Family Secrets

[kiwik]

Well it wasn't rape. She was disciplined by the congregation which would not have happened with rape. She is 40, unmarried, disabled and has 4 other children so I am certain it wasn't a planned thing in any way. She has indicated the father is much younger.....26 years old I believe. And she is embarrassed about it all I think. But whatever....I am not judging anything about it....I just don't see how you can keep the father of your baby a secret.

It is really only the business of her, the father and the child.

[Barb_]

I'm not sure if this is a discussion for a spin-off thread, but where is the line between something that doesn't really need to be talked about and a secret? As in, is it a family secret if we don't tell our kids that DH was engaged before? And that it was a bit of a scandal in his small hometown when he broke up with her and started dating me? It's all a long time ago and not a big deal. But at the same time I don't want some in-law mentioning it to them someday if we haven't said anything. But at the same time it's not like we need to make a big thing about telling them ourselves. Does that make sense?

 

And for the record, I don't think we have any real secrets in either DH or my families. If there are, I don't know them.

Yes, I think this qualifies as a family secret, at least as far as your kids will perceive it. It doesn't have to be a big deal reveal, but if it is never dropped casually into conversation, the information will likely jar your children when they first hear it, particularly if it isn't from you.

[Scarlett]

It is really only the business of her, the father and the child.

We'll certainly she can keep it secret. I don't think it actually IS a secret because the father knows and he lives near her.....so probably a lot of people know. Just not people in my world, so no one is going to mention it to me.

[Scarlett]

I found out 2 about my dad after I graduated high school. My dad was married 2x before my mom. I knew about #2. But #1 was a complete surprise. He married at 17 or 18 (he was from a small farming community, it still is a small farming community. Not even on the maps really.) She had an illness (not sure what, but weakened legs, etc). She died in childbirth along with the baby boy. After that dad enlisted in time for the Korean war. When he got back (injured, disabled discharge, not sure of the technical term), he married #2 (the one I knew about). They had several girls. I was told she had died. But then I was told after high school, that she was actually institutionalized. Apparently there was something genetic/postpartum related and she lost it. Tried to kill the girls and herself. Dad took the girls, raised them himself and divorced her. She never got better and died a couple of years after he did. Then he married my mom when the youngest girl was in elementary school. I was born many years later, so the girls were out of the house while I was growing up. But I knew them as half sisters.

That is so sad.

[Scarlett]

It is really only the business of her, the father and the child.

When something is the business of a child how do you keep it secret? Ask a child o keep secret who her father is? Strikes me as unhealthy. Better just to own it and move on.

 

I had a coworker once who had been married a long time. Like 20 years. Early in their marriage they were seperated due to an affair. He need the affair and went back to his wife. Affair partner was pregnant and never told him. Then when the child was 18 my friend and her husband get a knock on the door from this child. A secret cost that daughter/ father a lot of lost time.

[Scarlett]

Here is a good story

 

My cousin about 40 years old was at a funeral and she saw this man who looked and had mannerisms JUST like her dad who had already died. She went up to him and introduced herself and said, you look just like my dad John Smith----so much that I know you must be related to me. He laughs, tells her his name and his dad......nope no relation.

 

But he goes home to his mom, who is on her death bed and straight up asks her if it could be that his dad is someone other than his dad that raised him ( he had died also) She admitted it. She told him that she was engaged to the man she married and when he was out of state working she had a brief affair with John Smith and got pregnant. Her fiancé came home, knew she was pregnant by John Smith but they decided to marry anyway and keep it a secret.

 

When the child was a toddler, John Smith's brother, who knew they had had an affair told John Smith 'that child is yours, no doubt about it.' So John Smith went to her house and asked her and she said yes he is your son but I want you to stay out of his life because you aren't living right ( and it was true he was wild as could be) and he has a good father to raise him.

 

And that was that. John Smith and his brother took that secret to their grave.

 

Leave it to my cousin to walk up to a total stranger and say I am certain you are related to me!

[DawnM]

Oh yes!  On both sides of the family.  Actually ALL sides.  I was adopted, so I have 4 sides to my family, although I really only know about 3.

 

My father's side had an uncle (my great uncle) whose wife gave birth to a Down's Syndrome daughter in the 30s.  Back then, they went into a home.  They adopted a girl in the hospital the same day, so they came home with a baby.  Many didn't know anything about it until the death of my uncle's wife when he chose to allow it in the obituary.  The Down's daughter had passed away at around age 40, before the mother.  

 

On my mom's side there were more, and a huge one was that when my Grandpa died, when my mom and her siblings were very young, the government tried to step in and take the 6 kids and split them up and put them in homes.  A church run children's home gave them support and food and clothing donations for several years to keep them together.  My mother was so embarrassed by this, she never mentioned it.  It was talked about at my Grandmother's funeral and all the siblings were mortified.    To me, it is shocking that they had considered that a big deal.  Sheesh, who cares?  We grandkids thought it was wonderful of that home to help them.

