This Family Therapist Cannot Understand Why Boomer Parents Hide Their Medical Issues From Their Adult Children

One woman wants to know about the Boomer generation phenomenon, where they keep all medical issues close to their chest, “shielding” their kids from any information regarding their health struggles.

And honestly, I hope we get some answers because my parents do this! They won’t tell us about biopsies, diagnoses, test results, etc., until after the waiting game is over. And then my siblings and I are left baffled that they were going through these medical stressors without mentioning anything to us!

TikTok user and family therapist @yourjourneythrough wonders why boomer parents leave such important details out about medical issues like surgeries, until it’s almost too late. And it’s always under the guise of, “Well, we didn’t want to worry you!”

“I would like to understand the rationale behind this, because I understand protecting your children from information that may not be developmentally appropriate when it comes to illness with family members, whatever, but these are adult children now,” she said.

“These are adults, and they can make their own decisions. And they come into my office, and they’re like, ‘WTF? Like, I’m angry, I’m sad, I feel betrayed, I feel like I can’t trust my parents to share really important health information about immediate family members with me. I don’t understand this.’”

She says that this idea of sparing adult children anxiety by refusing to disclose important information has totally backfired.

“The lack of communication regarding important family health events has not only increased their anxiety now because they don’t trust that you’ll tell them, but it’s resulted in a fracture in your relationship or a breach of trust. And then even when the adult child communicates that this is not the type of communication that they want withheld, it usually continues again in the future. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, and it’s upsetting a lot of my clients, and we must be missing something either culturally or generationally. And I’d really like to understand it,” she concluded.

Her confusion resonated with thousands of TikTok users who commented on the video with similar frustrations about the boomer generation’s secretive nature over health problems. Others tried to answer the riddle of why they do this!

“Control. They’re obsessed with control,” one user theorized.

Another said, “They get to avoid OUR emotions over the situation.”

“Also a therapist here. I think sometimes it’s meant as a gift of ignorance they can give that they wish they could give themselves, which is based in avoidance as a coping skill. They also get to avoid being vulnerable as long as possible,” another wrote.

One user guessed, “It’s a form of punishment and control. ‘If we cared, we would have asked.’”

“They are RUNNING / avoiding emotional intimacy of your genuine pain and upset because they don’t have the skills,” another said.

Another wrote, “They don’t want to deal with our emotions. Surely you know that.”

“Emotional immaturity is likely a part of it - avoiding having to acknowledge their own distress about it and also avoiding experiencing their kids’ distress. Sweep it under the rug until you can’t not trip over it,” another guessed.

One user wasn’t so quick to judge boomers for their lack of emotional intelligence, writing, “As a Gen Jones person, I feel blaming the boomers is very shortsighted. Boomers had f-ed up parents and so were their parents. Etc. There was no counseling, no mental health talk. It was non existent. OUR feelings were dismissed and communication skills were not taught to us. we were taught to brush everything under the rug and I think all of this is reflection of how we react to things now.”

And that’s all well and good, but then why are we millennials the ones who are having to do all the emotional work and breaking all the toxic chains of generational trauma? Surely, they didn’t teach us how to do any of that. We’re all out there doing the work on our own, and we’re tired! The least they can do is let us know if they have a big surgery coming up!