I saw my father drink when I was 10. He brought a bottle of beer to the dinner table and announced that he was about to have an alcoholic beverage. Alcoholic beverages, he added cheerfully, could make people drunk.

I had never seen anyone drunk. I had never even seen anyone drink, except at Passover seders, where drinking Manischewitz was so obviously a matter of tradition rather than self-indulgence that it hardly seemed to count as drinking. Beer, however, was something that I vaguely envisioned would turn men, even mild men like my father, into beasts. I made so many nervous jokes about how he would get drunk and beat me that he offered me a sip in advance so I could fight back. A moment later, I was sputtering into the sink.

“It tastes like soap,” I said when I was able to speak.

My father replied that he’d had too little experience with beer to recall exactly how it tasted. He took a sip, agreed that it tasted like soap, and poured the rest of the beer down the drain.

That was the last time I saw my father drink. For the rest of my childhood, alcoholic beverages were not mentioned in my family. Like football and rodeos, the subject did not interest my parents. But when I was well into adulthood, I visited my widowed mother and was surprised to see AA on the list of emergency numbers posted beside her kitchen wall telephone. Our conversation went something like this.

“Have you acquired any interesting habits lately, Mom?”

“I should hope so.”

“Drinking habits?”

“Do you mean alcoholic drinks? No, I’ve never acquired that taste. Why do you ask?”

“Because you have AA’s telephone number on your emergency list.”

“That’s the AA ambulance company.”

I suggested that she put “ambulance” next to “AA” so visitors would not get the wrong idea.

My mother smiled. “I think I’ll let them.”

I have no fear that this column will besmirch my parents’ reputations, at least not if readers read beyond the title. But many people seem unconstrained about divulging much less innocuous family stories to friends or even publishing them. I often see books and magazine articles that describe such matters as a father’s alcoholism, a mother’s addiction to diet pills, a brother’s depression, a sister’s bulimia, or a child’s attention deficit disorder. Worst of all are the chronicles of a relative’s Alzheimer’s, complete with intimate details about incontinence and diapers.

Why put these things on display? Here are some reasons I have heard.

“Some people need to vent for the sake of their mental health.” But turning wants into mental-health “needs” obscures the simple fact of conflicting desires: Some people want to disclose their relatives’ personal problems and some relatives want them not to. Why do I side with the latter? Because such disclosures disfigure reputations and violate privacy. Unless your relative consents to the exposure, why not “vent” online or in print under a pseudonym and with identifying details disguised? Or talk to a friend who does not know the relative in question or to a professional who is required to maintain confidentiality.

“Reading about your family’s problems can help many people who are facing similar situations.” Again, why not disguise names and other identifying material?

“Not everyone deserves an unsullied reputation.” That is certainly true. If your father molested you, you owe him no protection from the law, let alone from public opinion. If your mother regularly called you ugly and stupid, you owe her no protection from her neighbors’ disapproval. But not everything that you find upsetting about your family constitutes mistreatment and warrants exposure.

Finally, in case you find these replies unpersuasive, here is a practical consideration about a parent’s dementia. According to the latest Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, 30 percent of people over 85 have Alzheimer’s disease. When you broadcast intimate details about your parents’ dementia and incontinence, what kind of example are you setting for your children?

Felicia Nimue Ackerman, a monthly contributor, is a professor of philosophy at Brown University.