless some urgent matters come up.

Hu also blamed wider social problems such as young people’s detachment on rapid urbanisation and social atomisation in the digital age.

Another reason, Hu said, is nei juan, or “involution”. Young people are being pushed to work harder at school or work and sacrifice quality time with their family.

For some, severing ties with their family has become the only way to find peace.

Liu Lian, 38, told the Post she had not been home for years, and had wiped her father’s contact details.

She said she could not forgive her parents for preferring boys since she was young.

The second daughter among four sisters and one little brother, Liu said she and her older sister were forced to do most of the housework as primary school pupils, and suffered constant beating from their ill-tempered father almost every day.

She said her biggest dream then was to run away from home.

After graduating from university, Liu kept buying clothes and gifts for her parents, saying the little girl inside her wanted to win their love.

But her snobbish parents sniffed at her gifts, and even threatened to throw away an oven she bought them because her job was not well-paid and she did not have a decent apartment or car.

She said her father continued to neglect her even when she got divorced.

Liu made up her mind to cut ties with them after seeing them treating their ill parents badly.

She told the Post she had been struggling between filial responsibility and the pain of not being loved by her parents for a long time, and she eventually decided to liberate herself.

Another person, nicknamed Banli, moved from her home city, Shanghai, to the less developed southwestern province of Yunnan with her husband, to get away from her parents.

She said her father had been inflicting violence on her mother since she was young, and she did not want her son to grow up under their influence.

Hu told the Post that despite finding little gender difference in the 1,200 questionnaires he collected for the survey, he found more women talked about cutting ties on social media.

Hu added that women suffered from more social intolerance than men.

The professor said the younger generation’s voluntary detachment from their family could be a turning point for the older generations to reflect on their problems.

He also expected young people to return home after they “become parents themselves and learn the importance of family kinship”.

Liu said she went through much pain to break away from her family, and only wanted to focus on her own happiness in the future.

“I will still pay my father’s medical fees when he gets old and ill, but that’s it,” she said, adding: “It feels good to set myself free.”