Parents keep the truth from children at their peril it always results in lies evasions and the breaking of trust

Parents keep the truth from children at their peril; it always results in lies, evasions and the breaking of trust.WHAT READERS SAYSuicide can be the best way outMy husband also committed suicide because of incurable illness which was causing both of us almost intolerable distress. I once had to look after four children while their mother had an abortion because the baby was deformed Again, nothing was said The tension in the family was tangible. The children never knew why the mother spent the next few months crying. They thought it was their fault.Is Sally worried that the children fear they may do the same, that there may be a suicidal streak in their family? If there’s a depressive streak they should know about it, so that they can deal with it better than their relatives; if there’s an incurable disease, again, better to know about this early so that it may be avoided. If they know that there are generations of suicides in the family, who knows how worried they may be that their own fathers may suddenly bump themselves off. “Did you see the body, miss?” “Which tree?” The other half were very sympathetic. “He must have been terribly, terribly sad” said one little girl sympathetically.It is extraordinary the amount of concealment that goes on around children.

I recently talked freely to a godson about his mother’s first husband He had no idea she’d been married before He was horrified It never occurred to me that he hadn’t been told. Sometimes it is the result of a terrible depressive illness.To keep it secret only adds to the awful stigma; it doesn’t reduce it.Children are amazingly resilient. A friend of mine, explaining suicide to her class, because the cook had been found hanging in the school garden, found that half of them were ghoulishly fascinated. Would they want it kept a secret if they’d been murdered? Or had died in a car accident when they were drunk? Sometimes suicide is a brave and courageous thing to do.

Children overhear conversations hundreds of yards away; an aunt or relative could have blurted it out and then said: “Don’t tell your parents I told you.” They may already be keeping the secret of their own knowledge from their parents, an awful burden.And anyway, why haven’t the parents been open about it from the start? What is so dreadful about suicide? We no longer live in the Dark Ages It is nothing but another way of dying. And they think, if their parents are lying about one thing, what else may they be lying about? This does not make for an atmosphere of trust, nor is it a good way to bring up children.It could also be that the children in fact know exactly what happened. They’re on to something, there’s no doubt.Now, it could be because their parents are so evasive, and show in their body language that there’s a big secret hanging around. Like the famous elephant in the sitting-room – when the entire family knows there’s an elephant there, but no one refers to it – this lie is featuring hugely in the children’s lives and they want to bring the truth into the open. Every time their parents give evasive answers they feel they are being lied to. A woman of a certain age demonstrably not giving in to prejudices, thank you very much.. Both Sally’s husband and her father-in-law committed suicide.