Parenting: TELLING
KIDS THE TRUTH
I
wrote following letter as a response to a long and thoughtful posting
on the message
board of this website.
Dear Martin,
You raise a question about how honest we can be about our actions as parents, without sending our children a mixed message about what we regard as acceptable behavior for them. Your own letter referred chiefly to questions having to do with drugs and prescription medications, but I want to expand the issue and ask a broader question: When should a parent conceal things from her child? When should she lie?
My policy is very simple. I tell the truth. I may not volunteer everything. (I don't think my kids would feel comfortable, if I did.) But when they ask me a question, I give them an honest answer. Period.
This would be difficult if I embezzled funds from a bank, or if I were carrying on an affair with a married man, or shooting up heroin while they were off at school. Maybe the fact that I maintain this policy keeps me closer to the straight and narrow than I might otherwise be. (If I didn't have kids, I still wouldn't embezzle funds. But I might not be so careful to always buckle my seat belt.) I try not to do things, in the first place, that I'd have to lie about or conceal later. Not always, but most of the time, I succeed. When I screw up, I switch to plan B, which is to acknowledge that I screwed up. To lie to my children about choices I've made in my life would require me to concede that I was doing something shameful. I'd rather live in a way that allowed me to tell the truth.
This is not to say that I don't make mistakes, or exhibit all manner of weaknesses, follies and foibles. But unless a behavior is downright dishonest, or cruel, or selfish, or lacking in compassion, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to admit it to our children. In fact, I'd say, if we fail to admit our frailties to our children, we may set them up with a very unrealistic idea about the kind of behavior we expect of them. Namely, perfection.
Let's get specific. I'll run down a laundry list of some of the things, in my life, about which I have come clean with my children. (And even with total strangers, who might read what I write). Here goes:
My children know my father (their grandfather) was an alcoholic. They know I was anorexic as a teenager, and bulimic as a young adult. They know I had a disastrous love affair as a young woman that broke my heart. They know I was pregnant with my oldest daughter when I married their father. (There is also no question in the mind of my oldest daughter, that she was wanted and longed for by us both.)
My daughter knows I have had an abortion. (My sons would know, if they asked me.) They know their father and I fought bitterly in our marriage, and (there was simply no concealing this) that we both behaved badly, in the aftermath of our separation, and during our divorce -- that like most divorcing couples, we tried to follow all that good advice about never speaking ill of one's fellow parent, never putting the children in the middle. And we failed. I cannot speak for my ex-husband on this one, but for myself, all I can say is that I wish I had handled my divorce better. As it is, I try to do the second best thing, which is to admit my failures, and apologize.
My children know that in the eight years since my separation and divorce from their father, I have sometimes fallen in love with the wrong man. I never concealed from them that I wished I had a partner, when I didn't. I never suggested love didn't matter to me, knowing it did. And so, along those lines, my children also know that I have answered personal ads, on occasion. They have met men I went out with, whom I met through the personals, and when somebody asked us, in their presence, how we met, I always said, "In the personals."
They know that I have sometimes been broke. I told them when I sold the rights to a novel for a whole lot of money, and when my son Charlie, who was then about nine or ten, asked me, "Well, how much money?" I told him that too.
(Not right away. I took my three kids out to dinner in the fanciest restaurant in Keene, New Hampshire that night. Since this movie sale had been pending for about a year and a half, and every time they wanted some treat or other, all that long time, I had been saying, "Let's see if our ship comes in....." Now that our ship had, in fact, come in, they were all three burning to know how big a ship it was. So, over dinner, I started out by saying that the movie sale had gone through, and I would tell them all about it, but first I needed to give them a little perspective. As we munched on bread, I asked them how much they thought it cost to pay for heating our house in the winter, and how much they thought our Jeep cost, and how much they thought it cost to go to college. Over salad, we talked about that. Also the cost of braces, and appendectomies, and taxes. We discussed the IRS, and property taxes, and what it costs to put storm windows on a big Victorian house, and -- when they found out, and said, "OK, let's not do that" -- we talked about how much it costs to heat a big Victorian house that doesn't have storm windows. Over pasta, we progressed to summer camp, tennis lessons, and gas, to drive them to and from school every day. Just when they thought they were done with all our obligations, I brought up the part about making a contribution to society. By the time the tiramisu arrived, I felt I could tell them the real amount I'd earned from selling To Die For to the movies. There was no longer any danger they'd suppose we were rich. In fact, walking home, I had to reassure them that we would, in fact, have a little extra, when all was said and done.)
You mention breast implants, and so I will tell you (as you may or may not know, from my past writings here and elsewhere) I have a couple of those. (Have had four actually. A pair of silicone ones, that I had put in eight years ago, to remedy the effects, on my body, of extensive breast-feeding. And -- seven years later -- a saline pair, put in to replace the silicone ones I had taken out. From the moment I made the decision to have this breast surgery, I made a second decision: I wasn't going to hide it. I simply refuse to skulk around, lying about what I do, as if what I do is shameful. I nursed babies. My breasts didn't look good to me anymore, and that made me sad. Maybe it shouldn't have bothered me, but it did. So I had an operation to take care of it. Where was the shame in that? (Incidentally, though I happen to have had cosmetic surgery to address a "problem" resulting from an extremely wholesome, motherly activity, I do not judge a person who undergoes cosmetic surgery for other reasons. I have heard from plenty of women who got implants just because they always wanted bigger breasts. No shame in that, if you ask me.)
