Certain details of life do not share and parents do everything to preserve their children, out of love. Rightly or wrongly?
When you are a child, you grow without realizing what’s going on around us. We live things with carelessness, and that’s what adults are above all seeking to preserve, as long as possible. So, some subjects are not discussed in front of the little ones “because they are too young”, “because they would not understand”, “because they do not have to know”. This silence is not a lie, it is a form of tenderness.
Parents want above all to avoid their children to wear anxieties of adults, without guessing that the fridge is empty or that the nights are white. So, they look good, swallow their tears, answer “everything is fine” even when the world collapses. They prefer that a child groan for a pair of sneakers that cannot be bought, rather that it wishes eight years to cost too much. Whether concerns money, couple problems, poorly digested mourning or deep discomfort, many parents choose to keep a part of what they go through.
But some secrets remain buried for a long time, including when the child has become an adult. A sick father who continues to go to work exhausted, a mother who cries in secret in the car, a couple who only holds a thread … “My father lost his job when I was ten years old. He just told me that he was taking a break without ever showing that we were uncovered “, testifies Romain, 35 years old. As for Céline, aged 45, she regrets not having been more present, more united or simply more aware of what her mother experienced. “”I only learned very late that she had almost left my father or that they had to tighten the belt to pay the bills. If I had known it at the time, I would have been less demanding, more attentive. I would have tried to relieve it a little “, she tells us. Mathilde was preserved all her childhood, then, even when her mother announced that she had cancer, she believed her invincible. “I was in total denial, for me, it could not happen, she was going to get out of it and get home“Regrets the young woman who wanted to spend more time by her side.
Certainly, everything did not have to be said. But everything should not necessarily be hidden either. Psy agrees to say that it is healthy to name things, with words adapted to the age of the child. It is not necessary to go into details, but to say that a parent is going through a difficult period, a disease or that times are a little hard, can also help the child develop his empathy. He feels involved without being overwhelmed. The main thing is to remain consistent: if children feel that something is wrong, but that they are denied, they can feel destabilized. A simple “We are going through a period not easy, but we manage, you don’t have to make it“may be enough. It is not weighing a weight is to create a relationship of trust. And sometimes it also allows parents to no longer be alone to wear everything.
