Take our Family Estrangement Test for the Adult Child

Find a Family Therapy Therapist

We learn our family history and values through the storytelling of the elders.

What happens when one of the elders doesn't get to tell his own story?

How do we sift through stories to determine the truth about who someone was?

“I walked away from that cemetery with nothing,” my grandmother told me about the day she buried her husband. “I had a 7-year-old child by the hand and I had no job, no money, nothing. The neighbors had to take up a collection for me so I could buy groceries.” With an unlikely twinkle in her eye, she added, “and it was the happiest day of my life.”

That doesn’t speak well of my grandfather, I know. If it were the only story I’d ever heard about him, I would probably conclude that he was a difficult man. But it’s not the only story. In fact, family stories describe him variously as a villain, a hard-working immigrant trying to get by in a New York not so friendly to the Irish, or something in between. How could I know the truth?

The Power of Family Stories

Old family stories, repeated often (to the chagrin of many a grandchild), pass on not just memories but values. With every re-telling, the story can be heard differently, incorporated into the listener’s developing understanding of the characters. So what happens to those stories when a grandparent doesn’t live long enough to tell (and re-tell) his own stories? How do we come to understand our family’s values when we only get those stories secondhand?

Intermediaries can pass family stories along, but like the blind men and the elephant, they speak from their own viewpoint. That’s why my grandfather has been such a mystery to me—whose version of the elephant do I believe? Was he a lousy drunk, a vet with PTSD, or........

© Psychology Today