Family Affairs and other matters

“Secrets and lies are a normal part of all family relationships”.

This quote was taken from an article in the paper about family life. I don’t like the above statement. I have a real problem with lies. It is hardly surprising that I have an issue with secrets and lies, given that it was the act of lying itself that became almost as big a deal as the ultimate betrayal by my husband. I was desperately unhappy about a perceived sense of secrecy and began to feel suspicious for quite a long time before I found out the truth. Ultimately it was my lack of trust in him after the affair that meant we had no solid foundation upon which to rebuild our marriage.

I accept that teenagers are going to lie to a degree and will of course have secrets. It is part of growing up and moving away from their parents autonomy. BUT I would still prefer to know the truth about what they are doing and who they are seeing any day of the week.

Therefore it was a big deal for me to find myself in a difficult situation with my daughter the other day. She had invited one of her best friends to stay the night. In the morning her mother came over – she didn’t come in, she was in a rush, all she said to me was “thank you so much for having her, I really appreciate it after all the crap she’s been getting at school”.

I must have looked blank. My daughter was looking shifty. “OH. Sorry, didn’t you know? I can’t believe your daughter hasn’t told you – you must be the only one that doesn’t know…” and I was thinking I am so going to kill her when I find out what’s been going on and then she said directly to my daughter “that was so sweet of you not to tell your mum, I’m really impressed” and I was thinking I am SO going to kill you even more now.

ANYWAY. Her mother then went on to tell me that her daughter “had done something very silly” and been arrested for shoplifting at the beginning of the summer holidays and taken away in a police car and put into a cell covered in poo. She was suitably punished and completely mortified and the whole thing was awful but she was hoping that eight weeks later she would be able to go back to school and start afresh. Instead, she was being ”bullied” via Facebook about being a criminal and quite a few of her friends had stopped speaking to her.

My daughter said to me afterwards “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you mum, I wanted to, but I promised not to tell anyone and I couldn’t break my promise to her” and I did understand that, but still….I felt upset that she hadn’t felt she could confide in me and then even more upset that she hadn’t wanted to ask me how to deal with the situation at school – because it had got out of hand – parents were involved, as was the headmistress and my daughter was saying to me “it’s really unfair, she knows she’s done something really stupid but she deserves a second chance and I am trying to support her and trying to persuade the others to talk to her again but there’s a lot of stuff on Facebook about her that’s really mean”….and I was thinking how proud I was of her for dealing with the whole thing in a grown-up manner BUT STILL I was upset because I think she thought I might be like some of the other parents who have banned her from coming to their house.

Not a good situation. Not a clever thing to do. I am really very shocked that she did it. But nevertheless, we’ve all done stupid things and this is a very good example of the insidious nature of teenage communication via Facebook. Only yesterday the papers reported that a 15 year old girl jumped off a bridge to her death because of Facebook bullying. It is far too easy to write inappropriate things down – things that you wouldn’t necessarily say to somebody’s face – especially if you were aware of how upset the target had become. It can get out of hand very quickly. Suddenly the whole world knows and there is nowhere to hide.

Which, I guess on the upside means that most of the kids involved with this latest drama wouldn’t dare try shoplifting themselves. Even if the clothes shop concerned doesn’t have security tags and is therefore a renowned soft target apparently.

PS: My brother has already left a comment reminding me about my son’s fashion disaster at youngest brother’s recent wedding. He was an usher and I had bought him a really lovely Ted Baker suit (which having just checked the style was worryingly called “Pokery” – which explains a lot). He looked great, except for the fact that a huge shiny silver security tag was still attached to the one of the back flaps. He was mortified. I took it back after the wedding and they gave him an aftershave gift box as an apology. Don’t know why it didn’t set off the alarms when we walked out but I did pay for it honest!