I do not think he intended for it to be a casual topic of conversation at all. What it *isn't* is a secret. So...it does come up. How much an individual Noldo shares about the event is up for debate, and likely varies from person to person. Turgon, for instance, isn't going to talk about it so much, focusing rather on protecting those he can now. But there is a difference between sharing the details of one's trauma...and acknowledging how the majority of the Noldor reached Middle Earth. We had spoken in the costuming discussions about those who crossed the Helcaraxë considering it a badge of accomplishment that they had endured this together, and incorporating fur into their costumes when other elves don't wear fur. I don't think that is a completely insensitive view of how people might react to such an event.
A shared traumatic event is very different from an individual trauma. One has only to look at national tragedies such as the attack on Pearl Harbor or 9/11 to see that the country very much acknowledges that this happened and that families of victims do talk about it. Of course, one reason such national events are so talked about is because they are a shared loss, true, but often at a very removed level. I lived through 9/11, but I didn't lose anyone I knew that day. A girl at my sister's school lost her father - that's, like, three degrees of separation. My other sister lived in DC, so I of course wanted to check that she was okay. But I didn't suffer personally. Lots of people witnessed JFK's assassination. But that didn't mean that they were personally traumatized by it. Our situation here is different - every single member of Fingolfin's camp endured the passage of the Helcaraxë. So, we should equate it more to experiences where an entire group endures an awful hardship.
It is certainly true that soldiers often don't share their war stories with their children, wanting to keep those two worlds firmly separate. And Holocaust victims often waited decades to discuss when happened to them or share their stories. Many did, however, share eventually. People who lived through the Rwandan genocide (20 years ago now) certainly have shared their stories and written books and made memorials and discussed how to make sure it never happens again. These aren't easy conversations to have, but these conversations do happen. It is my understanding that those in the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (
SNAP) are most motivated to talk about what happened to them in the context of preventing it from happening to anyone else. That 'Never Again!' message doesn't apply in the case of the crossing of the Helcaraxë, so I could see how it might take longer for the stories to come out. The survivors of Jonestown seem to want to talk about Jonestown, but not in the sense of reliving the final awful days, but rather in celebrating and memorializing those who were lost at that time. These were friends and family, who all died suddenly and horrifically, and they are immortalized in pop culture by the insulting phrase 'drink the Kool-aid.' No surprise that those who knew them wish to remember them differently, and dislike false stories being spread by the ignorant.
We are talking about having an official ambassador to Thingol (Angrod) acknowledge how the Noldor reached Middle Earth maybe 5 years after it happened. He doesn't have to go into any detail, merely saying that the Noldor gained passage across the Grinding Ice with much loss and hardship, or something vague like that. Enough to paint the picture without volunteering any personal details. I don't think this is too much to ask, and if any Sinda tries to casually bring it up in an insensitive manner (such as over produce at the marketplace), a Noldo can shut the conversation down by saying that it is a painful subject and they don't wish to speak of it just now.
The gradual reveal of the Kinslaying is probably going to take more episodes than we originally devoted to it, pushing it back until after the Dagor Aglareb. This isn't official or anything, just what happens when I translate what we talked about today into the time line. I think we need to give more time to the rumors to spread and develop, and for Sauron to learn the truth before Círdan (but after the Feast).