AIBU to not tell my son the truth just yet?

[Whotookallthegoodnames]

Have name changed, as this is very personal, didn't want to risk my usual user names.

Basically, my parents, dsis and my DP all think I am BU, because I won't tell my DS (8) how his dad died.

His dad committed suicide when he was 2. It was horrible, and obviously an extremely difficult time, which I don't like to go back to too often. I had split with his dad when was only a few months old, and from then until his death, he only saw DS sparodically, so they never really had a close bond, although there are a few pictures of him with DS and I have given these to DS to keep.

When DS was younger and asked about his dad, I explained that he died and went to heaven because he was very poorly. I mean, how was I supposed to explain suicide to a three year old? I have always planned on telling him the truth as a teenager.

He didn't ask any questions for a few years after this, and didn't bring his dad up again. During this time, I met DP, and since DD was born three years ago he often calls DP Dad.

However, recently, DS was around my parents and they were talking about cancer, and DS said "my dad died of cancer". My parents and dsis obviously know the truth, but they, asked DS what cancer his dad died of, and DS replied that he died of brain cancer.

My parents were then furious with me, for "lying" to Ds's and telling him that his Dad died of 'brain cancer', but I have no idea where this all came from. I didn't even know that DS knew about cancer or brain tumours or anything of the sort as we have never talked about those things before. I have only told him that his dad died because he was very poorly, he must have put that to mean cancer on his own.

As karma would have it, the whole Michael Macintyre story has been in the news, Michael's step mum has only told him that his dad committed suicide recently, in his adulthood, which Michael is upset about as he had been told that his Dad had had a heart attack.

So my family and DP are saying that I need to tell him the truth now, as if I leave it, DS will carry on telling people that his dad died of cancer and will resent me when he's older for keeping the truth from him

But he is 8 for Gods sake! I just can't bring myself to talk about this with him at this age. I really don't believe he is ready.

AIBU?

Oh - and Cruise said that children go through a number of different mourning periods as they mature, due to their brain development and their changing hormone, plus new emotions developing.

You need to tell him before someone else lets slip. Would any school families perhaps assume he knew ? If you take advice of what is age appropriate and ensure you leave channels open for future questions or if he has negative feelings himself in future , hopefully you can control the situation as it develops.

OP, does your son's school have a FLO, or would your GP or HV be able to help you and DS find counselling ?

I think you do need to tell him that his father was ill and chose to end his life, before he somehow finds out by accident. I think I might still shield a child from the very graphic detail if it was not a "peaceful" kind of suicide. I am trying to be tactful/gentle, probably failing.

Children are remarkably resilient things though, and you will both get through this transition stage just fine.

When DS1 was 2 a man in the next village committed suicide.
3 years later DS started at the village school with the man's son. Most of the children's parents knew what had happened but it soon became clear that the child did not know. He believed his father had died of a heart attack.
The fiction continued for many years that I know of and the boy is 18 now. He may have been told by now, I don't know as I've lost touch.
My problem with this is that the whole community had, without being asked, to be complicit in the fiction. I truly understood the woman's motives in wanting to protect her son but I felt anxious that someone would let it slip by accident.

I would tell him the truth, his dad died from depression, you don't need to give him too many details ( unless he asks ) but please don't keep anything from him. My dh lost his mum to suicide, sadly dh was the one that found his mum but as of that day his dad never spoke about what happened, it had a huge effect on dh . I hope you can find the right words to tell your ds and I hope he understands xxx

I can understand your reluctance but I think at 8, he can take it better than if he was older. You correctly said his dad was very poorly when he was 3 - dad's head was very poorly and that is what made him commit suicide (ie mental illness). An 8yo can make more sense of that than an 18yo IMO. If you do address the suicide issue, you will Prob then get asked how so eg if he took pills, you could say he took too much medicine because his head was so poorly etc.
Sorry for your situation but I think you are at the upper age limit of handling this without too many problems. A teen could go into depression over it for example.

YANBU. My DD 7 knows I had a brother who died before she was born. I know it's not the same as a father but the same principle applies regarding discussing suicide with a child. She asked me if he was poorly and I just said yes.One day I will tell her the truth just as you will tell your DS. But not until we think they're ready. I send you my best wishes.

