Description

All families have secrets but the facts requiring secrecy change with time Nowadays a lesbian partnership a bastard son or a criminal grandfather might be of little or no consequence but could have unraveled a family at an earlier moment in history Margaret K Nelson is interested in how families keep secrets from each other and from outsiders when to do otherwise would risk eliciting not only embarrassment or discomfort but profound shame and in some cases danger Drawing on over 150 memoirs describing childhoods in the period between the aftermath of World War II and the 1960s Nelson highlights the importance of history in creating family secrets and demonstrates the use of personal stories to understand how people make sense of themselves and their social worlds

Keeping Family Secrets uncovers hidden stories of samesex attraction among boys unwed pregnancies among teenage girls the institutionalization of children with mental and physical disabilities participation in leftwing political activities adoption and Jewish ancestry The members of ordinary families kept these issues secret to hide the disconnect between the reality of their own family and the prevailing ideals of what a family should be Keeping Family Secrets sheds light not only on decadesold secrets but pushes us to confront what secrets our families keep today