 

My birthmother's big secret?  Well, that would be ME!   :lol:    

[fairfarmhand]

My mother found out when she was in her late 20s that she had a half brother. My grandmother was a lovely woman who was taken advantage of by a doctor when she worked as a nurse. She was so young barely out of nurses school. Then she contracted tuberculosis and spent 2 years in a sanatorium for that. My great grandmother convinced her it would be best for her (great grandmother) to raise the little boy as her own and never tell anyone.y grandmother moved away and didn't marry my grandfather till she was in her 40s. They had my mom and never told mom till she was grown and had kids that the uncle was really her half brother. That uncle of mine didn't learn the truth till he was an adult needing his birth certificate for college. It's an interesting story. That uncle is a neat guy. It's funny I don't think less of my grandmother for the situation at all. She was a great lady and times were different back then. Keeping babies as a single mom especially in that area was just not done. My brothers didn't learn the story till they were adults either!

 

 

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[Janeway]

Oh yeah, the family secrets on that same crazy side I mentioned, my half sister was always told her mother had been kicked out of college for being pregnant and her dad had walked out on her, not taking responsibility and that he was a deadbeat because of it.

 

Years later, found out that he was a doctor. He was not a doctor at the time, he was in college. He wanted to marry my mother, but she refused. She said she didn't need a man to raise a child. She moved several states away. He continued to send mail to the only address he had for her, so she got them, but he did not know where she really was with the baby, my half sister. He begged to see his child and wanted her to come back to Texas and let him see his child and he even begged her to reconsider marrying him. Someone saved the records and when my half sister was maybe 45 yrs old, they came out. So my sister spent her life thinking she was rejected by her biological dad. And I have looked the guy up online. He looks like an amazing person. He was a well loved doctor. He had two biological children and two adopted children he raised. Apparently, he is very friendly and kind. Everyone loves him. No one wants to talk about what my mother put him through, or my sister through. No one ever even points out that she victimized that man and his daughter (my sister). Nope. My poor poor innocent mother is just considered a strong woman who had a baby on her own. Yuck! 

[Murphy101]

I think so many conflicting things....

 

Some families are story telling families. They share about that one time grandma did whatever and all her kids did whatever.

 

And some families just don't. It's not a secret. It's just. They don't talk deeply or personally much in general and tend to not have a story telling tradition in their family.

 

Then there's the stories that are just bull. I have a relative who claims a bunch of BS as genealogy and she's forever soured me on genealogy. Most of what she calls genealogy is crazy extrapolated gossipy "facts". I have zero interest in it or in making it easier for those who do. If I want someone to know something, I'll tell them. All else can kiss my backside. And this isn't even getting into differences of POV drasticly changing the tenor of a story.

 

Mostly I don't hold with secrets because I prefer to not do anything I wouldn't want my dh or kids to know about. But sure, I don't feel need to share anything with those outside my household either. Privacy and secrecy are not the same thing.

[gingersmom]

I'm reading The Stranger in my Genes.

 

It's a true story and because of a DNA test he discovers at age 50+ that his father is not his biological father.

 

I'm only halfway through so I don't know the whole story yet. It's really good though.

[katilac]

<snip> We do have some pics from the day DH adopted DD21, and they are readily available, but we just don't go through pics a lot.  DD8 pulled out the wedding album recently, and knew that the pic of the flower girl was her sister, but, that's just kind of how it is.  No questions....it just is. <snip>

 

As their lives progress, as birds and bees get introduced, that would provide a natural opening for the discussion.  And I have no problem sharing when it comes up.  If DD8 saw the pic of DD21 at our wedding and asked about why she was there at the wedding but they weren't, no issues explaining that DD21 was born before I met her daddy, that sort of thing.   There's just no reason to try to explain it all right now, at ages 8, 6 and 4

 

Yes, that makes perfect sense - the pictures are there and available, she just doesn't have those questions yet. Those two sets of pics being available make it clear that no big secret is being kept (which is so easy for older kids/teens to believe even when it's not true). 

[CadenceSophia]

My family is either really boring or they left me out of the loop :)

 

We do have one family mystery. A passport and I think some military papers found among my great grandmother's personal things. No idea how this man was connected enough to the family for her to have these documents.. But on the other hand it could have been an odd accident.

[Laura in CA]

I guess we have one ... My maternal grandfather, a medical doctor, wanted to help out in WWI, but since the U.S. didn't get involved right away, he went on his own to France around 1915. But on his passport is a "wife" no one knows anything about ... The theory is, she was his cousin and also wanted to go, but it was easier to go with a man. But who knows? My grandfather died when my mother was 5 (making her an orphan), so we will probably never know.

