How responsible are you to keep a confidence?
Years ago, a friend of a reader we’re calling Angerona confided in her the truth about her friend’s child parentage. While the friend and her husband had raised the child since birth, she told Angerona that her husband was not the biological father of the child. The husband knows he’s not the biological father, but her child, now in his teens, does not.
When Angerona’s friend told her about her child, she was wrestling with the challenge of being a new parent. The two of them had been friends for years and it was not unusual for them to rely on one another for advice or to share a confidence. Angerona’s friend was clear that she had no plans to tell her son. After that initial conversation, they have not spoken of it since.
Angerona writes that she has kept her friend’s confidence and that she has no plans to inform her friend’s son against her friend’s wishes.
Over the years, however, Angerona has wrestled with her feelings about her friend’s decision. While she believes she would have given her own son all the facts as soon as he was old enough to comprehend them, she knows that it’s much simpler to hold that opinion when she hasn’t had to face such a situation herself. But as the friend’s son gets older, she wonders whether it might be important for him to know the truth in case he inherited any kind of medical condition that might have been passed on by his biological father, or if he should some day become the biological parent of a child himself.
Angerona’s question was not whether to say something to her friend’s son. She has no plans to do so. Instead, she asks if she should express her concerns to her friend.
Broaching the subject with her friend would not be violating a confidence. The friend knows Angerona knows about her son since she told her. That they haven’t spoken about it in the years since it was confided doesn’t mean that Angerona would be violating any trust if she brought it up now.
Of course, raising concerns about the decision now could prove uncomfortable for Angerona. She would do well to find a way to do so without sounding judgmental or chiding her friend for what Angerona deems to be a problematic decision. That the two of them continue to be close friends who confide in one another suggests that Angerona can find a way to do this.
If Angerona does decide to bring it up, the right thing is for her to be as honest as possible. She would do well to assure her friend that she plans to keep her confidence, but that she wondered how her friend had thought about what she might do should something in her son’s life make it helpful or important for him to know about his biological origins. If her friend responds that she has no plans to do so or that she’ll deal with it when she feels she has to and would rather not discuss it, Angerona should accept that as her response.
Sometimes all we can do is express a concern. It’s up to the person we express it to to decide what, if anything to do after that.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.
(c) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
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