Another thread mentioned the harm caused by a family secret of cancer diagnoses that were not disclosed. The thread talked about the generational challenges some elders have in discussing, “female cancers.”
Non disclosure of medical history is one type of family secret, but there certainly are others as well. Does your family have secrets? Why have things been kept as such? How do you feel about family secrets, in general?
It’s not my intention for everyone to divulge family secrets on this thread. I mean, you can if you want, but I’m more interested in the motives for keeping family secrets. Perhaps those can’t be discussed without the context of what the secret is - I don’t know.
I did not learn until I was around 22-23 years old or so that my mother had been married before she was married to my dad and that she and her first husband had two children who had both died in infancy. I’m not sure why she waited until I was so old to tell me this. In fact I recently learned that one of my childhood friends had known long before I did when we were in high school because her parents knew for some reason (her dad worked with my dad). I do understand that age-appropriateness is a factor in some family secrets, but I remember sort of feeling betrayed (not sure that is the right word??) that I had not been told earlier in life.
Concealing information is awfully close to lying, I think, and I struggle with that aspect of secret keeping, even if intentions are good.
One person might think someone protecting their privacy on non-affecting others topics a “secret” - to me that’s just keeping some things private.
I come from a more private family and my H comes from a family where his mom and sisters were on the phone daily spilling the dish on EVERYTHING. I had to repeat and repeat to my H early on that there were certain things - especially things related to health (like if I needed a medical procedure) that I did NOT want him to tell his family. I usually wasn’t telling mine either. My body, my choice to share or not! (It wasn’t anything that others needed info on). Was that a secret? I say no.
We had many family secrets in my grandparents’ generation, mostly about children born out of wedlock. Everyone was catholic and thought it was a huge sin so there were all kinds of elaborate stories about fathers dying before babies were born. I was in my 30s until someone finally told me the truth.
There were also family feuds and decade long grudges that I didn’t get the tea on until I was an adult. Explained a lot of behavior at holiday gatherings.
I remember feeling a bit hurt that my parents didn’t trust me with the information earlier but this was really inconsequential.
Secrets that directly impact others are a different matter.
@Hoggirl I didn’t tell our D’s until they were in their teens that I had been married before. I married at 22 divorced at 23. We had no children and my ex lives in Northern California and I have not seen him since we divorced. There was really no reason to tell them when they were younger. Once they were teenagers I told them and it was no big deal.
My cousins didn’t know their mom was adopted and were trying to parse the family medical history. My sis and I were puzzled because we knew their mom was adopted and there for the extended family history was largely irrelevant to their medical risks. Sis told older cousin one night when the older cousins gathered at a bar. That cousin was shocked and very upset.
Years later, I mentioned it to younger cousin, since she was talking about extended family’s medical history and how that may affect her and her kids. She was shocked and very upset.
My sis and I were very surprised and puzzled as to why their mom didn’t share this important info, especially as the cousins were adults with children and trying to understand their medical genetic risks.
People are free to disagree with me, and I’m not saying this is related to my family specifically, but I think in earlier generations (farther back than my parents) many “sensitive” issues were just not talked about, or sometimes even “dealt with” that now show up on the national news. For example, there was incest in families/inappropriate touching, alcoholism, drug addiction, etc. that families tried to hide more.
I’m Gen X. Most of my peers’ parents were some of the first boomers who started marrying in the early 60s. Divorce came on the scene and they got divorced in droves!
My folks married in '64 and never divorced. My mom was one of only a handful of people from her high school that didn’t have a “starter” marriage. My parents should have gotten divorced, but never mind that! It seems like most of that whole generation had early marriages and divorces. And many of them didn’t tell their kids about it, or the kids found out pretty late. It probably seemed either shameful, or like no big deal perhaps? It really is no big deal most of the time. Gen X and younger generations tended to delay marriage rather than rush into it. Living with your partner was the big effing deal for Gen X, as many of our boomer parents came unglued about that. They got over it and of course it’s more common than not now.
Similarly, they often had pregnancy losses, or even children who died after birth, and they never told their surviving children about it. I know an adult who JUST found out about two deceased siblings when her mom realized she’d see their graves in the family plot at her grandmother’s funeral. She called her and told her on the phone while she was on her way there. Her father has visited the graves every month after all these years. I guess it was just too painful to discuss. But boy, what a difficult and weird experience for my friend. She said “no wonder I’m emotionally repressed, it all makes sense now!”
All three of my parents (may dad and stepmom, and my “real” mom. Only stepmom is still with us) have kept health secrets from us kids. It’s annoying, tbh. We could have helped. I guess the elderly don’t want to be a burden, but it’s almost more burdensome to wait until it’s too late.
