Ugh.

[conuly]

Twit number one is arguing with me that people should disclose all of their past marriages (even if said marriages are clearly never going to affect anything in the future) to their children. I disagree, but what I *really* don't like is her going "I don't want to be like that person downthread who found out in her father's obituary!"

Yeah. That person's me. And about the only thing I took away from that obit was "Wow. My dad's wedding had the Grateful Dead playing - live!" I wasn't shocked, traumatized, left feeling awkward, weirded out, or disturbed by this revelation. Might have been if I had half-siblings somewhere, but as I don't I can't imagine why anybody would care. If you're gonna use my comment as an example, use it to agree with me, you doofus.

Twit number two says: You want your kids to grow up thinking that you fall in love, marry, and live happily ever after and you're living with a prime example of the fact that that doesn't always happen.

Do people really want their kids to think that? Why? It strikes me as one of the stupidest things I've ever read in P101, and that's saying a whole heck of a lot. It's right up there with "If I had sex with him, that means I love him so it's all right because we're in love". It's just STUPID - more so if you happen to know from personal experience that it's just not true. Then it's stupid and lying. Great job of talking to your impressionable children.

And several other people are piping up that if you don't explicitly share information, you're somehow keeping it secret. They're wrong, but I'd be glad to keep secrets if it'd spare us all boring and pointless conversations that run:

Mom: Julia, just so you know, I was married before I met your dad.
Julia: What?
Mom: I was married before I met your dad!
Julia: Why are you telling me this????
Mom: No reason, I just thought you ought to know so you wouldn't feel awkward and weird!
Julia: Well, I certainly feel awkward and weird NOW. Do I have brothers and sisters I don't know about???
Mom: Nope, nothing like that!
Julia: DO I KNOW THIS GUY? IS IT MY MATH TEACHER?
Mom: No, silly! I don't know why you're getting worked up about it, I'm just telling you.
Julia: But why???
Mom: Because!
Julia: Well, thanks. So there's no reason?
Mom: Nope.
Julia: Wow. This conversation was a complete waste of time. Thanks, Mom.
Mom: You're welcome! Also, in high school I slept with the chess team on a dare, and in kindergarten I ate paste.
Julia: MOM!
Mom: Full disclosure, you're bound to find out sooner or later, I thought you should know!

Yeah. I think I'll pass. I do wish my mother had fessed up about her secret boyfriend, admittedly, but that's something that at least happened within my own lifetime, and I stumbled upon it in a really embarrassing way. Unless you're storing your homemade porn from your ex in your dresser drawer, it's not likely to ever come up in that fashion, is it?

Comments

[sarahwilder.livejournal.com]

FWIW, my parents were always very honest about how much work marriage and long-term relationships are and I'm much more the better for it.

[conuly]

Well, now she's saying the fact that I said the quoted sentence is pure stoop1d is a sign of my lack of reading comprehension because she ALSO said "a four year old doesn't need to know about divorce". Why the heck not? I mean, sure, a four year old doesn't need to know about divorce, but they also don't need to know about dinosaurs or planets, you know? Plenty of four year olds have divorced parents or have FRIENDS with divorced parents, so they really should know about divorce so they can navigate the world in which we live.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'd mind being told such things. I had to be though, because my father's first marriage resulted in a child. While that child was not a part of my life when growing up, my parents wanted all of their children to know she existed in case it ever did come up, so it wouldn't be some huge shock. And as it turns out, it did become relevant, although not at any point during my childhood.

So, I haven't had the experience of being told something irrelevant. But I think I'd have taken it as a piece of family history. I was told a lot of family history that had pretty much no direct relevance, but it was seen as knowing a bit of the stories of my family and my ancestry. And I like having little bits and pieces about what past generations in my family did.

But I also feel that parents are entitled to privacy and if they prefer not to mention everything, especially if the child doesn't ask and it doesn't come up, that's okay too.

ITA

[peebs1701.livejournal.com]

While neither my husband nor I have ever been divorced, both sets of our parents are, so our daughter has had a conversation about divorce several times. Three year olds definitely know how to ask, "Why does Daddy have two Mommies?" and she has. She seemed to understand the answer* well enough and I think it helped.



*Well, honey, there are two different kinds of mommies. One is the kind where the baby grows in her belly and the other is where she loves you and takes care of you. Some people do both jobs and some people just do one, so Grandma C. is the one where Daddy grew in her belly and Grandma L. took care of Daddy when he was little after she married Grandpa D.

[conuly]

Yeah, it's not that I think you shouldn't tell your kid about your previous marriage if it comes up. I just don't think you should be compelled to just because.

In fact, all this brooding about previous marriages strikes me as a really weird. Do people spend that much time thinking about their ex when they're with their new husband and their kid? Shouldn't they be more focused on the present?

