Keeping Family Secrets

Shame and Silence in Memoirs from the 1950s

By: Margaret K. Nelson

Narrated by: Janet Metzger

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 same-sex attraction among boys, unwed pregnancies among teenage girls, the institutionalization of children with mental and physical disabilities, participation in left-wing 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 decades-old secrets but pushes us to confront what secrets our families keep today.

©2022 Margaret K. Nelson (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

We Have Come So Far

Remining me of how far we have come gives me more value to making it real. I remember Willowbrook and the injustices -- knowing that a lot of the rosy glow of the past was based on keeping these secrets gives me more motivation to keep moving forward. We can do better as human beings. "Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father" the fifties wanted to better and did a lot of rug sweeping. We do more facing problems and dealing with it. Even Barbie now comes in a Down Syndrome archetype.