On Lies of Omission

The older I get, the more I realize how very much I value transparency. I find that I'm much quicker to offer mercy to the person who doesn't hold back.

When I consider the negatives of my childhood, some very specific issues stick out to me as being "biggies".

Our family was a giant lie. We looked like we had it together. We pretended like we had it together. We were ANYTHING BUT transparent. When I was really little I didn't know or get that. When I got to be in high school/college and started developing my own worldview and it became time to adopt my own sense of self and how to live I got really angry,and I mean REALLY angry. I basically cut off communication with my parents. I considered them big fat liars. I was able to identify what went wrong and I didn't like it at all.

For a very long time I was bitter.

As an adult I find that I can tolerate lots of things. I HATE, however, dishonesty. I would much rather murder someone with truth than spare feelings with lies. Perhaps I've swung too far in the opposite direction of my upbringing. It's how I am, though. I'm fond of that quality in me and appreciate it when I find it in others.  

Our family is very different from the ones my husband and I grew up in. We're somewhat of a special circumstance as well. It's a circumstance for which I believe we are well suited.

Honesty and realness are very important in our household. It's an expectation of mine.

The drama continues to unfold in the girls' biological family. Everything kind of came to a head last night. I'm angry because the truth was kept from us. Full disclosure wasn't offered until we pressed the issue. Full disclosure was only offered when they realized they were caught. That gets all over me. When they did tell what happened, it was cloaked in excuses. As far as I'm concerned. It was just more of the same from them. It's a clear example of why I can't offer trust to that family. That muddys our waters around here a whole lot. It's unfortunate for the girls.

But... opportunity was there to come clean last week. The choice made by the person who needed to fess up was silence. In my book that's a lie of omission and sometimes those are even more harmful than blatant lies.