This is one of the earliest abstract concepts which children
understand. They love to hear secrets and also to divulge
them to all and sundry, which shows that they do not really
know the true sense of the word. There is an old English
proverb, "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."
Once you tell a secret to even one person, it is a secret no
more. Should we tell our private affairs to our children?
What should we disclose and when should we keep our own
counsel?
Some people are secretive by nature, others bare their hearts
and souls to anyone who will listen. Nowadays, the
indescribable events of the Holocaust are public knowledge,
but fifty years ago, most survivors of the concentration
camps did not speak of the horrors they had seen and endured.
Some admitted that they had been there, but said they did not
want to discuss it. Many did not mention it at all. The
children knew that there was some terrible dark secret, and
their imaginations worked overtime (nothing in their
imagination could equal the reality) but they knew it was a
taboo subject.
How did they know? Veiled hints followed by sighs and deep
silence? If you enter a room, you can sense when they have
been speaking about you. In the same way, children can sense
when something untoward has happened or when parents are
keeping something from them.
Uncertainty is frequently worse than the bare facts. Children
prefer to know the truth, rather than to imagine the
calamity. Parents keep things from their children in order to
shield them, but this is often a mistake. Most people, even
very young people, can cope with facts more easily than with
their imagination. Naturally, there are some things in which
children should not be involved and from which they should be
protected. If there is a difference of opinion between
parents, or an argument, that should take place entirely out
of ear shot of the children. Sometimes, one parent tries to
enlist the sympathy of the child as a sort of coalition
against the other parent. This is most certainly wrong and
very bad for the child. Shortage of money does not have to be
a secret, but it does not have to be discussed too often even
though it may be at the forefront of the adults' minds all
the time.
If one has to divulge some unpleasant secret, one has to make
sure that it is at the right time and in the right place. It
also depends on how one tells the secret, whether the child
will find it easier to cope with. One has to find a private
place where the child can ask as many questions as he
needs.
When informing a patient and his family of a terminal
illness, most doctors try to do it gradually, although on the
whole, patients undergoing tests often fear the worst anyway.
On the whole, people prefer to know the truth, although, as
in the case of terminal illness, this information may take
away hope and trust in the Omnipotent, Who does not always
conform to medical opinion.
There are secrets, less extreme, which ought to remain hidden
from the children. If one member of the family has some
secret which he has asked his parents not to tell the others,
whether it is emotional or physical, it is often extremely
difficult not to tell. Nevertheless, one is obliged to
respect a child's confidence, even that of a little child.
Someone once compared a secret in the family to a long piece
of string. If it is held by two people, one feels even the
slightest tug from the other end. It would be best, though,
if other members of the family didn't even feel that there
was something they were not party to.
This is particularly true of shidduchim. In those
families where everything is discussed openly, it may not be
a problem, but many girls are extremely sensitive about the
subject and do not want their siblings to be party to the
events till they are finalized. It is tempting for the
mother, but she must not drop veiled hints!
Some families broadcast the expectation of a happy event to
the family at least six months or more before time. Others do
not discuss it at all and surprise the family with the news
at the time. One mother told the oldest of a very close born
family that she had a nice secret to tell him, a week before
she was due to go into the hospital.
"I know your secret," the seven-year-old declared. "You told
me the same secret in that tone of voice last year and the
year before and the year before that." Incidentally, this
same boy asked whether he could confide in his father and was
told he could, but with the rider that once someone else knew
the secret, it was not quite such a secret.
Nobody has the right to dictate which policy a family
chooses, whether it is extreme or less so, but parents must
keep in mind that in some societies, their children will be
exposed to peers whose parents are liable to discuss other
people's affairs. What they thought was a well-kept secret
may have been the subject of gossip in the hearing of their
son's classmate. What might be lack of modesty in some
families may be subject to open discussion in others.
There are some secets which should be told, yet are jealously
guarded in the family. Some women give the exact recipe of a
certan delicacy which they prepare, carefully omitting one
ingredient or one process. They seem to be bothered by the
fact that their own specialty will be produced by someone
else. No other Priestly family succeeded in duplicating the
way Beis Avtinas made the ketores or the way Beis
Garmu baked the weekly lechem haponim, and although
they meant it purely for the service of Hashem, they were
censured for not teaching their secret method to others.
One last point. A parent who engages in shady or dishonest
dealings, on the assumption that the children will never
know, is playing with fire. Children hear and see, then draw
their own conclusions. Clandestine behavior is not a good
thing at any time, although one cannot always generalize and
there may be extenuating circumstances. Nevertheless, an
honest secret, as we have seen, is often an inevitable part
of life.
