How much can you tell your children

Last Saturday, I went running with the engagement manager I have been working with on one of my projects. She is preparing for a marathon and I am a retiring runner but I wanted her to get some real training since she has only done treadmill runs since arriving here …also to show her where she can run in this part of the world without looking at her back every second and no cars and other things with wheels that crawl and speed round our streets. I was quite happy to find out that the magic has not totally disappeared and also to notice that out door running still has that high adrenalin feeling for me. I did 18 kilometers running fifteen and walking three while my partner ran her entire 20…(hey I am not training for a marathon…used do that much and more in my hay days)…age has nothing to do with it…we are pretty close in that area…just sheer training and fitness. For a while now, I have been doing only 30 minutes here, 45 minutes there and one hour every once in a while on treadmill but I do this 4 – 5 times a week so I am pretty fit for an advancing woman…

Running is great sport, it frees you physically, mentally and emotionally…you can have the time for “you”…it is just you and nature and our running route over looks the ocean…which is even so breathtaking. We started off running and talking right away…after a while all talks will die naturally because the body is conserving all its energy to move the legs forward…and we got talking about family….we work so hard on this project hat we never stop to find out about each other so this has been our only outlet without other listening ears as well. She asked if I have kids …I said I have one who is 6 and soon-to-be 7…she has a boyfriend and marriage is not what they talk about now…she will like to have kids although she is conscious of the advancing age thingy and we talked about the giant strides in medicine towards women who want to have babies later. Then she said that we are definitely taking our time these days with having babies. She said she is 36 years (she looks great for this age…I must say…I could have put her age at 30 or 31) and that her mum had her at 20 ( I think) or 22 and that her mom had two abortions prior.

Something hit me like a lightening…it is either this mother does not want her kids to make the same mistakes she made or she really confides in her kids. It is hard for women to acknowledge these acts let alone tell kids. I was not sure if I would have done that. I am not sure if she should have…but I am not here to judge her either way…Are there things we cannot tell our kids? Put differently, should we tell our kids everything? Will it hurt them or make them hate us or will it really show them how fallible we are and how even after all these…God still made something out of us because He reserves mercies for thousands???