Many will surely agree that mothers do not need to know about everything that happens in the lives of adult children, and even more so about serious problems. We often deceive them and pretend that everything is fine, but maybe we are wrong? An expert in the field of the psychology of lies, Bella DePaulo, suggests thinking: isn’t it better to tell your mother the truth, even bitter, than to make her tormented by conjectures?
A few years ago, a group of psychologists who were researching lies in modern life asked students to write down every instance of lying in a diary for a week. The result was astonishing: all 77 people lied to their mothers in almost every conversation. For the most part, the students told their mothers rather harmless and even predictable stories. For example: “I told her that I was studying with all my might.”
In another experiment, not only students participated, but older volunteers. This time, the respondents were asked to recall what difficult circumstances forced them to consciously deceive, as well as similar situations when they deceived them. These stories are completely different. Parents could not admit to their children that dad was late for dinner every day, because on the way home he looked into the bar, that mom or grandmother was mortally ill, that the pet died and did not run away.
Both adults and young participants lied to their parents for serious reasons. For example, a veteran hides from his mother all his life that he was seriously wounded in the war. Another man said he would never tell his mother that he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. A student prays that her mother won’t find out she had an abortion. One reason forces people to deceive or keep silent: they are trying to protect their relatives from the pain that the cruel truth would cause.
Psychologists wondered: what if the parents, who tried to protect their children from the sad news, followed some kind of “family code” that is passed down from generation to generation? Maybe that is why the children also hid their serious illnesses and personal tragedies from them.
“What brought me back to research was The Things We Don’t Talk About With My Mother: Confessions of 15 Writers, edited by Michelle Filgate,” says clinical psychologist Bella DePaulo. – I would hardly have paid attention to her, because my mother and I had a very trusting relationship. But then I saw the editor and a few writers on TV. They read excerpts from their essays and shared their experiences. I got interested and bought the book.
It is common to think that the most flattering review of a book goes something like this: “I can’t put it down.” I do not agree. I like books that you just have to break away from, because the author makes you think so deeply that it is impossible to continue reading. I put the book down more than once, and when I finished reading it, I realized that my mother and I often behaved exactly like the participants in my research on lies: we kept silent about the important, protecting each other from the bitter truth.
When you share your innermost and know that you will not be left in trouble, the relationship only grows stronger.
My parents lived together for 42 years, until my father died. For both it was the first and only marriage. Was it hard for my mother to accept that I am not married and do not aspire to this? Maybe. But she did not say a word about it, only before her death she said that she was worried about how I would be left all alone. I was just beginning to work with singles back then, and now I’m sad that she never found out that I never equated living alone with being single.
The fifteen writers didn’t just take it in turns to cover the topics they avoided in their conversations with mothers. These are thoughtful, engaging and touching stories of complex relationships. They talked about the emotions they had experienced and what they understood and changed in their perception.
As one of the authors, Melissa Phebos, noted, “We are looking for deep meaning in stories of someone else’s love, sexual passions and family dramas, but none of them is worth the scars that left on the heart of my mother.” She is one of those who always tried to hide personal troubles and life troubles from her mother. And all this in order to realize with age how much she was wrong.
“What part of the truth are we ready to reveal to the one who loves us more than anyone in the world, from what we want to protect her? Would it really be easier for her to find out later, when we were all right? I remember how terrible it was in my soul when poor mother looked into my eyes and tried to guess what I was hiding. With our lies, we make fools out of the people we love.”
One can argue with this, because there are a lot of people in the world who have learned from childhood that frankness can be great to pay. Mothers are different. As one reader put it, many don’t tell their mothers because they remember how many times they’ve been gagged.
But if the relationship is really close, isn’t it better to tell everything? Truth only brings us closer to those we love. When you share your innermost and know that you will not be left in trouble, the relationship only grows stronger. Whenever we lie and try to keep silent about something, we lose support and often regret it many years later.
About the author: Bella DePaulo is a professor in the Department of Cognitive Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, an expert in the psychology of lying and willful celibacy, and author of Singles’ Choice: Why Bachelors are Judged and Despised and How They Manage to Stay Happy, How We Live: home and family in the XNUMXst century.