Tell all or stay mum?

Virginia Linn/ Oct. 23, 2008

Waiting in the grocery line yesterday, I scanned the tell-all interview in People Magazine about the grown-up Maureen McCormick, aka Marcia Brady, who did some very naughty grown-up things while playing the wholesome teen on TV.

Now 52 - with all the sordid times behind her of swapping sex for cocaine, partying with Hugh Hefner, having two abortions and bedding TV sibling Greg Brady- she's living a very Brady Bunch existence in California.

She's in the news because she's just come out with a memoir revealing her troubled life. Before it was published, she realized that she had to break the news to her 19-year-old daughter Natalie. She said her daughter's jaw dropped when she heard what mom was really like in her younger years.

That got me to thinking of the questions our teens ask us that are far more dreaded than "Where do babies come from?"

It's more like, "Hey Mom, did you do drugs in college?" "Did you smoke?" "Did you have premarital sex?"

An old classmate of mine recently recalled how her husband, who had done LSD and other drugs as a soldier in Vietnam, had told her college-age son all about his youthful antics. (This was after the couple had vowed not to talk about such stuff with their children so as not to encourage similar behavior).

Well, her husband spilled the beans and her son entered his freshman year at college trying to outdo dear old dad and nearly crashed and burned. He's pulled himself together for his sophomore year and things seem to be back on track.

I had read somewhere or possibly had been advised by someone - I can't remember which - to never talk with my own children about my youthful extracurricular activities. You still need to be a parent (not a best friend). You might think that telling all can serve as a life lesson to your children "I did this, this and this, and Thank God nothing really bad happened to me, but don't you do it because it's dangerous and reckless and stupid."

But the bottom line: it's none of their business and you shouldn't feel obligated to tell all just because they asked.

So when those questions came last summer from Kid No. 1, I quickly shut down the conversation and said I would not talk about such things. She's never brought it up since. I hope I'm being a good role model with how I act now, not with what I might have done.

But I'm sure other parents don't agree with this approach. How do you handle these questions? Do you tell all or stay mum?

Read the complete post at http://pittsburghmom.com/blogs/teenangst/archive/2008/10/23/tell-all-or-stay-mum.aspx