Honesty may not always be the best policy
Last Father’s Day, my sister asked if I had visited our dad. I was a little dumbstruck at the question but given the occasion, I replied, “No, why?” Don’t you want to see him, she asked. “You mean go and visit his grave and tell him about my life and his granddaughter that he’s never known?” I thought but didn’t say. Instead, “I made my peace when we buried him over a decade ago, sis’. I’m fine.” Clearly she felt I was suppressing some childhood emotion and asked if my daughter should be spared from it. “Why would my daughter want to look at the tombstone of a man she’s never known and witness her father speaking about a time that could have been?” But, instead I said, “My daughter knows how detached her grandfather was from all the narratives she’s heard. One day, when she’s older, I will take her to his grave site, so she knows where it is. But until then, I prefer to spend my time with the living, not with the dead. Besides, she has three other living grandparents,” I assured. My response wasn’t meant to shut down my sister, but it had that effect on her. Her understanding of how I’ve coped growing up without a father figure is very different from how I’ve managed to become a man without a father. As her little brother, she knows me better as a younger sibling than she knows me as a grown man. Our journeys forked when I left home for school at 18. The entire conversation left her unsettled and me unclear why she brought it up. While love may be unconditional, relationships certainly have boundaries. My sister mistook a door to a room that I no longer enter with a wall that’s intended to keep people out—it wasn’t the latter. It is unfortunate that I have so few positive memories to adorn that room; it’s been empty for years. There’s nothing to hide and sadly, there’s nothing to show. There’s also nothing to be ashamed of, either. In retrospect, I think my sister was feeling melancholy and still mourns. I had moved on fully and my honesty may have inadvertently inflicted more hurt onto her. We haven’t spoken of it again, and upon reflection, I do regret my sheer honesty which may have made me insensitive.
I’ve always taught my daughter to be true to herself and be truthful with other people. People can work through bad situations and that process can actually bring them closer together. But withholding or lying (even to protect another) raises suspicion and can have corrosive effects which can destroy more than relationships. As she gets older, she is also discovering that truths, like colors, have different shades and can mean different things to different people. Honesty isn’t always a black and white affair and its reception can be heavily influenced by timing and delivery. My daughter discovered this when she told her mom how happy she was to have a sleepover only to find her fly into a rage. It really surprised my daughter and it helped her learn that while discretion may be the better part of valor, candor may not always be the better part of courage and sometimes, keeping her mouth shut can also be a path forward. I explained to her that she has no control or responsibility for the reactions of others. She’s done nothing inappropriate, there’s nothing to hide. Sometimes, people aren’t ready for her truths.
Multiple truths can exist in the same place at the same time. Time gives everyone the space they need for acceptance to take place. Regardless of how obvious something is, people will not accept reality until they are ready to do so.
One of my daughter’s friends discovered that honesty also backfired on her. My daughter’s aquarium sleepover invitation to this friend was actually withdrawn when the friend reacted negatively to the news that the friend’s best-friend wasn’t invited. The friend said my daughter was being mean and unfair and she might not attend otherwise. My daughter’s reaction was immediate as she didn’t want to be trapped in a spat of pettiness on a sleepover celebrating her 10th birthday. Instead, she swapped this friend for another.
Contrast this to one of my daughter’s oldest friend and I asked why she doesn’t play with her anymore. My daughter’s response was, “She stinks.” OK. Why is she a bad friend? “No daddy, she smells. She only showers once or twice a week.” Oh, as I recalled the ‘stinky kid’ from my own class whom nobody wanted to play with. I guess there’s one in every class! So I asked my daughter if she said something to her. She looked at me with a contorted face, “Of course not!” I laughed thinking clearly she is mastering discretion, Zen and the ambiguous art of honesty!
As an adult, it took me a long time to learn that multiple truths can exist in the same place at the same time. I still struggle with these topics but know that family bonds offer a safe place to practice them. The honesty of my own emotions was too abrupt for my sister to process and she internalized it as judgement upon her unhurried recovery at the death of our father. Time gives everyone the space they need for acceptance to take place. Regardless of how obvious something is, people will not accept reality until they are ready to do so. There will be times when withholding an actuality aren’t lies but a necessary shield to protect people from the impact of the truth’s further realities. Even to this day, I don’t think my mom knows all of my father’s indiscretions. I’m not sure we all do as we only discovered pieces upon his death. It doesn’t matter anymore. What is important is that relevant truth, like a rising tide, will eventually lift everyone to a common place.