[Guest]

I don't have time to link, but I found out accidentally while reading John Taylor Gatto's Underground History to be skeptical of geneology research from my grandparents' (born in 1900-1911) generation. Geneology was the Nigerian Spam of the day.

 

My youngest grandmother and her sister belonged to many geneological societies and genuinely believed that they could trace their ancestry directly back to the Plantagenets.

 

My other grandmother and one of my grandfathers belonged to the Mayflower society and had framed certificates hanging on their walls. Both have been debunked. I don't have the heart to tell my parents.

 

I, however, am fascinated by what CAN be verified. My youngest grandmother kept a scrapbook which I inherited that has clippings from telegrams, matchbooks, advertisements and other actual physical objects from the early 20th century and we have photographs and verified newspaper clippings that go back as far as the US Civil war.

Edited January 15, 2017 by Guest

[frugalmamatx]

I have several in my family. 

 

On my dad's side, there is the mystery of why he was raised by his grandparents as a twin to his cousin. My dad and his cousin Jean were both raised as GIRLS until dad turned 6 and started school. They look identical, btw, but Jean was supposed to be 3 months older. I have no idea as to why he was raised by the grandparents until they passed away and he was sent home at age 7. But I suspect it ties in with dad mystery #2. As an adult, the local doctor told my dad there was NO way his father could have been his father due to blood types. Apparently Dad was o+, his mom o-, and his supposed biological father was either A or B neg. So something definitely wrong there! Upon further digging, it also turns out dad's birth was signed off 3 days after he was actually born {so we don't know if he was actually born on the 6th or if it was the 3rd and just signed on the 6th. It also was signed by the VET instead of the local Doctor, even though they had to go farther for the Vet. 

 

My grandmother's birth was a family secret as well - dad had a heck of a time getting to the bottom of it when filing for her Social Security. Turned out she was half native american and her father was hung for having married a white woman in 1912, just months before grandma was born. The family picked up and moved several times to hide it. The curious thing is she already had 2 kids, and we can't figure out WHO their father is or anything. 

 

 

Mom's ex-husband had several illegitimate kids, including one that looked exactly like my half-brother. The entire town knew.  

 

 

My secret is dd's father. When/if she wants to know I'll tell her. But otherwise mum's the word - by mutual agreement. 

[SarahW]

My family had an odd mystery - more of a "we don't talk about it" than a secret.

 

So, I have a cousin about the same age as me, and when I was a kid I was over at her house playing and noticed pictures of her and her brother displayed on the shelf, but then next to them was another picture of a girl I didn't know. Finally, I asked my cousin "who's that other girl?" and she got a bit tense and just said "that's my sister." Sister? That would mean that girl was also my cousin. Which made her family. Family was a Big Deal. The girl was a bit older than my cousin, so maybe she was a grown-up? But why had I never seen her at Christmas? Or Thanksgiving? Or birthdays? I thought it was so incredibly weird.

 

As I got older (and this mysterious cousin stayed unseen) it slowly dawned on me that she had been put up for adoption by my aunt. As I got even older I realized that this probably meant she had got pregnant as a teen. I know now that this is probably something my aunt doesn't think is fun to talk about. But when I was young it was just a huge mystery. And even now at family gathering I look around and reflexively think Someone is missing....

 

I noticed on FB that my cousin was friends with someone who I'm pretty sure is this sister. So I'm glad they were able to connect as adults. But other than one passing comment between my aunt and my grandmother that I overheard, she's just never, ever talked about. I'm not sure my younger brothers and sisters have pieced together her existence yet. It's not a great big deal, I don't expect her to just start showing up to family events, but I don't understand waiting for a major funeral to say "oh yeah, by the way...."

 

[6packofun]

In a way...  Last year my last living grandparent died, my mom's dad.  As they were going through some stuff afterwards, they discovered--and sort of pieced together through conversation tidbits from over the years--that we are not German and POLISH from his side as we've always been told.  We are German and RUSSIAN.  I'm pretty sure either my grandfather did NOT want us to be known as both of those things (Commies! lol I can just hear it...) but we are looking into this more to see if there is another reason why no one was told outright.  I dunno.  Could be interesting, could be kooky grandpa.  LOL  (And I think we still have some Polish from my grandma's side anyway so it was just HIS side that apparently cared.)

[Scarlett]

I have several in my family.

 

On my dad's side, there is the mystery of why he was raised by his grandparents as a twin to his cousin. My dad and his cousin Jean were both raised as GIRLS until dad turned 6 and started school. They look identical, btw, but Jean was supposed to be 3 months older. I have no idea as to why he was raised by the grandparents until they passed away and he was sent home at age 7. But I suspect it ties in with dad mystery #2. As an adult, the local doctor told my dad there was NO way his father could have been his father due to blood types. Apparently Dad was o+, his mom o-, and his supposed biological father was either A or B neg. So something definitely wrong there! Upon further digging, it also turns out dad's birth was signed off 3 days after he was actually born {so we don't know if he was actually born on the 6th or if it was the 3rd and just signed on the 6th. It also was signed by the VET instead of the local Doctor, even though they had to go farther for the Vet.

