Do all families pretend to be perfect?

Eh, way too many things to count. No such thing as a perfect family... don't they say, "there's one (of whatever) in every family?" But some people sure do want to portray they are and I have never understood why. It's just a great big whopping lie

I felt like telling my mom so what - why the big secret - she had to keep until my poor grandmom passed.

I actually give my grandmom kudos for what she had the guts to do. (and I normally do not encourage affairs). From what I know about my grandfather (and probably don't know the half of it) was my grandmother was terrified of him. After her kids grew up, she divorced him and was so scared of him she moved several states away.

My grandmother as I knew her was quite a firecracker. But didn't sound like she had a very happy marriage.

There are a lot of ways to bring it up though. And Linkat is talking about it going the other direction -- specifically saying that it wouldn't happen in her family.

We've talked about various things like that in our family (one cousin's biodad is not the dad she thinks is her dad, etc.), they do come up. It wasn't forced at all, just something brought it on. You can take those moments and talk about them, or hasten over them and change the subject.

You got it exactly.

It isn't that it doesn't happen, but that you hide it or
say almost in the sense the opposite.

I can understand perhaps when I was a teenager - trying to discourage teenage pregnancy when you start seeing around you. But as an adult what is the purpose?

....wasn't there a post from Coastal Rat about bringing it up at breakfast? I don't see it anymore...

Yeah, I wrote it, posted it, and then didn't like the tone of it and deleted it. Then I got tied up with something else and never rewrote it with a bit of a softer tone. lol

The point I was making was that conversations about a family's imperfections just isn't normal table talk. Why should a mother start telling her kids about a grandmother's affair that happened in the past and has no bearing on the present? Seems pointless.

It is not necessarily a matter of pretending to be perfect but rather a matter of just not talking about the imperfections unnecessarily.

Well, I see what you're saying, but I don't think that was Linkat's point. Some things should be talked about - you can learn lessons from them. Or they might explain a person's behaviour. But what I'm thinking is that most things are not to be ashamed of. Having a child out of wedlock isn't the social taboo it used to be, so knowing your cousin Susan was born 2 months early just makes your aunt seem more human.

That and the coverup in a sense - why say "My sisters never HAD to get married." If there are affairs going around. You don't have to point them out or even talk about them - to me that is more personal to those directly impacted.

To be honest, I don't care if my aunt had an affair or not - doesn't directly impact me. I suppose if I were closer to her and her husband like her daughter is, it would be different. I just shrugged and figure well now I understand why my cousin is so upset at her mom.

I get what you are saying. I took Linkat's post to question whether or not all families pretend to be perfect. The gist of my response is simply that maybe the perception is that families are pretending to be perfect while in reality it is simply a matter of families just not discussing openly those things that may be deemed as imperfections.

Hopefully the above gets my thinking across a bit better.

Although it would make interesting breakfast conversation...

I think it's really generational. There used to be so many things you didn't talk about.

Your post makes me remember Mo asking me what a bastard is and I replied it's a kind of bad word that means a mean, old man and him asking why someone might call him a bastard and me having to take several moments to remember that bastard really means an illegitimate child. (Don't even ask where he heard this word. It still makes my blood boil.)

Nobody means bastard when they talk about bastards anymore but it used to be a big deal. It's still the first definition in the dictionary.

People didn't used to be gay either. "Coming out" is still a term we use.

People didn't even talk about breast cancer before Betty Ford made it okay to do so. Now you can't escape pink everything, everywhere. You can fill your kitchen with breast cancer awareness appliances (which is... well.... weird.... in a totally womanly sort of way).

I like it that things aren't hidden anymore and we don't have to pretend to be perfect.

Yeah, and I use the word "bastard" a lot.....different meaning of course

Well, sometimes you don't have to really talk about things that are so obvious, like my parents getting married in November and having my brother in January - duh! Every family has its hidden skeletons and I think they should be passed on from generation to generation, so everyone can benefit from a good story.

Agreeing with Boom... such changes I've seen.

But now off to that my grandmother was a saint.

I may have posted a photo of her before, dunno, and not chasing right now.
Will come back with it if I find it, scan, and so on.

Anyway, I was born in late '41. After a lot of years and long stories, my mother and I stayed with my aunt when my father was at Bikini (more on that, but not now).

So, I was six or seven when I learned my grandmother was a saint. My grandmother was still there in the house then, and so was pa pa.

My mother told me that my grandmother had been close to dying and that the blessed virgin appeared to her and told her she would get well, and then she birthed more children.

On commentary, it's hard to separate the me from back then, being seven, and the me, now, emotionally.

When my grandmother was going through that trevail was likely in the 1890's.
I take it now as fever or dreams by grandmother. I don't remember what I thought back then, more than I didn't get it. My mother strongly believed.

Yeah, but not discussing things that are deemed to be 'imperfections' is pretending to be perfect, no?

I thought your point was that they didn't discuss them because it wasn't the 'thing' to do... they believe in keeping it private for privacy's sake. You know, none of anyone's business.

I think maybe the idea of "keeping up appearances" was somewhat generational, but it's still there. These days though, it's not the gay cousin you have to hide, it's the neo-nazi uncle.

I think what you've pointed out is one of the forms of posing that humans engage in. My parents generation did a lot of posing.

Most of us have grown out of that in today's society, but it still occurs.
It is curious that you're mother had apparently posed so long she wouldn't trust you, a member of the inner circle, with the truth. Or perhaps she has posed for so long she no longer considers whether or not it is true.

I remember once being an observer to jury selection, one older woman being interviewed was, quite obviously, greatly pained to admit she had been divorced once at a young age.

Yes.
And that there's less of the hypocrisy of condemning others for their "imperfections" while pretending we don't have any ourselves, too.
I think that's the point Linkat was making.

I had a very strict upbringing & the pressure to never "bring shame on the family" was extremely oppressive.
Say nothing of extremely repressive!
Heaven help the poor sod who besmirched the family name!
I'm really glad things are a lot more honest now.

People don't want to wash their dirty linen in public, and there's no faster way to get a story spread around town than to tell a child. I don't blame them at all, and it's snotty to suggest that people are attempting to suggest that their families are perfect. Your attitude suggests that there is something wrong with children born out of wedlock, or being pregnant when marrying--this is prudery of an earlier generation. Congratulations, you're well on your way to being a snoopy, judgmental old woman.

I sometimes wish my family had actually tried to pretend it was perfect. Instead we seemed to revel in our dysfunctionality.

As a child, it wasn't liberating.