Your son may just take it in all matter of factly because of the age he his now. The fact that he told your family it was cancer gives you a reason to bring it up with him and ask why he thought his Dad had died of cancer, because actually he didn't.

I had to tell my eldest that her dad, my ex-husband was her bio-dad. I was incredibly grateful that she asked the random question when she was 3 about who her daddy was (meaning my ex-h or then dp). She took it all in her stride and over the years her understanding of the implications has grown and I've had to fill in the pieces of the jigsaw that has been painful and difficult but she has said that she glad it wasn't a secret as she would never have forgiven me for lying to her.

I have a 7 year old who asks questions about his Dad's absence my theory is that if he asks he is old enough to have an answer age appropriate.

It is a tough thing to tell him.. You not been ready is not reason enough not to tell him..Him not been ready is a different .

I wouldn't allow him to think his Dad died of cancer but maybe a bit more of a drip drip thing

Just to add I don't think you are BU.. I think you are trying to protect him but there probably won't be a perfect time to tell him

I would say that he is ready, because he is creating a story to fill the void of information that he has.

I agree it is horrific, but you can't lie to him forever, and if you leave it until he's older then he will be upset not only about how his dad died, but about being lied to. You are his mum, he needs to know that he can trust you to be truthful with him.

I think you should tell him ,the longer you leave it the harder it will get .

YABU You really must tell him. It will only get harder, not easier.

With adoption we are taught to bring the children up 'knowing' their background in an age appropriate way.

Your son's father 'had an illness with his brain, which made him very unhappy and he decided he didn't want to live anymore, it wasn't a physical thing like cancer, but a thinking thing'
(or something)

Please please please tell him.

Sorry that you and your ds have to face this.

One of my parents committed suicide when I was a child and I was lied to until my teens. Although i always knew something weird was going on and I wouldn't be surprised if your ds felt the same, especially in light of the cancer comments. Being lied to by my family definitely led to trust and emotional problems for me. I don't want to go into too much detail here but feel free to pm me.

I don't know what the right answer is... But wanted to say that whatever you do it's important that your son feels he has your support and understanding all along and some therapy might help as it's such a delicate situation.

For what it is worth, I am copying and pasting below from an article on Michael Mcyntyre. This is the stepmum comment btw, soon after she disclosed the truth to Michael, so not sure how reliable / appropriate it is.

"‘He asked me to break the news to Lucy – which I did – and then Michael arrived the next morning and we all went for a long walk in Central Park. Both of them were bombarding me with questions about their dad’s death.

‘Michael told me later he was glad he didn’t know the truth about the suicide. He said it would have created a lot of negativity and he wouldn’t have looked at the world the same way. As it was, his father’s death motivated him because Michael was determined to make Cameron proud.

‘I wonder if he would have had the success he has, or be the man he is, if he’d known the truth?’"

I don't think that you are being unreasonable to not have told him yet, but I do think you need to think about the long-term consequences of withholding this kind of information for much longer. He has already lost one parent, so don't run the risk of him feeling as though his remaining parent has been lying to him, no matter how good your intentions.

I can't imagine a scenario where being told would be worse than not - he may be upset, he may blame himself, he may need some professional support, but that will be the same whatever age he is, and at least if he knows that you have told the truth, it will be one less bombshell for him to have to deal with. He needs to know that he can trust you so that he can deal with the information - if he finds out that he can't (or rather feels that he can't - I'm not suggesting that you are lying about anything else) then it will make the process of coming to terms with it much harder.

OP I agree in an ideal world you'd wait longer, I can't say I think 8 is old enough either, BUT it appears that decision has been taken from you... by your son.

He obviously thinks about his dad. Whether he overheard someone talk about "sick in the head" or something else similar to that he's come to the conclusion that his dad died of brain cancer. It seems he has/had a need to know and told himself (or someone else told him) it was brain cancer.

Personally I don't agree with discussing it as "not making normal decisions" because it could be taken as an insult to his dad, that an "normal" is relative. Saying he wasn't happy could lead DS to think he did something or didn't do something.

I would probably ask your DS if he knows what a mental illness is and whether he's heard of depression. I'd try and talk about mental illness in a general way, to explain it's not someone's fault they have this and sometimes people get better and sometimes people don't and his dad was someone who didn't get better and he died.