I will tell you a story about my breast implants, in fact. Shortly after I had the original operation, eight years ago, I went on a weeklong camping trip up and down the east coast with my three children and another family, and their two kids. I didn't know the other couple all that well at this point (though we have gotten to be good friends since, and this particular trip was one of the places where it happened). But it was a little awkward, no question, going camping with a family I barely knew, just one week after a surgery from which I was still recovering, that had left me -- much to my surprise and shock -- with very swollen breasts a great deal larger than my original pair.
My daughter Audrey was eleven at this point. Just beginning to deal with getting breasts, herself. And now here was her mom, transformed overnight into Jayne Mansfield. She was, I will tell you, deeply disapproving. Not to mention embarrassed.
All week long, she kept making little remarks under her breath -- rolling her eyes at me now and then, shaking her head. If it can be said that eleven year old girls feel a need to make a break from their mother and take issue with her over something, I had certainly given mine a perfect opening.
It was all pretty subtle, until somewhere around Virginia, when we found ourselves lying on a beach together in our bathing suits. Audrey and her friend Hannah had been off a few feet away, whispering about something. Then Hannah said to me, "What does Audrey mean, that she can't believe you'd pay money to look like that?"
I hadn't planned on making a big announcement to the group about my recent surgery. But my daughter had, in effect, put the topic out there on the table, and I wasn't about to lie. So I did the same thing you do when you're in the ocean, and a big wave is coming at you, ready to knock you down. You dive into the center of it and swim hard.
"Well, Hannah," I said. "I recently had breast surgery....." And then I elaborated a little. That was the end of my daughter's quiet grumbling. And actually, I think we were all relieved, to have it out.
Some other things I don't conceal from my children: That I cry, on occasion. That I get angry sometimes. That I worry about money. That I miss my parents. That there are days when I feel sad.
If the whole story of my life as a parent were an endless series of intimate revelations, admissions of weakness, frailty, uncertainty or pain, that would be a problem. Children definitely need to feel that their parent or parents are dependable, stable people who won't disappear some day, or slip into a catatonic state, or get carried away in a strait jacket. My children are very clear that I am a strong, reliable person, who will never abandon them. (In fact, I believe their awareness of my moments of vulnerability only confirms that for them. They see me dealing with adversity, and surviving it. Which is more of an accomplishment, maybe, than simply having a perpetually easy time.)
Bottom line is, my kids are rock-sure of my love for them. And their father's. Give them that and children can accept a whole lot of other shortcomings without panicking.
Do I embarrass my kids? No doubt about it. I kiss them goodbye in front of their friends. I sing. I own several pairs of cowboy boots, which I have been known to wear to places where someone who knows them could conceivably show up. (I do not wear them to my sons' soccer games, however.)
Here's what I think: that if you behave in a manner that is consistently honest with your children (to the point of embarrassing them, even, now and then) you actually help them overcome shock and embarrassment. It's when they only get a little shock, or an occasional horrifying disclosure that they're scared or unnerved. My children have heard enough and seen enough that they are, at this point, well innoculated.
Most importantly, I hope my honesty with my children gives them room in their own lives to have embarrassing experiences, without feeling what is, to me, a terrible emotion: shame. Or this one: guilt. We hear a lot, as parents, about the need to model this or that exemplary behavior, so our children will exhibit them. I'd add, it's not a bad idea to openly model our very human behaviors, as well (I won't call them failings; just those parts of our lives that remind us, and our children, that we still struggle, too). I just can't start acting as if there's something wrong with me, for having deep feelings, struggles, pains and insecurities. I think there would be something wrong with me, if I didn't.
The truth is, whether we tell them about these things or not, they will know about them. I firmly believe that children know most of what goes on, one way or another. So I'd rather have it out in the open, where I could address their concerns, than leave them to brood and worry alone. No doubt I formed this opinion from my own childhood experience. It was never what my parents and I were able to talk about that I agonized about. It was the secrets that terrified me.
One last story. Like a lot of pretty regular-seeming people, I am on the mailing list of a store, here in the Bay Area, by the name of Good Vibrations, that sells books and materials dealing with sexuality and erotica. The Good Vibrations catalogue usually arrives in a plain wrapper, but for some reason, recently, they sent out a flyer, advertising a sale of some sort. So on the day in question, I arrived home, shortly before dinner, to find my younger son Willy (age thirteen) waving my Good Vibrations flyer and demanding, in his best British accent, "What's the meaning of this?" (In case it isn't clear to you, I want to say that my son was looking less traumatized than amused. He's been my son for thirteen years now. It takes more than a Good Vibrations flyer to throw him off kilter, these days. Although I will tell you that among the items featured on this flyer were a number of quite amazing-looking dildoes.)
What's a mother to
do? You will not find the answer in Good Housekeeping. But if you ask
me, there is nothing for it at a moment like that but to look one's thirteen
year old son squarely in the eye and say, with a smile, "Yup. I'm
on the mailing list of a store called Good Vibrations that sells books
and materials dealing with sexuality and erotica. I may not buy some of
the products in this catalogue -- then again, who knows? -- but I am certainly
interested in sexuality. And you will discover, as you go through life,
that you will be interested in it, yourself. Probably you're fairly interested
already."
As my father (an Englishman) used to say to me, "Even the queen goes
to the bathroom." The corollary being that even parents experience
grief, pain, longing, fear, insecurity, weakness, jealousy, or a middle
of the night craving for chocolate ice cream. Parents make love. Parents
get upset. Parents have problems with their own parents. And miss them
when they're dead. The most terrible thing for a child isn't discovering
any of that. The terrible thing would be knowing your parents lied to
you, and wondering what else they told you that might not be true.
Yrs, J.
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