[leora.livejournal.com]

I don't know. If I had kids, they'd probably find out about my previous relationships at some point just because I'm still friends with my exes. I wouldn't be likely to explicitly mention that someone was an ex, but I also would expect it to come up in conversation at some point. Plus I have pictures from my first relationship (it lasted for a long time) and I have no intention of hiding them or anything. Oddly, a lot of them are pictures of me, him, and my current partner's half-sister, but that's because they were taken in one day with those people present. (I don't take a lot of photos, but my father has always been really into taking pictures, so I have a few batches of photos from particular visits). Oh, and since my first ex was in my brother's wedding there are those photos.

I think it'd come up and be worth explaining, because I wouldn't want it to be confusing. But it wouldn't be of the sit down we need to talk sort of thing. It'd likely come up if they were looking at the photos or if a friend said something and they were confused or whatever.

I think big portions of your past are likely to come up in some way, but that's also true for all sorts of random things. Especially because when you're young it's hard to imagine your parents having done all of the things they did before you were born, especially when your view of what adults do is still developing.

I think I learned far more surprising things about my sisters (14 and 15 years older than me) than I did about my parents, but then I think my parents lived surprisingly dull lives. I don't really mean dull exactly, but they basically grew up, went to school, got married, had kids. There is the little complication of my father getting divorced and then remarried, but beyond that, that's pretty much what they've done. Most of the cool things I learned about my father that surprised me were details about his work. Oh and learning a bit about the games he played in childhood. He grew up in New York (I forget if it was Brooklyn or the Bronx) during the 1930s and 1940s, so he played all of these old games, especially marbles. That was kind of neat.

[beezelbubbles.livejournal.com]

Neither of my parents were married before, though my aunt made LOVELY comments to my brother and me about how my dad should have married the girl he was dating before our mom, but my grandmother had a brief first marriage. I don't remember how it came up, and it didn't really effect how I saw her. (My mom telling me about Grandma having an affair with a married man on the other hand...) I do think it's a little odd that I have the rings from her first marriage. And I sort of wonder about the guys sometimes and the whole line of what-ifs that go down that road not taken, but eh.
But anyway, there are a lot of things about my parents that I don't know. Well, about my dad, anyway, my mom sort of had me so she could have a best friend, and so tends to overshare. So while I feel like maybe knowing some of these things would make me a little closer to my dad, I also don't think parents need to sit their kids down and spill every detail of their lives forever. My daughter just needs to know I'm Mom and that I love her and her dad.
And now I shall go read that thread, because I missed it earlier because I was off parenting and teaching and stuff.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I kind of disagree, but more in the sense that no matter which way you do it, you're going to screw up. One of the Things My Parents Screwed Up On is failing to tell me about things that don't affect me in the slightest.

Dad was married in college. Lasted a year or two, has no bearing whatsoever on his life now. Except I'm the oldest of three and was the last to know, and Mom told me in kind of a, "Well, you found out about [other thing which does not affect my life in the slightest] because he'd used it as an example in class and it got back to you, so here's another potentially unpleasant revelation," way and not two months later a friend mentioned it because he'd used it as an example in class.

I really, really hate being the last to know things. Especially when I hear about them from people who are Not My Kind (Dad taught at my high school and didn't get the honors students, and I wouldn't have heard *anything* except that I was in an art class with some people who hadn't yet dropped out).

It's a little like being in a straight white marriage in a neighborhood full of straight white married couples, I think; you bring up things that your kids don't because otherwise, some of them will assume that what they know is everything (also, dear my parents, it does not count as being open to having gay kids if one of them made it to sixth grade not knowing that 'gay' meant anything other than 'happy').

It depends a lot on the kid. I wasn't the type to ask if there was anything going on under the surface. I wasn't the type to have conversations that would require them to mention it. But it was ten years ago, and I'm still really upset that I was the last to know. No, the existence of Dad's ex-wife doesn't affect me in the least. Not a bit. Except that it hurt a lot finding out.

(some of the upset is because it's a pattern. Baby Sister and I both hope to do better on information management when we're parents. If something doesn't affect us, our parents tend not to mention it. We are only slowly training them out of it.)

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

It never occurred to me not to tell my daughter about my life before she was born, which included my first marriage. I mean, sheesh, my mother still has photographs in her living room of me in my wedding dress from that marriage; it's not like it's ever been any kind of a secret.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the upset rant.

Teal deer: when you do the life-cycle analysis on 'having an awkward conversation' vs 'not bringing it up', 'not' has to include the awkward conversation you're going to have in one, five, ten years.

[conuly]

*shrugs* Only if you think it's something that must be mentioned.

If, when I'd found out about my dad's previous marriages, my mom had been like "Well, uh, um... I don't know" or "Oh my god, I didn't want you to know!" that would have been awkward and weird - and I could justifiably say they kept secrets.

But my mom just went "Huh. That wasn't my wedding, that was his first marriage" - it never came up because it never had a reason to come up until then.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

And you're the type of person who deals well with that. I'm not. And I'm not the type to ask about things I think I already know. It felt like a secret, even though he was completely open and honest about it to other people. What do you do when a friend says, "Oh, yeah, your dad tells us all kinds of stories, like about his first marriage..." and that's the first you've heard of it?

