David - My Mom was in her 60s when she learned the "family secret" (her dad went to prison for a couple of years when she was an infant for embezzlement). She had never known. It didn't upset her, but it did explain a lot about her mom and childhood and made her sympathize much more with her mother, who was a difficult woman. Not in a mental health way, but annoying, whiny and put-upon and socially rigid (not really the right word - insistent on doing things the "right" way). Anyway, it helped Mom to understand what her mom had put up with and how it made her what she was. So learning it was a good thing, I think. Particularly when her mom developed cancer and became even more annoying and whiny.

Of course, my sister and I thought the whole thing was a hoot and loved having a family scandal to tell people. I wouldn't say it helped us deal with Grandmother - she was still annoying and so we avoided her whenever possible (which I kinda regret now, but we were young).

YMMV, but it sounds to me like a good lesson for the kids about the kinds of issues the previous generations were dealing with and how that helps explain them.

David- I have been following the stuff about your parents.Amy Parker is wise. I, personally, would tell people, but I am also firmly of the belief that secrets are sometimes the trauma. As someone who grew up with a lot of secrets, it pains me that there are certain things I will just never know. I don’t know if it is different for the following generation, as things might not have been so weird for them. My my informing trauma was my grandparents’ stuff (which informed my mother’s stuff and her propensity for keeping secrets to protect me, so it is a little personal to me) Dani Shapiro has a really good podcast called Family Secrets where she explores this

Thanks, Sophia. I was mindful of your and Drew's histories when I was thinking about it (and Bonny and Nanita too, thinking about my mom's childhood). I'll check out the podcast.

David - My Mom was in her 60s when she learned the "family secret" (her dad went to prison for a couple of years when she was an infant for embezzlement). She had never known. It didn't upset her, but it did explain a lot about her mom and childhood and made her sympathize much more with her mother, who was a difficult woman. Not in a mental health way, but annoying, whiny and put-upon and socially rigid (not really the right word - insistent on doing things the "right" way). Anyway, it helped Mom to understand what her mom had put up with and how it made her what she was. So learning it was a good thing, I think. Particularly when her mom developed cancer and became even more annoying and whiny.

I think it does help to have that context. Of course another factor is that Emmett's turning 26 this September, and Matilda's turning 16, so they're not at the same place in their lives. I'd have a hard time talking about some of my mom's traumas with Matilda at this age.

Emmett's the only one who has met that side of my family, btw. He went with me to Georgia for my Dad's memorial, and I introduced him to my Aunt Edna and my cousins on that side. Including my cousin Malcolm, who's like 6'5" and beat the shit out of my Boogeyman Uncle Raymond when he drunkenly set the house on fire. So it's not super distant in time or generations really.

Covid update: all 3 of my roommates have tested positive, but I'm still feeling fine and tested negative Saturday night and Sunday night. I did get there a day later than the rest of them, so the possibilities here are (1) I'll test positive today or tomorrow, (2) I won't test positive because I had a shorter cumulative exposure to the virus, or (3) I won't test positive because I still have antibodies from having Covid at the end of January. I'm obviously hoping for #2 or #3.

David - My Mom was in her 60s when she learned the "family secret" (her dad went to prison for a couple of years when she was an infant for embezzlement). She had never known. It didn't upset her, but it did explain a lot about her mom and childhood and made her sympathize much more with her mother, who was a difficult woman.

My parents got divorced when I was 12; my mom was the one who filed for divorce. She got primary custody, and was unbelievably neglectful of me and my brother for years afterward, although it was particularly bad the first 5 or 6 years after the divorce. So I blamed Mom for the divorce because she was being selfish and neglectful, and of course Dad supported that worldview and was basically my hype man in hating my mom.

When I was 24 or 25, my mom told me that Dad physically abused her and that's why she filed for divorce. She said that she didn't want to tell me and my brother at the time, because we were still young and she didn't want to impede us having a good relationship with Dad. That definitely doesn't excuse how neglectful she was after the divorce -- it was REALLY bad, and it's a big part of why I'm in therapy -- but it sure the hell puts things in a different light.

And the interesting thing to me is that Mom just wanted out of the marriage, and once she was, she never talked shit about Dad, not once, and she sure could have done so. Dad is her absolute opposite there -- they've been divorced for 39 years, and he STILL shit-talks Mom with zero provocation, and his audacity to continue to shit-talk her when he had no problem abusing her is just astonishing.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

Sheryl has anyone talked to you about Mr. S having sensory issues and i donr know his diagnosis but a lot of times with Autisct people/kids when there is sensory oveoad and distress it can show up as self harm OR lashing out at others. Also with problems regulating emotions.

