Withholding Information

I came across a discussion at Dot Moms this morning. I found the title 'When Do You Lie To Your Kids' quite interesting and I fear in my effort to evaluate the lies I tell my daughter, I may have clogged the blog (thanks for that lovely rhyme Julia) with my own thoughts and I may have missed the point the author was trying to make.

I think her point was on a more personal level and I was thinking in a more global sense and instead of continuing to Clog the Blog (wow, it doesn't get any easier to type that) I thought I'd go to my corner to think some more.

I grew up in a home full of secrets. Secrets sometimes kept because the truth was too painful and secrets kept simply because the truth didn't come up or maybe the secrets were really just stories which didn't seem important. As I learned some family secrets, I was sometimes horrified and other times merely surprised. Sometimes I was not upset by the missing information and other times I was shocked and extremely disappointed by the decision to leave out part of our shared family history.

Now I am a mother and I have a five year old daughter. Still quite young, but I think this is the time we set the tone for honesty and truth in our family. I always believed I would be honest with my children. I never wanted the family I created to have the undertones of silence my family of origin did.

Five years into the process of creating my own family, I realize how easily things become secrets and how the process of honesty is not as black and white as it once appeared to the idealistic person I can be. As I've navigated my way through the truth and honesty of history and honesty of reality of our life, I've become much more understanding of my own parents intentions when raising my siblings and I. I may not agree with all the choices they made and I may not choose to do things the same and I may not make the same mistakes they made. But I will make my own choices and I will make my own mistakes and I will have only the best intentions for my daughter and my son and I can only hope that one day they will understand what my intent was. To give them information as they needed it and as they could understand and process it.

In my family we are honest about death. We talk about cemetaries as happy places where we go to remember the people we have lost. My daughter is not afraid of death and dying. We talk about it as a part of life and we talk about all the feelings that go with losing someone we love.

My father died while I was a teenager. We talk about that because my daughter wonders where my father is. We tell her in simple terms my father was sick and he died. Which is essentially true, however, there is much more to that story. It is a painful story of alcoholism and suicide and though I intend to tell that story to my daughter, I do wonder when will be the 'right' time to do that. When will she require that information? When will she be ready to understand it? Will she be too young at 10? Will she be too vulnerable to teenage angst at 15? If I wait until she is an adult, will she feel I held back the truth from her? That I kept our true family history a secret from her?

It is complicated and though I have every intention of being truthful with my children there are always shades of gray and intentions don't prevent us from making mistakes. My parents know that and I am now learning about that.

Sometimes I lie to protect my daughter from things which are out of her control. I lie when I tell her that Mommy and Daddy will never die. I lie when I tell her she will not be kidnapped. I lie when I tell her she will not get a disease like cancer and be very sick.

I don't know if any of that is true. We talk openly about sexuality (in the five year old sense of the term) and we talk about protecting ourselves against abduction and sexual abuse. We talk about staying healthy by exercising and eating right and seeing our doctor when we don't feel well. We talk openly about friends who are sick with cancer and who get better or maybe they don't. I empower my daughter by talking frankly with her about these things, but I see no point in telling her I could die, or in telling her someone could abduct her.

Still, telling her none of this will ever happen to her is a lie. The lies I choose to tell I tell with only the best intentions for her well being. Will my intentions mean something to her someday when I've made my mistakes and done things differently than she may have wanted? I certainly hope so. For now I am just navigating my way through motherhood and doing the very best I can and evaluating everything I do in a way so neurotic, Woody Allen suddenly seems kind of normal.

Comments

[Charla]

I distinctly remember the day I realized that my parents were going to die. I still dwell on it even as an adult; I admit that I am terrified of their death (and now my husband and child's). Would it be any different if my mom/dad had outright told me "hey, you know, we aren't going to be around forever..." - hell yes, it would have! My snug little happy world would have been filled with thoughts of when and how. I just believe it is better to let children ask rather than offer everything on a plate the first chance you get.

Right now the answer you give her about your dad being sick and dying is enough, because she hasn't asked (that you have said) how he was sick. Being a comforting parent is not cause for calling someone a liar, and I doubt your children will call you that either.

[jilbur]

I still remember a conversation I had with someone (not a parent) about telling my at-the-time 3 year old that, although her grand-grandfather had just died, "Daddy and I are not going to die." She accused me of "lying" and said, "if you do die when she is still a child, she will never forgive you for having lied to her," or some such really, really useful feedback,

I think that's utter crap. A 3-year old can't process "probably" or "someday" or "extremely unlikely." Saying, "probably we're not going to die for a long time" wouldn't make any sense--it would be like saying, "hmmm, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe not, who knows?" Now that she's 6, it's still an extremely difficult topic for her. It occurred to her on her own that we will 'someday' die because that concept of 'someday' is starting to take shape, and she did get scared. When she asked about it I said, "Well, no one lives forever, but we're going to be here a long, long time until you are very old yourself, and you really don't need to worry about it. We're all going to be together for a long, long time."

Charla's point about 'when they ask' is to me the most important one. I've heard, and trust on a gut level, that kids don't ask what they're not ready to hear--and by 'ask,' I mean, when you give the slide-by answer they persist.

I do use that "but you really, really don't need to worry about it" line when it comes to those uncertain, unlikely things like bad illness and death, because that is true--worrying about those things does not help keep you safe and whole. Basically, I guess I'm going a very similar path to you.

For your sake, I am grateful for the measure of peace that has come to you in forgiving your parents for their mistakes during your upbringing. For me, that in itself has been an immeasurable source of strength in my own parenting.