I’m 100% certain my dad kept a big secret about his heritage from us kids (thanks Ancestry) but there is no way to know for sure. I am sure he kept this secret to avoid scandal/embarrassment about his parents. PSA: you might get more than you bargained for with a DNA kit.
Family secrets to some, personal information to others. I have a very strong sense that people should have control of their lives. This includes their body, all of their personal choices, their relationships, their trajectory in life and all the rest. Some might call these “secrets” I feel people also have the right to keep what they don’t want shared “secret”, especially in this day and age.
I think that one’s health issues are a private matter. I once had a diagnosis that was extreme ( terminal). I needed a test and I waited for that test for about a week. During this time, I didn’t share it with anyone but my husband and sister. My kids were toddlers. Fortunately, it worked out and I had something else. Could’ve gone the opposite way too.
My grandmother had a huge secret, a kid whom she gave up for adoption. We were very close and she told me what happened. It was very sad. She had two kids and met someone then discovered she was pregnant with her exes kid. She could either give the child up or return to the domestic violent situation. She chose to give her baby up. He was adopted by a loving family and found us when he was about 40. He looked exactly like us. And his kid went to the same high school I did ( but was a few years after me). My grandmother went on to marry the man she had met and lived 40 years happily with him. Her choice, her secret. I never judged.
The idea that we are all entitled to get a window into someone else’s private life is something I just don’t get, even for medical things. If I want to know something, I’ll get a genetic test.
I think it’s very different when it’s your own family vs friends. One of the heritage situations directly impacted genetic/medical history. It can also be very, very isolating for children dealing with alcoholism, abuse, and violence when everyone is trying to keep it a secret.
I just want to clarify that I’m not angry with my mother in law. But for a woman who talks A LOT and I mean A LOT! I was a little frustrated that when my daughter called her about the one cancer diagnosis we knew about that she didn’t think to mention the others. She’s frustrating like that sometimes, in the way older people can be. She tells me all kinds of stories about her neighbor and her grandson’s dog. But it’s all ok. Wouldn’t have changed anything. But I digress…
My dad had an aunt that later he found out was his sister. She came to our family gatherings and although she and my dad weren’t close, they were siblings and she was an extremely nice person. Since my dad didn’t have a great mom, I hope hers was better, I think she was.
My sister in law was always told her family ancestry was Italian. Her dad was very proud of the Italian ancestry. My sil did a DNA test and it showed she was 25% sub Saharan African descent. Oops! My nephew (who looks biracial but identifies as white) told his black friends what they found out. They laughed and told him that they knew
My sister in law’s parents refuse to talk about it or do DNA testing.
There seem to be a few different reasons someone may keep “heritage secrets”, some of which may be less scandalous or not scandalous now compared to then.
That seems to go beyond mere omission if they were referring to genetic heritage (as opposed to descent from immigrant minorities in Italy who could reasonably claim Italian ethnic / cultural heritage).
We found out one family “secret” that wasn’t necessarily a secret, it just wasn’t ever discussed. My paternal grandmother was the oldest of five girls (as well as another sister who died as a baby). Her mom died young, leaving my grandmother to take on the maternal role of the household. Something happened with one of her sisters early in their marriages and she basically was out of the picture. My grandmother and her other four sisters were extremely close. Well, we never even knew about the other sister until my grandfather died and she came to his funeral! She couldn’t believe we didn’t know she existed - and she was welcomed back as if nothing happened (turned out she was the nicest of them all and we we bummed we missed so many years of knowing her).
There are other unexplained things we will never know the answer - like my maternal grandmother never kept in touch with her family after marrying my grandfather. My mom has no idea why, never met her grandparents. Whatever happened went to the grave with my grandmother.
My sister is adopted at a time when a lot of people adopted children but didn’t tell them they were adopted. My parents never had any intention of doing that to my sister, but it was fairly impossible anyway since my sister is biracial (white bio mom/black bio dad). My parents were very open, and eventually my sister was able to get her adoption records and find her birth parents as an adult and met both sides. Her bio dad and his wife came to meet her at my parents’ house and they have a very good relationship (long story, he did not want to give her up). Crazy part is my brother’s wife worked with the bio dad’s sister for years - we have a unique last name so when all this was happening, the sister asked my SIL if she was related to my sister. Couldn’t believe such a small world (they worked for a large company in Wash DC).
Probably 40 years ago, when I was dating my husband, his mother mentioned that his first cousins were both adopted. I asked my husband why he had never told me. Turns out he didn’t know. He was around the same age as the two adopted cousins and so he had no memory of them being adopted (his older sister did). It was just not talked about, so he had never known.
