Ethicists, philosophers, historians, communication scholars and therapists have had primacy in the study of family secrets. Few sociologists have joined in. But family secrets are important to understanding family life for that discipline too. They reveal the impact of the public world on the family by showing what society deems as acceptable behavior along with what it deems otherwise. An analysis of family secrets also allows us to explore the internal dynamics of family life including the emergence of disruptions and the creation of intimacies. As the analysis in the book reveals, family members are willing to abuse each other to protect themselves and other members of the family from the shame (and danger) that would ensue were outsiders to access their secrets. Finally, the study of the family secrets of the post-WWII era also helps us understand the dangers inherent in the specifics of that era’s demand for its idealized family form, idealized family dynamics, and idealized beliefs. As such it provokes thoughts about how families are judged, about how families are made, and about alternative models for living together.I have been studying family life for much of my (now long) career as a sociologist. In previous work I looked at such topics as how families made ends meet during hard economic times, how and why what some call “helicopter parents” hovered over their children, and the differences between being a family member and being someone considered to be “like” a member of a family (e.g., a close friend thought of as being “like” a brother or sister). My interest in the internal dynamics of families eventually led me to consider the impact of family secrets on those dynamics. My own childhood—having grown up in the Post WWII era—led me to focus on that particularly secretive time in the history of the United States.‍