generational curse

plural generational curses

1. A curse on a family.

   Miraculously, God was breaking the generational curse that plagued the Wooten lineage.

   2005, Willie F. Wooten, Breaking the Curse Off Black America, →ISBN, page 22

   1 more example

   Customer service, to Ms. Sherrod, meant that someone like her — a young Black woman raised by her grandmother in small-town Mississippi — could make “a really good living.” “We’re breaking generational curses,” Ms. Sherrod said. “That’s for sure.”

   2023 July 19, Emma Goldberg, “‘Training My Replacement’: Inside a Call Center Worker’s Battle With A.I.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: ancestral curse, family curse