For myself a lot of times it would look like i just lost it over nothing but there was stuff building vip for awhile. Days or sometimes weeks. That didn't really improve until I learned more about having my sensory issues and better about why I felt certain ways...which was just in the past 6 or 7 years.

That definitely doesn't excuse how neglectful she was after the divorce -- it was REALLY bad, and it's a big part of why I'm in therapy -- but it sure the hell puts things in a different light.

Makes me even madder at your dad when he's being a manipulative asshole.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

Larkin knew.

On the broader subject of family secrets, I'll note another dynamic that's in play here.

When our beloved grandmother died, the whole family went to Oregon for her memorial service, and I stayed at my cousin Gary's house. (Which had its own curious vibe as his wife and his ex-wife became best friends and they would hang out all the time. But I digress...)

With my grandmother dead, my father, and my Aunt Dot (my mom had a macabre story about her that I doubt her children know) were the oldest branch of the family tree. As such there was the sense that they were free to discuss some things that my grandmother didn't want discussed.

So while we were all there, my Uncle Noel's kids started asking my dad about "that weird summer where the kids were sent to distant relatives and Gary stayed with a nice old rich couple who spoiled him, and Donnie and Sandy got sent to people who wouldn't let them in the house and barely fed them." And my dad says, "Oh yeah, that was when Noel abandoned the family for six weeks and just took off." While Aunt Dot smiled and nodded and smoked.

Which was not the first time Noel just took off, as he had gone AWOL during WWII and spent six months in the brig (where he learned to be a Radioman, which was his career in the Navy for the next 25 years).

Anyway, my Cousin Toni (who is the only member of that side of the family that I have regular contact with) wasn't around for those discussions and I filled her in on both of those instances of her dad bolting responsibility during a FB msg chat.

So, I think one reason my sister is talking to me about this stuff is that she just went through cancer treatment last year and is approaching 70 and there's a sense of handing down the family lore to me. That with the passing of generations you either open up about those secrets or all that history/context becomes lost.

Makes me even madder at your dad when he's being a manipulative asshole.

You're not wrong. 90% of my therapy sessions are about him, because I've (more or less) worked through the shit with my mom and gotten to a good place. But my Dad also fucked me up in ways I didn't realize, and that's layered with his present-day bullshit. (Once, when my brother said to his therapist, "I have to tell you about my last phone call with Dad," the therapist said, "Christ, not this fucking guy again!" which is the best of all possible responses, because he is, in fact, this fucking guy.) (And Dad is SO MUCH SHITTIER to my brother than he is to me. It's astonishing. I wouldn't blame my brother for cutting Dad out of his life entirely, but he hasn't. Like, my brother is 46 years old, happily married, with his masters and a thriving career as a therapist, and he works hard every day to maintain his sobriety -- there's nothing to criticize him about. But Dad will constantly bring up how my brother got a DUI more than 20 years ago, as if that has any bearing on his life today. I told my brother to say "Well, if we're getting into shit we did decades ago, let's talk about how you beat our mother." He hasn't done it yet, but I wish he would.)

My parents' awful behavior around the divorce really gave me such appreciation for my friends who are divorced and manage to co-parent in such a way that they're doing what's best for the kids instead of using the kids as weapons against the other parent. Y'all are the good ones, and it's lovely to see.

Oh! Tim's oldest brother is divorced and remarried, and his ex-wife (and her new husband) often come to Beckmeyer family shindigs, with zero acrimony and bullshit, and it's so nice. For a while it made me really resentful and tetchy, but now I just love seeing them all get along so well.

Christ, not this fucking guy again!

I have so many questions about my family that I'm afraid to ask about.

I'm the youngest of three, but I remember hearing vague stories of my Mom getting pregnant again after I was born; I would have been 2 years old at the time, so I have no direct memory. She miscarried after falling down the stairs. It wasn't until recently that I put two and two together and realized that this was in all likelihood a self-induced abortion. I remember the house we grew up in—it was tiny. I was 3, and I didn't have my own bedroom. I slept in the "nursery", which was a glorified walk-in closet. If my Mom had had a fourth child, there would have been literally no room to put him.

I also believe that this NOT the kind of plan that Mom would have come up with on her own. It DOES sound like the kind of thing my Dad would have pressured her into doing. My Mom needed surgery on her feet for years, and I think that's related, too.

But this is all speculation on my part, all based on faded memories of vague stories I was once told. Nobody talks about it, and I'm afraid to ask.