On the Spot

I still don't broadcast the fact that I write, and last night was the first time I was asked point blank in front of my family if I write. I didn't want to lie, but I felt uncomfortable saying yes. I dodged the question with all eyes on me.
"Well, yes, sort of… I really enjoy writing papers."

Not a lie, right? Just a half truth. Is that fair? My aunt, the only family member who knows my secret, asked me if I ever planned to tell my parents.

"I'm not sure. Now just doesn't feel like the right time."

I don’t know if there ever will be a right time. If I get published, maybe. I really did have to examine my motives for hiding it from my family, though. I'm sure they would support me. Kind of. They would try to support me in their own way.

I realize that's why I'm keeping my writing from them. Imaginative fiction doesn't make sense to my family. They don't value the creative power that stimulates me. When I get excited and rave about the literary beauty of Rushdie's second moon my mom's eyes glaze over. Even my dad, who taught me to read with Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, can't get past his gender roles to realize the empowerment Virginia Woolf gave me in A Room of One's Own. My sister's disconnection hurts the most; she has no place in her world for levels of meaning found in rereading. All she cares to do is devour a book and mark it off on Goodreads.

So is it fair to keep this from my family, in order to protect what I love? They would "support" me, but not understand what I was doing. Does it hurt them any to keep it from them?

I work with students, and I had an interesting experience with one of my girls who has a secret boyfriend. She doesn't want her parents to know (in fact, she didn't want me to know and tried to hide it from me too), and as a responsible adult, I feel obliged to encourage her to tell her parents. On some level that feels hypocritical. Writing certainly isn't an emotionally dangerous secret to keep from my parents, but it's the same idea of hiding part of my identity from people who love me a great deal.