Don't Try to Hide Sickness From Kids - It Ends Up Sounding Bad

by David Kilimnick

Thoughts from a Waiting Room #14

All this circular talk covering up stuff ends up bad.

We already know you can't use other languages to hide sickness from kids. They catch onto bad foreign grammar real fast. And you, as parents, don't even know what you're saying in French. You use some different language you can’t speak to hide the bad news, and now your ailing relative is getting the wrong medication.
I say don't try to hide the sickness. It's their grandparent. They know. And they should know.

Kids know there’s something wrong when mom and dad walk into the den and shut the door. They know there's a bad illness somewhere. Either that, or you got their report card. Either way, something is not good. At least that was the case when I was a kid. My report card came and I couldn't tell if mom and dad were mad they raised an idiot, or if somebody died. Whatever it was, I failed my family.

The Cover Ups - Don't Try
I'm hearing these parents describe extreme ailment, and it makes no sense. "Sniffles. Grandpa has the sniffles." "Sniffles" is now the technical term for "can't walk because he had a stroke and cancer." 
It’s all lies. When they talk to kids, it’s all lies.
The cover ups are rampant. Parents can't just tell the kids they're broke. They start selling ideas like a "home entertainment system." A whole scam, lying to the kids with concepts like going out in their own house, because they have a “home cinema." "Why do we need to go out to the movies and dinner. We have a home entertainment system. We have a cinema in our living room. And an oven." Then mom and dad express their thoughts on the cost of food. "You know how much the hamburger would be in a restaurant?! And coffee?! The amount they charge for coffee."
You know mom and dad are having a hard time paying the bills when the conversation is "you know how much that would cost at a restaurant." “No. We don’t eat out. Because we can’t afford it.”

Always covering up. "Your uncle isn't poor. He just likes to eat food in pita pocket form. And he likes to sleep in a tent. He's a hiker. He hikes in our neighborhood." The embarrassment of imperfection. "He's not really your uncle. When they ask you at school, you’re not related."
You cover it up and the explanations don't make sense. "Your cousin has a fever. That’s why he’s got a bullet wound."
It gets to the point where parents have to lie, even when it’s good. "We're not talking about Aunt Minnie's wedding in front of the kids. Tell them their aunt came down with the sniffles." Mom and dad will turn weddings into a sickness. You have a Simcha, you think you can tell the kids. Nope. It’s marriage sniffles. “Aunt Minnie has marriage sniffles.” And now the kids think Aunt Minnie caught a disease before her wedding.
The cover ups don't work. Your cousin got shot because he's an idiot, Uncle D is poor and can't afford to purchase food you eat with a fork, mom and dad went broke paying for your summer camp last year, and they haven't had a date night because of you, and grandpa would love to see you before he dies. Go and visit him, you selfish piece of sniffles.

Just Say It - You Can't Protect Them
Parents always want to protect their kids and hide stuff from them. I get it. But you can’t. Think back to your childhood. Did you like it? Exactly. You found out people were dying when you first went to shul and so the old guys Chuching up phlegm wads.
You can’t hide it. "Grandpa is in the hospital for twenty-five days, because he has sniffles?!!!" They know something is wrong when not one doctor can figure out to cure grandpa with a tissue. And they know things are real bad when mom and dad repeat the last word of their explanation a good three times. "It’s a cold. A cold. He has a cold!!!"
Don't try to protect the kids. Tell them, "We're going away for a couple of weeks. Grandpa is about to die. At least he's real sick. He asks about you. Enjoy." Leave your children worried. Every day of their lives they should be thinking "Grandpa could die." That will help them get through elementary school.
Maybe hold off on the dying part. A little hope doesn’t hurt the little ones. You don’t have to make their whole life into panic. You already brought them into this world, sent them to school. That’s horror enough.

We Tried Hiding It for A Bit
Trying to tell them about their Bubby not feeling well, you try to protect the kids. Why. You try the "Bubby’s in the hospital, because she has a booboo." The kid is like, "I had a booboo. You just kiss it and goes away." Then they see the trach.
Some of the family uses it to make the kids more religious. "You have to say extra Tehillim and Tefillah every day and treat people well, for Bubby's booboo to go away. You share with your friends and there's no more booboo. But only if you sit at the table and eat nicely." And now the kids are messed up and praying to Gd. Saying the Birkat Hamazon prayer. It’s amazing what people will use to manipulate their kids into behaving. “Let’s not let the aneurysm go to waste.”
That is a dead giveaway to a six-year-old. She’s thinking, "I have to share my toys. Somebody better be really sick."

Thank Gd, the most my family does is "booboo" and "sniffles." We adopted sniffles from the other family in the ICU. From my understanding, sniffles means you’re on life support.
You call illness what you call it, depending on your age. It's "booboo" through eighth grade. Then you get "sniffles" till you're around thirty. We develop very slowly in my family.
We're not using any code words for bowel movement. BM. Pups. Not poop. Pups. Dinkel. Now your kids are screaming "Dinkel" everywhere. You look like idiots. You look like people who come home with bad report cards.

I can understand hiding cake. But they see worry, they hear French, they know Hebrew, they know. If there’s cake in the house, they know. "There's Boston cream pie running around the house. Grandpa is in the hospital, or dad is out again drinking."

Conclusion
Don't hide it. Once the other language jig is up, there's no way to hide it.
The only news you should be hiding from kids is if there’s cake in the house. Or when you're planning to go to the amusement park. Because they won't shut up about it until you go.

My niece sneezed the other day, and she's having nightmares about how sniffles kills people. Maybe you should hide sniffles from the kids.

Use normal words when people are in the ICU. Don't use your family code words for "about to die." 
Random people in the waiting room are now mad that somebody's taking up a bed in the ICU with sniffles and BM. "What is this BM thing?! There are people now taking up ICU beds and getting trached up for sniffles?! Sniffles and BMs?! What happened to cancer and strokes?! Heart attacks. I want to see people here with heart attacks!!!" "You don't understand Sir. It's really bad sniffles."

Something about knowing things are not all perfect makes for better people. People know. They can now come. They can visit. They can think about the person who has cancer and multiple heart attacks. It allows them the opportunity to walk around depressed for the rest of the week. And to pay for hospital parking.
It also lets you know who the messed-up ones are. The ones who don’t visit. The ones whose Simchas and funerals you can skip. And that is quite valuable information. That will save you a bunch of weekends and money on gifts.
 
The lies started with my grandma. She lied about her age. Since my grandma was younger than my mom, all family facts had to change. Grandma was driving SUVs in the 1930s when she was alive, and yet younger than my mom who wasn’t born yet. And now we’re stuck with sniffles.

Now we're all going around the ICU talking about sniffles. We sound like idiots. Fifty-year-olds who can't even say "cold." 
I'm going to make a Sniffles teddy bear that sneezes and dies. That will make good money. 

***Thoughts From a Waiting Room are thoughts revisited from 2019-2020 in 2026 form. LRefuah Sheleyma LKol HaCholim and shared laughter with their family and friends, bZchut Avi HaRav Yeshaya Ben Yechezkel HaLevi ZT"L vImi HaRabbanit Necha Bat Chayim Zeydel A"H LAliyat Nishmatam.