I don't think I would use the word suicide yet, or that he "took his own life" because he is still young and impressionable unless he specifically asks or you feel he would understand it.

He was ill, he was very very ill. You didn't lie at all.

Your son has put together a story in his mind, which is not true. Now is absolutely the the to open this discussion with him. I simply cannot stress the importance of that. An opportunity has arisen, take it.

Explain that his dad's illness was in his brain. It wasn't brain cancer, but it was like a disease of his brain, and it made him hurt himself so badly that he died.

It's understandable why you don't want to tell him. It's a painful subject and you don't want to upset him. But I think you really should.

First, he already knows that something is up. The brain cancer story makes this quite clear - he might have heard people talking about his dad being mentally ill and confused it with brain cancer. Or he might be making it up to force the issue.

Second, you absolutely absolutely don't want him to think that suicide and mental illness are things to be ashamed of. If he finds out by accident, or hears later, he might well internalise it in this way. This sort of shame is really corosive. If (God forbid) your DS should develop depression or any other MH problem in his teens you wouldn't want him to think that it was something shameful that he couldn't talk to you about. Set the good example early.

Third, children are very resilient - much more so than teenagers. Discovering that he has been lied to will undermine his resilience in coming to terms with it when he does.

Please speak to winstons wish, they are a fantastic charity

I think you need to tell him. Other organisations that can help you are Cruse Bereavement Care and Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide.

I think it will be important to your son not to feel a stigma around his dad's death or that it is a secret too terrible to talk about.

This isn't the same situation at all but a good family friend, my DVD's Godfather, ended his life last year. My oldest children were 5 and 3. I told them that X was very poorly, that his brain wouldn't send the right messages and the doctors tried hard to make him better but couldn't and he died. Then I waited for questions and there were many. My oldest is now 7 and is able to understand that X did take his own life because his illness made him unsure what was real and what wasn't. He knows that these illnesses are common but usually treatable. He hasn't asked any more than that. My now five year old has only got as far as asking, 'did X want to die?' and I have only said that he was too poorly to know what he wanted.

I think that correcting your son's misunderstanding and telling him that his dad's brain was poorly but it wasn't cancer is a very good idea. My feeling is that it will be harder for himin the long term if he grows up believing that mental illness is ddifferent and more terrible than another illness like cancer.

Also, I was eight when my Grandad was (mistakenly, it turned out) diagnosed with terminal cancer. My family didn't tell me but I knew, from overhearing things and whispered conversations. Because it was never discussed with me, I never asked and dealt with my fears on my own, drawing my own conclusions. I even copied down the names of some of his medications off the bottle, to look them up in a medical dictionary to find out more about what the illness meant. You could start the conversation by asking him what he already knows.

littlejohndory I think your experience is very common for children who haven't been told. I look after many parents with cancer and some choose to keep it from their children - but all the children twig that their friends' mummies aren't ill, don't go to hospital so much as their mummy, aren't sad and crying in the kitchen with daddy etc.

And several have found out from friends in the playground as friend has overhead their parents talking about how sad it is about child x's mummy with cancer. In an age where any child can use google plus their imaginations it's usually a disaster for them to find out this way.

I'm sorry that you have such a sad and difficult issue to deal with. However, I strongly suggest you get advice from Winston's Wish. Because you absolutely must tell him the truth in a way that he can understand. He is old enough, at 8 provided that he is told the facts in a way that is appropriate and this is why you need advice.

The longer you leave your ds to come up with inaccurate answers himself, the less likely he is to cope with the truth. And honestly, discovering the truth as a teenager is about the worst time possible! Children can cope with honesty, even when it concerns very difficult issues but they can be terribly screwed up by realising that the truth has been witheld from them. Especially in their teenage years.

whotook I don't think either you or your family are being unreasonable to be honest. it seems to me thay it is a difference of view over what is best.

Personally I would try and find an age appropriate way of telling him and yes I believe the charity mentioned above does help you with how best to do that. at 8 he is too young for the full details and you don't mention why he did it so can only guess at depression so perhaps something like "daddy was very poorly and although he loves you very much he just couldn't stand having to live with this illness any more" If you speak to your GP/hv/librarian as they may be able to offer you some advice on story books that could help your ds deal with it.

your dp and family cannot force you to tell your ds but the posters above are right it won't get easier. they are worries for both of you I am sure.