The Secrets We Inherit: Breaking Generational Silence Around Pregnancy Loss

When I think about my miscarriage, I think about more than the loss itself. I think about the conversations we don’t have, the experiences we keep to ourselves, and the lessons we inherit about what should remain unspoken.

As a Black woman raised in a Liberian household, I grew up understanding that some things were kept within the family. Difficult experiences weren’t always openly discussed, and sometimes the expectation was to move forward without making too much space for the pain.

But this isn’t exclusive to Liberian households, West African culture, or even the Black community. Across cultures, families have passed down advice about keeping personal matters private, protecting the family’s reputation, and enduring hardship without sharing it outside the home. Sometimes these lessons come from a desire to protect us. Other times, they reflect the discomfort, stigma, or silence that previous generations experienced themselves.

Pregnancy loss is one of the experiences that can get caught in that silence.

How many women have experienced a miscarriage and never told anyone? How many have quietly returned to work, cared for their families, and continued with life while carrying a loss they never felt comfortable acknowledging? How many have been told to try again, to stop thinking about it, or to be grateful for the children they already have before they’ve had the opportunity to grieve?

Even our partners may struggle to talk about loss when they’ve never been taught how to navigate it themselves.

When silence is passed down from one generation to the next, we can grow up believing that keeping our pain private is the same as being strong. We may learn to protect everyone else’s comfort while neglecting our own need for support.

I don’t believe we have to blame our parents or reject our cultural upbringing to change this. Many of those who came before us were navigating their own hardships with the tools they had. We can honor their sacrifices while recognizing that some of the lessons we inherited may no longer serve us.

We can love our families and still choose to do things differently.

We can teach our daughters that miscarriage is not a personal failure. We can teach our sons that grief deserves compassion. We can create homes and communities where pregnancy loss is acknowledged, where support is offered without judgment, and where no one feels obligated to suffer quietly.

My experience reminded me that loss can be difficult enough without the added weight of feeling that you must carry it alone.

Breaking generational silence doesn’t mean abandoning our roots. It means making room for the conversations, compassion, and healing that the generations before us may not have known how to offer.