A “Nice” Family

A woman and her six-year-old daughter were found dead in their neat, orange brick suburban home. The husband and father had murdered them and attempted to take his own life. He was found unconscious alongside his family. Quoted in the newspaper report, a neighbour commented, “They were a really nice family — they were a happy family….” The news that the man killed his wife and daughter, then attempted suicide, drops uneasily into the slot beside the image of this “nice” family.

How could both the perception and the event possibly be true? It seems illogical and frightening that a nice family could come to such a horrible end. This family was like millions of others who present one face to the public and keep a very different one hidden. They present an image of niceness, maintaining a false connection to the outside world while living lives of anguish and disconnection from each other, and themselves, in private.

Sometimes the bubble of niceness bursts, as it did with this family, and then the extent of the superficiality is revealed. More often, people resign themselves to living undramatic lives, which Thoreau described as “quiet desperation,” lives that result in compromises to their health, safety, and happiness. Although we are healthier when we live authentic, open lives, we hide because we think we must in order to be considered nice. We have learned to be nice in order to be accepted by others. The price of such acceptance can be a sense of alienation from oneself.