How Much Should They Know?

We all like to tell tales.  Whether they are of good times or bad, of triumph or spectacular defeat or of general youthful jackassery, it’s all great fodder.  I enjoy few things more than being with a group of good friends exchanging stories.  Some I’ve heard (and told) dozens of times, and some are brand new.  Briefly living vicariously in those spinning yarns feels pretty darn great. 

There is a point, however, that I think the stories either need to wait or even be buried completely.  And that’s when it comes to my sons.  I don’t know if I can put a finger on exactly why, and maybe the reason is different depending on the content, but my instincts tell me to either tone down, delay or completely suppress certain telling of adventures of my younger self.   And this is conflicting a bit.

I don’t want to portray my life as different than it actually was/is, but there are certainly some things they don’t necessarily need to know.  It may be obvious, but that’s the way it was with my dad as I grew up.  The older I got, the more I learned about his past.  I never felt that was anything but right.  And I think it served a purpose.  It harkens back to a previous article (Hammer Away, My Friends).  Just as you don’t need to be best chums with your adolescent kids, your children don’t necessarily benefit from knowing everything about you.  I’m not suggesting living a double life or being overly mysterious, just that little Timmy knowing your every dark secret is probably not the greatest idea until he’s old enough to understand all the necessary context.

As parents, our past is a great teaching tool.  My mistakes have made for fantastic guidelines with which to steer my boys.  Thankfully I have NO end to the list of mistakes from which to refer.  I mean, who hasn’t strapped on a ball gag and snorted a shot of tequila out of a strippers navel while being ritualistically whipped by a….oh, hehe.  That might just be me, but live and learn I say.

See, there is no context I can envision in which my kids would need to hear that story.  If they did, it would only start to break down whatever respect (stop laughing) they might have built up for me.  And it’s not even that I don’t want them to get it in their head that they shouldn’t do that.  Weird as it might be, it would be OK with me IF, and it’s a big IF they were old enough to get into such a thing.  But one, I don’t want to hear about it; and two, I don’t want them to think I would openly condone or suggest they go out and try it.  At the right age and maturity level they’ll get to those sorts of things on their own.  No good comes from putting my tacit stamp of approval on certain things until I think they are ready for it.

There is a built in filter that I have developed, distilled from years of hearing and not hearing my parent’s escapades.  I think back about my perception of them as I grew up the dynamic that was established in my home.  It worked and it was comfortable, so of course I’d like to replicate that for my kids.  I think that doling out my past judiciously is a good way to keep that dynamic within a range that works for me and the kids.  Someday they’ll get to hear the rest of the story I started above, that is if the hypnotherapy can dredge it out of my repressed memory.  In the mean time, we’ll exchange more appropriate anecdotes and hopefully make some together that they may or may not tell their kids some day.

RALSTON HAS SPOKEN