I haven’t seen Doug’s film yet (because it hasn’t yet come to Washington - which we all hope it will!)
But here’s my thought. I actually know way more about my parents than I ever wanted to. There is an aspect of divorce, and my parents divorced when I was 12 - or at least that’s when the process started - where I ended up finding out a lot about them and their relationship, lots of things that I never wanted to know anything about nor really had any business knowing about.
My parents got divorced in the 70’s - before people accepted divorce and anyone “knew how to do it.” Now, there are all kind of books, self-help groups, “putting the kids first” mechanisms that try to shield children, but at that time no one had come up with those paliatives.
No matter what, when a family is torn apart - lots of pieces of information - self-help books aside - end up emerging that kids would just as soon not know. It’s like all the snakes just crawl out of the box.
So my attitude about my own kids - I have three, 20, 18 and 16 -is that there are things that are just none of their damn business - both about my relationship with their father and about me as an individual. I figure as long as I treat them fairly and honestly on that things that do involve them, then that should be sufficient.
But maybe this is the attitude of someone who had too much information - too much, too soon.
It’s really good to hear this perspective as most of us by the time we reach middle age wish we knew much more about our parents but we can’t assume everyone feels that way.
Am sorry for your overload of information as a child. That must have been very difficult for you. I think your stance with your own kids is probably wise but hopefully when they’re older, more mature adults you’ll open up to them more. You are a big part of the legacy that they’ll be left with after you’re gone and they will no doubt want the blank pages filled in to some extent. I don’t think our kids need to have details of our entire history but knowing what challenged you and how you overcame the rough places in life (if that’s the case) is most valuable. If you don’t tell them, they’ll be left to guess and speculate, which is what my brothers and I have been doing for years - trying to fill in those pages.
Thanks for your story.
Jan
By: Jan Hayward, on Oct 06, 2006