If, as I suspect, all families have secrets, then all families develop a way of divulging or concealing them from the community, the extended family, and the children. AIDS is likely to be similarly accepted without shame in the future. The point, is that family secrets need not be shameful. In fact some become matters of pride in subsequent generations. Twenty years ago, for example, it was hard to find Australians who admitted to being descendants of the convicts that peopled their land.
Today there are groups in Australia whose members proudly claim such roots.
Fifty years ago few African American families exhibited pride in surviving the evil of slavery. Today African Americans are searching their roots about their slave ancestors here, and in Africa, and honoring their memory. For me, looking for one's history can be a humbling experience. Like any good Irish American, for a lifetime, I dutifully castigated the English occupiers and Oliver Cromwell for the misery bestowed upon of my Limerick forebears. Strong evidence that my first ancestor in Ireland was a foot soldier in Cromwell's army.