Have You Told Your Children Your History?

Jules

Jules

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Talking with my granddaughter today, I realized I hadn’t told my children or grandchildren much about my life. It wasn’t to hide anything, I just never discussed my life.

She had done Ancestry and met some family and dislodged some buried skeletons. These were things I only knew on the periphery too and didn’t really care about. We were trying to logic out some of the relationships. After I told her some history, she was shocked. I’d even forgotten most of it because it was historical and I just didn’t care. I imagine she‘ll be giving her mother and aunt an earful tomorrow.

Do your family know your history?
 

I don't know how much I'd told them. Not keeping secrets, just haven't thought about it . I did go through my picture albums and identified everyone in the pictures. If I couldn't identify anyone, the picture was removed from the album.
 

Jules said:
Talking with my granddaughter today, I realized I hadn’t told my children or grandchildren much about my life. It wasn’t to hide anything, I just never discussed my life.

She had done Ancestry and met some family and dislodged some buried skeletons. These were things I only knew on the periphery too and didn’t really care about. We were trying to logic out some of the relationships. After I told her some history, she was shocked. I’d even forgotten most of it because it was historical and I just didn’t care. I imagine she‘ll be giving her mother and aunt an earful tomorrow.

Do your family know your history?
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I'm lucky that I have a brother and a sister in law that kept up the families genealogy.
As far as our family stories I have a journal that, some day, I'm going to start writing memories before I forget them.
 
I have told my kids all I know. Sadly my parents never spoke of family history (too many skeletons) so I knew very little. Also as a family we never socialized with any relatives so I was never had the chance to know aunts and uncles or cousins.

My daughter got curious a few years ago and started researching our family, she actually turned up a lot of info I never knew. One of the most interesting was her finding my dad's parents names and even a picture of them with my father and a brother.
 
Yes. Not only my history but stories about their grand parents and great parents that my folks had shared with us. i can even tell them stories about grands on their paternal side. i knew my first in-laws fairly well (still in touch with some of them on FB--including some of my sons' cousins). My daughters Dad was brother of a neighbor and friend and i knew his mom and many of their stories as well.
i think it's really important for kids.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
When you're growing up, you accept things, and you don't question them. I knew my dad spent time in an orphanage, but it wasn't until well after he passed that I wondered how did he get there? Or that my dad was in the US Navy in WWII and at sea nine months before I was born????
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My parents were buttoned up the back when it came to us knowing anything very much about their past. I know my mother was placed in an orphanage with her sister when she was 2 years old, because the father didn't want girls.. and they kept the boys..but they beat them badly... I know she was raised by evil nuns...

I know my father started smoking cigarettes at 9 years old.. and I know he went to prison at about 20 years old... but I really know nothing more than that !

We did have a lot to do with our paternal grandparents and aunts and uncles, but they too were very secretive about their pasts
 
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My son knows the heartbreaking story of how I came to be as well as other family history I felt was pertinent. On my mother's side, our family of cousins is huge; there are several branches to our family tree and by attending a couple of family reunions, he learned more about that. I had to force him to go last time (2017) because it was in Long Island and he hates driving there so much (often does so for work ). We always have a two day event, so we stayed overnight. Afterward, he couldn't stop raving about what a great time he had. And like always, he found out some people he's been seeing around are relatives. More history is told at each reunion. One of our historians made a DVD of our history. My son and I are planning to watch that together. 1998, I met my half siblings and my son met his "new" aunt, uncle and cousins. This directly relates to the story behind my conception and birth.
 
I know little and care less. My mother always maintained that she was descended from minor aristocracy, and her true lineage was from her middle name. We haven't been able to verify any of this, but there may have been 'goings on' underneath the covers in Victorian times.

Father's side were farmers from the Sottish borders.

By the time I came along, wealth had been diluted and I was born into an ordinary working class family. I think mother was very insecure and thought life had dealt her a bad hand.
 
Haven't told my children about my life with their father. It would hurt them too much.
They lived it too but there is so much they don't know and will never know.
if they ask about my childhood or the rest of my life, I'll tell them but they haven't asked.
 
I never knew my "daddy" was not my "daddy" till I overheard him and his brother talking leading me to question my grandmother after getting nowhere with my mother.

On the bright side, my grandma was always willing to share tales of her life on the Canadian Prairies and Northern Ontario. How much was fact and how much was embellished I'll never know but they made for some great conversations.
 
Sassycakes said:
Being the talking machine I am I have told my kids and grandkids all my family's history. My Mom had 5 brothers and 5 sisters. My Dad came from a family of 2 boys and 6 girls so I have plenty to tell my family.
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Sassy, my father was the 3rd eldest of 16 kids.. my mother the youngest girl of 9... I knew my uncles and aunts on my paternal side and we'd visit with them fairly regulalrly some more than others .. I met my mothers siblings once, and then the second time at her funeral.. when I was 18... I still know very little about any..of them..because they didn't make conversation about anything other than the shallowest of things.. so I have nothing to pass onto my daughter..
 
When my youngest son came back from one of his summer vacation visits with my parents in California,
he filled me in on what they had told him about me growing up and my brother filled in the gaps.
They both admitted that I was pretty much invisible, just kept my head down.
No close friends that didn't involve surfing, maybe only 3 close ones.

He heard about all the moves and I think that hit home with him and why we stayed in one place so
he could make friends from 1st grade to graduation.

If he asks, I'll tell him the good or the bad in my life.
 
There are some things from the past that are best left untold. I haven't told everything, not even to my husband. Those are things I wouldn't share with anyone. There's no need for them to know. As far as finding out about my family when I was growing up, they held it pretty close to the vest. After most of them had passed, I was told some shocking things by my aunt one night over dinner. I had no idea. It's no wonder my mother never told me.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
When you're growing up, you accept things, and you don't question them. I knew my dad spent time in an orphanage, but it wasn't until well after he passed that I wondered how did he get there? Or that my dad was in the US Navy in WWII and at sea nine months before I was born????
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I think that varies from one family to another. My parents were story tellers. So were some aunts and my older sisters. Technically my half sisters from Dad's first marriage. They spent 3-4 yrs in children's home after being removed from their mother's care in early 1940s. They came to live with us when i was year old but i wasn't really clear on the facts even tho their mother would come visit them at our home till i was 6yrs old.

My mother (who was Dad's second of 5 wives) died thinking having the girls come live with us was one of maybe three disputes out of many with Dad that she won in their 13 yrs. Sometime after 2000 the we all learned that actually the home was being shut down in 1947 due to child abuse allegations (physical and sexual).

I'd long known about the abuse from my sisters, but in those days people rarely explained even major life events/changes to kids so they hadn't known why they were moved. The Home had contacted an Aunt of our Dads and she insisted on bringing the girls to us. She had partially raised him and few people said no her.

Dad's younger half-Brother was doing family research and uncovered it. He felt the girls should know even after so much time because not all adults of previous generation had believed them and the info he found validated their stories.
 
bowmore said:
At my mother's funeral, my niece (who is a little strange) gave me a CD of my parents talking about their history. Why she waited this long, I have no idea. My dad passed away 12 years earlier.
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It's possible one or both of them asked her to wait until they were both dead. Or she for some reason felt it was best. She might have had good intent. She may not. But wouldn't it make sense to ask her?
 

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