12 Types of Family Secrets Your Parents Keep From You

As a kid, you’re used to older family members talking in hushed tones when it came to certain topics. Family secrets you found out as an adult are

1. Biological Parentage

People have gone their whole childhood thinking their caretakers were their biological parents, but the reality is usually a little more complicated than that. Someone in the family was adopted and you had no idea. Your sister is actually your mom and you’ve really been raised by your grandma who you thought was your mom this whole time!

Family secrets don’t come as wild and unexpected as this.

2. Reasons For Divorce

Your parents or uncle and aunt are getting a divorce and the best explanation you’re told at the time is that they were both just “unhappy”. Fast-forward several years later and your parents will inevitably tell you the actual reasons. Maybe it was heartbreaking, maybe there was an affair, or maybe they ran into financial trouble. Divorce reasons hold an abundance of family secrets!

3. Who’s Doing Drugs

Someone’s doing drugs in your family, and your parents are not telling you who it is, or that it’s even happening! You’re told your cousin Shauna went away to private school for the spring when in reality she was sent to rehab for an addiction. Your aunt Bethany smokes weed every night to fall asleep but you’re told a skunk just lives near her house.

Drugs are understandably too mature a topic for kids to learn about just yet.

4. Who’s Had Affairs

Nobody likes to admit when someone they love makes poor choices. Cheating or having had affairs in the past is a scrutinized topic that makes sense why they’ve not spread around so much. It’s one of the awkward family secrets that leaves the relative in a bad light (which, granted, they should be in).

Finding out who’s cheated in your family when you got older certainly helps explain a lot of strange tension on Thanksgiving.

5. What’s In The Will

Who’s getting what in your grandparents’ will when they pass? That’s a pressing question a lot of parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins want to know. But usually, those who do know are very tight-lipped about the matter. You might be wondering if grandpa left your family any money, but your parents won’t tell you.

6. Which Relative Is Gay

Why does uncle Richard live with his coworker and not with the woman of his dreams, you might have asked yourself at one point. Nobody felt comfortable to tell you they were a gay item as a kid, but thankfully that stigma has been decreasing in recent years. Hopefully this is one of those family secrets that can come out of the closet!

But you remember when your uncle came to family parties with his “roommate”. You remember how your cousin Sherry would always be texting her “friend”. There was always a word for it that wasn’t labeling the obvious!

7. Secret Professions

A job is a job and there’s really no such thing as an unprofessional path. But try explaining that to your family. There are some relatives who’ve made a living and profit off of either illegal or taboo practices that just aren’t family-friendly enough to mention to children.

Uncles who crossdress for their jobs, your cousin who works as a webcam girl, and all sorts of scandalous professions are the subjects of this topic. “mature” kind.

8. Secret Relatives

There are new people coming out of the woodwork showing up to family events and you have no idea who they are. Your relatives claim they’re also family, but you’ve never seen them before. What’s the deal?

Relatives who’ve had secret families and affairs can leave children and half-relations that can leave children quite confused when explanations are hobbled together. Whether it was your grandpa who had a secret affair or your aunt who had kids with several men, secret relatives are a tightly-lipped subject.

9. Sexcapades

We’re all human, including your relatives! We’ve all got good and sexy stories to share so let’s not beat around the bush. This is one of those no-brainers as to why it’s not shared with the kids in the family.

You might have heard your uncles and aunts joke about those “wild nights” only said in passing. You might be playing videogames or dolls in the same room as your older teenaged cousins who’re exchanging scandalous and raunchy stories. Sex is all around you, but it’s best you don’t realize that until after your childhood.

10. Wild Stories When They Were Younger

Older relatives try to be the best example of a role model for the younger generation. It makes you wonder if they’ve ever acted as foolish at your age. Good news: they have. All teenagers are naturally thrill-seeking, foolhardy, and naive enough to get into all sorts of mischief regardless of the generation.

You think your mom hasn’t gone to a crazy high school party? Your aunt hasn’t been arrested before? Think again. Relatives are bound to have done something remotely wild in their younger years!

11. Pets’ Fate

Children love pets. It’s too bad they just can’t take care of them properly. Parents are inevitably the real caretakers of the pet their children wanted in the first place, which means it’s up to them to figure out what to do when beloved Fido goes missing…

Shake a goldish too hard and parents will have found a replacement the next day. The dog passed away, parents will tell their kids they were sent to a farm. The rabbit goes missing, just buy an identical one! Sure, it seems cruel to forge something superficial on a beloved attachment, but parents are just trying to save their children from heartbreak.

12. The Family Recipe

Hey, not all family secrets on this list have to be dark or scandalous, right? Besides, many can attest to the fact that family recipes are a well-guarded treasure in the home that must be earned through years of initiation and maturity.

Learning to cook the family way is a right of passage for many, so getting your hands on what makes grandma’s butterscotch pudding taste so good is a recipe best not shared with everyone.