I have many stories to tell.
Today I am telling my story and what I experienced around openness and transparency in an intact family.
Because family is something sacred and rests on mutual trust, it goes without saying that you can come at any time, with all your stories, emotions and needs, at least to your parents. And receive advice, support, comfort and love there.
But it is also an absolute prerequisite for mutual trust that everything is talked about openly, always and at all times. Otherwise no trust can grow. And mistakes, too, may be given room, so as to make new room for corrections and improvements.
I grew up in just such a healthy and highly communicative environment.
No secret, whether someone else’s or your own, ever had to hold out against the walls within the family, because inside our protected circle it was safe and in good hands.
A personal moment or an experience therefore never had to stay personal. After all, who you were was defined by the family.
And so, over the years of growing up, such an intimate bond of trust developed that there was never any doubt that it was justified.
There was always a solution ready, an answer already worded and a judgment already passed. Approving or disapproving – but it was reliable.
After all, you can, should and must tell your mother and your father everything. That secures mutual trust for the future, too.
But then the children grew older and learned from the fallible outside world that there might well be the option of keeping certain things to yourself. Feelings, thoughts, emotions of any kind.
And so, now and then, the wish awoke not to break the trust, but to stay silent about certain things. Generally these were completely ordinary things, like stories about friends, first feelings for the opposite sex, fantasies and dreams.
But this first breakout, so to speak, from the bond of trust had far-reaching consequences. After all, this wayward development put the intact family life at risk of coming apart at the seams. Simply because one family member knew something that another family member didn’t. Not a threat in itself, but unbearable.
That is why the children were systematically and patiently trained to confide everything, really everything, to the family. In return there was advice, recognition, gratitude or contempt, depending on the content. All in all, though, the open bond of trust secured the peace of the family.
Diary entries were read, of course. If a truth had nonetheless been hidden in them that went unmentioned during our transparent evenings together, it didn’t take long before the subjects landed on the table after all. The mere fact that they were written in a diary had to mean they posed a danger. Why else would they be in a book meant only for personal use? After all, by universal and mutual agreement, we had put anything personal behind openness and daily reporting, for the sake of family life.
Thank God, you have to say in hindsight, the diaries were read. That way worse things could be prevented, and legitimate opinions on the feelings and experiences of the adolescents could be voiced at any time.
This has nothing to do with control; it was all done for the good of the community that an honest family simply is.
The honesty that was demanded, and later forced, came at a price. Along with the habit of disclosing everything, from intimate experiences to the financial situation, it brought a great deal of habit and a kind of subservience. A question, once asked, was answered honestly by instinct. Which in general is nothing bad, but from a certain age on, and depending on the question, certainly calls for a more nuanced view.
So, in the usual manner, everything was asked about, laid open even before the question came, in order, as always, to keep the family peace. Not answering a question was like answering directly that something was wrong, and that in turn had to be discussed in the family council and changed until it served the family peace again.
In short. There was no secret, no decision made on your own, no intimate experience. And that was good, because that was how we had learned it, and so it was normal.
That this kind of transparent household management would not work forever was foreseeable, but not wanted.
So whenever events or changes took place in the children’s lives, it was automatically assumed that these changes would become a danger to the family, because possibly, once again, not everything had been laid on the table. When it came to new partners, for example, who posed a danger to the system, and to the intimacies taking place within the relationship. Because no partner, no matter which daughter’s, necessarily brought along the same understanding of trust and disclosure in a family that he, naturally, didn’t know as well as we knew each other.
So the daughters were questioned, watched and pressured into disclosing, as usual, all the intimacies with the new partner too, which was supposed to help keep the tried and trusted relationship stable.
And so, to keep up this good, loving relationship, I learned, at every point in my life and over a period of 20 years until last year, to report in by phone more or less every day. That way nothing could escape my parents or slip out of their hands. After all, they always had the perfect solution ready for everything, whether tips about sex or about raising children and how to live in general. And I told them willingly, out of deep habit. If I didn’t, I was served a guilty conscience for dessert, and it usually didn’t take long before I obediently ate up my soup.
My parents knew everything at all times and were busy passing judgment. And I sensibly adjusted my behavior to their expectations, in order, as always … to keep the peace.
That a lot of this might have to do with coercion and manipulation – the thought did occur to me now and again, but of course I talked about that openly and honestly too, and naturally the doubts were carefully cleared away … for the good of the community. For trust and openness.
All in all … What do you learn from this. Some, nothing. Others, everything.
For a year now I have been learning that there are a great many things I considered normal that are not normal at all. How can other people live like that? Where is the trust supposed to come from? How can they have relationships and keep up friendships?
They can, because they have learned that trust does not grow out of giving yourself up completely. But precisely where another person’s silence is respected. And because they have learned that there are emotions, experiences and situations that belong to you alone, and the other person was allowed to learn exactly the same thing.
So let us wrap ourselves in silence and enjoy the calm that comes with it.