Family Secrets

by Patti

When S was in preschool, she began spilling family secrets.

During the first parent-teacher conference I learned that S, who had suffered from a bad case of separation anxiety when she first started preschool, was finally becoming adjusted to the whole being-away-from-home deal, but that she still needed to play with the kids her own age. According to the teacher, Monday mornings would find S hanging out in teachers’ lounge, asking them how their weekends went.

As she grew more and more comfortable, our parent-teacher conferences grew more and more UNcomfortable. “So, I heard you were moving,” the teacher would tell us. We were? They seemed to know things before we even did. “So you know, your daughter offered us the chance to buy your house for $10 – she told us you were desperate to sell it.”

The teachers also heard about how S’s papi “found all of our furniture in the garbage”. Yes, M is a master at finding gems in the alleys of Chicago, and refurbishing them into beautiful pieces of furniture, but to hear it from S’s precocious little mouth, one would think we were sleeping on flea-riddled mattresses and watching a television with a foil-wrapped antenna from couches with cigarette holes burned into them.

I began to dread facing the teachers. What else was S sharing with them that we didn’t know about? Did she tell them about the argument M and I had had the night before? Did she tell them about how her papi walks around in 15-year old boxers with holes in them, did she mention how I say the "F" word far more than any mother should? I was terrified of what they might know; I began to feel that S was a tiny traitor to our family; an enemy giving away top secret information; one who simply could not be trusted.

One day, I couldn't take it anymore, and I plainly asked the teacher to tell me what kinds of things S had been telling her. I don't know why I was so worried; after all, it's not as if we had dead bodies in our closets or headless cats hung over the fireplace mantel. Our lives were pretty clean and open. Yet, the idea that S might have taken something totally innocent and somehow twisted it into M and I being swingers who bathed with the neighbors freaked me out. The teacher, seeing my concern, chuckled and patted me on the arm. "Oh, if you only knew the things I hear being a preschool teacher. Trust me: I have learned to take it all in with a grain of salt."

Although I was now certain that the teacher knew far more than I wanted her to know, in a way, it was liberating. This meant we could pretty much dance naked with dressed-up pigs in our living room, and if S told her teacher we danced naked with dressed-up pigs in our living room, the teacher would just laugh and take it "all in with a grain of salt". Oh, the possibilities! We were free!

These days, S has gotten a little more selective about what she shares with her teachers, but I do wonder about the sheer volume of twisted scenarios these teachers must carry in their heads. I imagine their minds are an endless Fellini film, replete with hapless mothers and fathers hurtling through the space of their brains, weaving and tumbling through their memories, doing some crazy-assed things. And thanks to S, her papi and I without a doubt have leading roles in some of those films.