 

My grandmother's birth was a family secret as well - dad had a heck of a time getting to the bottom of it when filing for her Social Security. Turned out she was half native american and her father was hung for having married a white woman in 1912, just months before grandma was born. The family picked up and moved several times to hide it. The curious thing is she already had 2 kids, and we can't figure out WHO their father is or anything.

 

 

Mom's ex-husband had several illegitimate kids, including one that looked exactly like my half-brother. The entire town knew.

 

 

My secret is dd's father. When/if she wants to know I'll tell her. But otherwise mum's the word - by mutual agreement.

The paternity of your dd is a secret?

[Janeway]

I have several in my family. 

 

On my dad's side, there is the mystery of why he was raised by his grandparents as a twin to his cousin. My dad and his cousin Jean were both raised as GIRLS until dad turned 6 and started school. They look identical, btw, but Jean was supposed to be 3 months older. I have no idea as to why he was raised by the grandparents until they passed away and he was sent home at age 7. But I suspect it ties in with dad mystery #2. As an adult, the local doctor told my dad there was NO way his father could have been his father due to blood types. Apparently Dad was o+, his mom o-, and his supposed biological father was either A or B neg. So something definitely wrong there! Upon further digging, it also turns out dad's birth was signed off 3 days after he was actually born {so we don't know if he was actually born on the 6th or if it was the 3rd and just signed on the 6th. It also was signed by the VET instead of the local Doctor, even though they had to go farther for the Vet. 

 

My grandmother's birth was a family secret as well - dad had a heck of a time getting to the bottom of it when filing for her Social Security. Turned out she was half native american and her father was hung for having married a white woman in 1912, just months before grandma was born. The family picked up and moved several times to hide it. The curious thing is she already had 2 kids, and we can't figure out WHO their father is or anything. 

 

 

Mom's ex-husband had several illegitimate kids, including one that looked exactly like my half-brother. The entire town knew.  

 

 

My secret is dd's father. When/if she wants to know I'll tell her. But otherwise mum's the word - by mutual agreement. 

You need to write it down so that if anything happens to you, she can still find out. Also, I would put it in a few places for her to find because one written letter can go missing, get thrown away by accident, etc.

[Janeway]

I just found out a big family secret. It is not a secret of the sort here really. But, it does involve another board member (family member) so I do not feel like I can post what it is. But, a general idea is that a favorite family member of mine has been terminally ill for a while and is about to die. I only just found out and have been very sad. I probably shouldn't even post this much, but I am just sad. 

 

 

[Scarlett]

This secret keeping stuff can go on so long that the point of it is long lost.  I am trying to do some geneology work on my ds's paternal family....a family I was married into for 26 years.  Their mother, who is still living, but is highly secretive, was raised with a brother who we vaguely knew was adopted.  (later I found out she was too, but that is another story).  On their adopted mother's obit it had his last name listed as something else.  I questioned it at the time, but everyone was like 'we don't know and we can't ask'.  Well, I am long past caring if my XMIL gets mad or upset if she 'catches me' trying to get facts, so I tracked down this brother's death certificate recently and it was signed by a woman I had never heard of and she listed her address in Dallas and believe it or not she is still listed as living at that address!  So I called her.  She wouldn't talk to me.  She did confirm she was his cousin.  And when I asked her if she knew who his parents were she said she knew who his mother was but not the father.  And then she abruptly said she had to go and she would call me back.  Of course that was Monday and I don't think she is gonna call me back.  Obviously, if the father is unknown that was scandelous in 1920 when he was born.  But almost 100 years have passed and he has been dead for 17 years and he had no children.  So why the big secret still?  Oh I did manage to tell her he had been married twice in his youth and she didn't know that. 

 

 

Secrets.  Good grief.

[Miss Mousie]

My family is either really boring or they left me out of the loop :)

 

We do have one family mystery. A passport and I think some military papers found among my great grandmother's personal things. No idea how this man was connected enough to the family for her to have these documents.. But on the other hand it could have been an odd accident.

 

This story made me think of the various times I've bought a used book only to find someone's photo, a letter, whatever, stuffed inside or serving as a bookmark.  A passport and military papers would be pretty poor choices for a bookmark, though!  And then it reminded me of this story:

 

After my mom died I found a photo album - WWII Hawaii, including some rather gruesome photos as well as the mundane.  No military member of my family ever served in HI; in fact, I'm pretty sure my mom is the only person in all of my family to have even visited the state.  My guess?  Mom bought it at a garage sale while in HI on vacation.  Cheap souvenir, and great for the history buff she was!