It's such a weird balancing act, and of course it comes down to 'depends on the kid' because everything does. Some kids will be really hurt because their parents lied to them for years, and might still be lying. Some kids won't care about meaningless things that happened before they were born because they don't matter at all.

I kind of want to draw parallels between this whole pattern and race issues and homophobia. The existence of gay people never came up in my childhood. I never suspected that anyone wouldn't be straight-- only straight people existed, period. Gay rights had nothing whatsoever to do with my life. It was still wrong for my parents not to bring that sort of thing up.

Like I said, this is a pattern with my parents. It's hard for me to react to one part of it without reacting to the entire thing. I hope I'm not getting carried away with it.

[conuly]

That's a different situation, and kinda a weird one. Still, you can hardly say they were keeping secrets or lying (as was repeatedly implied over on P101, that by not telling your child the only thing you could otherwise be doing is keeping secrets) as they told the whole world while you were alive and never actively said "Nope, we never were married before you!" Maybe they thought you already knew?

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

I can't comment on the situation with your parents at all, but I can say with Connie that a) she was 10, so it may just not have come up in conversation yet and b) I am pretty sure *I* knew, from casual conversation (not a big We Have Something To Tell You talk or anything) before my father's death, so I can say with a fair amount of certainty that it likely WAS discussed around Connie but she simply wasn't tuned into the conversation at the time (something I think she will verify happens a decent amount of the time, and particularly when she was a young child and people were talking about things that were "adult stuff" and probably didn't interest her any...or, she could have been reading.)

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I think they thought I picked it up, but seriously, family, I don't pick things up. Baby Sister found out because she was looking through Dad's college yearbooks or he was packing them to send to First Wife or something-- she was the first to know. I think it came up naturally with my brother.

I guess I kind of feel like you can wait for it to come up, but at some point, you have to take matters into your own hands, not because the kid needs to know but because it doesn't feel okay to me for the fourteen-year-old kid to be the only person in art class who's never heard the story.

We were very different kids; everyone else knowing something about me remains kind of a nightmare. I guess my main objection to not telling isn't anything to do with my quality of life or my parents' privacy, but how much the revelations of various Not Actually Secrets, We Just Never Told Yous upset me.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who has always knew about her parents' previous marriages, but I think that might be because her father was married a woman who is now ranked one of the top thirty richest women in the world.

It hasn't affected anything, but it's just one of those things that came up naturally in conversation throughout her youth.

[mortaine.livejournal.com]

I agree with elenbarathi. First, a kid isn't generally going to ask-- why would they even think to ask "Mom, was Dad married to someone else before you?" What would make them put any possible clues together and come up with that as the answer?

Second, why not tell your kid what happened before they were born? I was endlessly fascinated by my parents' courtship and wanted to know all about it. I also wanted to know about boys my mother dated before she met my dad-- the stories were cute and funny and they taught me something about dating and maturing and all kinds of things.

The chances that a kid is going to grow up and someday either be divorced or date/marry someone who is divorced are really, really high. Parents who are open about their past relationships help guide their offspring in navigating the difficult waters of "how to be in a long-term relationship after a previous one has failed." Obviously, the amount of information or detail that one discusses should be age-appropriate-- you don't go around telling your six year old "and after I divorced the man I was married to before, we slept together before moving on...." even though a final fling is not uncommon.

And 4 year olds need to know what divorce is. They also need to know what gay marriage is. If the pre-kindergarten set knows these things, it won't even be a debate by the time they reach college age.

[conuly]

Second, why not tell your kid what happened before they were born?

Because it doesn't come up? I'm not saying you should hide these things, just that if you somehow never mention it that this lack of mentioning is NOT tantamount to "lying" to your child or "hiding it".

In the grand scheme of things, you've got many things you potentially could tell your kids about your life, but few things you actually will. Many will enter, few will win, right? There's just not enough time in the world. So if it never occurs to you that it's worth telling your kid, that's not necessarily because you're a lying liar who lies - it could be because you have other things to talk about.

[mortaine.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see-- the debate isn't whether or not one should tell their kids, but whether one is a bad person for neglecting to do so.

Yeah, I don't think it necessarily makes one a bad person for not talking about it. On the other hand, as the race relations article you posted earlier points out, perhaps talking about such things directly with kids is necessary for them to figure it all out and not turn "married/divorced" into another "us and them" dichotomy.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

"Twit number two says: You want your kids to grow up thinking that you fall in love, marry, and live happily ever after and you're living with a prime example of the fact that that doesn't always happen. "

Gah-- seriously? *makes faces* Also, I think kids only think stuff like this is a big deal if their parents make it out to be. I grew up in a single parent household and never thought it was odd, while other kids I know were absolutely traumatized by the fact that their fathers weren't around. I kinda blame their mothers for passing on that sense of social stigma and fear of abandonment.