Family Secrets

Kiese grew up in Oxford, Mississippi —the only child of a single mother, a black boy who struggled with weight. His childhood and adolescence were marked by two daily assaults: that of American racism, and America’s obsession with weight.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Imagine a privileged New England family living by the sea, with a glamorous, wild mother who has a long affair with her husband’s best friend, and makes her daughter — Adrienne — her ally.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Growing up in suburban New York, Joanna was always aware of two pastel portraits of children she assumed were just part of her parents’ art collection. But sometimes she would hear her mother on the phone, crying, and referencing “the accident.”  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

At some point in our childhood we all met the moment where we had to summon the courage and strength to stand up to the difficulties of the world. But imagine being 8 years old and finding yourself in the car with your mother in the middle of the night as she hands you a map and speeds away into the unknown. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Growing up Noah knew his grandparents had survived the Holocaust, but his questions had always been sidelined.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Frank's father was a “proud Willie Loman” character who sold stuff — cars, printing presses, whatever needed selling. He was a glad-handing guy, “the mayor of everything.” And he was living a double life.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Bridgett grew up in Detroit in the '60s in a vibrant house with a mother who was genius with numbers. But for most of her life, Bridgett kept her mother's genius a secret.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

When Bill, who grew up in a traditional, southern family, first met his wife he recognized the outsider in her – that she too felt isolated and different. Together the two of them banded together in solidarity and love and took on the world. But when Bill was 45, they came to terms with the realization that Bill wasn’t living truthfully. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We forget that our parents have their own lives, desires and, in some cases, secret lives that they’ve covered up in order to protect the family. But what happens when your elderly parent develops dementia, forgets to cover his tracks, and in doing so unleashes a Pandora’s box of secrets about his sexual escapades and misdeeds?  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

What if you kept a secret because it was so painful it would crush your young children? What if you were terminal and chose not to tell them? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Sylvia Boorstein grew up in a loving, close-knit family. But in the background lingered a grief-filled secret. As an adult she allowed herself to explore the secret, and one day, on a hunch, visited the cemetery where her mother was buried. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

While walking her dogs one evening Laura Engel received a life-changing email that transported her back to a home for unwed mothers in New Orleans. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tim Ehrlich's secret nearly killed him. But he and a group of other men with the same secret found the courage to come forward and reveal it, and in doing so heal a lifetime of pain. (Warning this episode contains explicit information about sexual abuse).  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Jane Mintz's parents were forthright about her being adopted, but not about her birth mother's identity. As an adult, Jane found her biological mother and discovered many more secrets, the cost of keeping them, and why we all deserve to know where we come from.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

What if, as a child born into a white Jewish family, anytime someone remarked about your skin color, a story was told about a distant Sicilian grandfather? Even if it was obvious that wasn't the whole story? Lacey Schwartz talks about what it's like to live in an alternate universe of knowing-not knowing your own secret.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Debbie Millman's story is one of extraordinary resilience in the face of trauma and the redemptive power of love and strength found in the unlikeliest of places. (Warning: this episode contains explicit information about sexual abuse.) Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

As a child, Steve Lickteig was told that he was adopted. But that didn't turn out to be entirely true, or even half of the story.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Imagine living in one of the whitest enclaves in America, so white that just four people of color were recorded by the census bureau. Now imagine that your father "slipped over the color line" to be there. Bliss Broyard discusses her family secret and how it formed her life, past and present.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Growing up Jim Graham never felt at home in his father's house. But it wasn't until he was well into adulthood that a family secret revealed why. For two decades Jim's tenacity led him through the maze of the Catholic Church archives to learn the truth of his origins. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Author Dani Shapiro reveals what it was like to, by chance, discover a shocking secret about herself, and what this secret taught her about identity, family, and new beginnings. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers