Granny took toddler to the cemetery

[MrsMoosickle]

Eeek! I might perhaps be a tad unreasonable but I'm not best pleased.

3 year old DD has been at the local cemetery with Granny and has come home with tales of little babies in heaven and teddies on trees and wind chimes they can hear from heaven.

DH thinks that's ok, I feel a bit sad that she's even thought about it at such a tiny age.

My dd who is 3 has been going to my grandad grave since she was about a 2 weeks old. To us it has become a nice day out as it is a very long walk. ( when she was a tiny baby i took the car).

She helps put flowers and this Sunday we will be putting a poppy on the grave as the poppy appeal was close to my grandad heart.

We live next to a cemetery and DS (6 months) has probably been at least once per week since he was born. It's a lovely quiet and reflective place. Perhaps this has been good to start discussions about what happens when people die OP. Hopefully she won't have to experience it in her childhood but it could help her to have some kind of frame of reference.

The dcs walked through a cemetery to get to the local primary school. They never gave it a second thought.

I have a morbid fear of death and am determined that this will not be passed on to the dcs. As a result we have always been open about death and talked to the kids about it. So far they seem to have no fear and see it as a a fact of life.

I am not sure I like Granny's version of events in your case so I might feel obliged to discuss it even more.

I think it's right that children should know about death, but I'd be annoyed that that someone else had decided to talk to my child about it before I could.

I wouldn't have problem with dcs going to churchyard. Less maudlin and more historic. my Dgm lived next to an old churchyard and that's where we tended to explore (respectfully, but mostly in the old old section I.e. per 1800s, where some tombs had (gasp) cracks in them.

Cemetery, not so sure.

Would have problem with focus on babies and heaven.

Fwiw , I think I know what you Mean op , a young child if three is so protected and innocent of the grimness of life ( or we would like them to be ) and you were upset that the innocence had been lost in some way , but honestly she probably won't give it another thought , other than to maybe go and see the pretty windmills again .

I think the reason I would have reacted the same way as the other bereaved parents is that we too feel that way , we hate the fact that our children have had no choice in knowing about children dying , they have no choice but to see the pain that losing a child causes . They have no choice , and neither do we .

It is truly shite to live through this , to be able to just pass it by with a days pondering would be Bliss .

It's just life, might be A bit concerned if she was going everyday. When g grandad died my three year old needed to know the exact detail of the cremation.
She then explained to the whole funeral pArty just what they did with the body!!! She broke all the tension that day ( as i died internally) she loves death and finds it interesting just like birth and babies, in the story of life its the begining and end.

Several people close to us have died over the last few years (no children, and I am so sorry for your losses everyone who has had to go through that).

They have been to several funeral services, and 1 scattering of ashes in a woodland. They have behaved beautifully and talked about the person they have said goodbye to, and what happened at the services, fir some time afterwards but have not been unduly upset ( that tended to happen when we heard the news that a great-GP or uncle or close friend had died.

Fwiw our baby clinic was slap bang next to a churchyard where dh's older brother was buried when he we killed after being hit by a car aged 9 (before dh was born, more than 4o years ago).

We used to take short cut through, and I would say "here's uncle xxxx" to dcs, from quite an early age. So sad. But dcs quite matter of fact about it.

Would feel different about op if there were a purpose to the visit - visiting a specific family member rather than just to look at the (recent) memorials. I don't know why I feel like that.

Sorry didn't mean to sound glee, i also know personal berevment and how it crushes.

Three year olds don't understand the gravitas of death its just interesting.

Just read whole thread and MrsMplus's posts have me like this

I don't think the OP meant to offend but the idea that we must protect our dcs from death is pretty offensive actually. Our responsibility as parents (and grandparents) is to ensure our dcs can function in this world. This world is often hard and cruel.

OP i am horrfied at your attitude. Wilf comes with me to both his Dad and brother Jack's graves. My friend has started taking her two dc's (eight and six) to Jacks grave and explained about him.The dc's actually asked to go and see Jack over the weekend when they were walking there/.............

'Three year olds don't understand the gravitas of death its just interesting.'

Actually, they do. What they don't understand is its permanence. And they can learn this as much as possible, when they have to work with bereavement councellors trained in such matters, like me son.

Took my then 3yr old grandson to the cemetry for the first time last year.

Did ask my DIL if it was OK first...she didn't look enthusiastic but said 'yes of course.'

GS went to see his two Uncles (my sons - a twin baby boy who died when he was 7 months and my DS3 who was killed aged 7 years). GS went in his Ray Mysterio WWE outfit, complete with mask.....carrying a massive bunch of flowers. He helped me put the flowers in the holder and talked away to Uncle Matty and Uncle Gaz. He asked Uncle Matty did he like his wrestling costume because my lad adored wrestling. He cleaned the headstone down, turned around and said how lovely it was now.

We walked back down the path together....him skipping along and waving back to his Uncles.

He asks me at least once a week about them. He asks where are they now and I say - 'some people think they are in a place called Heaven, some people dont believe in Heaven. I think they are all around us and looking after us its just that we cant see them.'

He is fascinated by it all....it doesn't hurt him or worry him....he is just interested. Children see everything in black or white NOT the grey bit down the middle like us adults do. We fret and worry about stuff - children just get on with it. Wish I could be more childlike.

'Having spent a lot of time working in oncology in my training it is a huge interest of mine, and I really aim to keep the care of children with cancer and the complications of cancer treatment a priority in my role when I get a consultant post'

Thanks, sally. Part of it is that, of course, the equipment needed to treat a child in such condition (in our daughter's case, she died of respiratory failure from HMV and psuedomonas infections) is extensive. But her removal to PICU distressed her very much and she wanted to go back onto the onco unit. She was in her own room, as she had no immune system, but of course, we were not allowed to sleep with her (DH and I traded nights and days to make sure she was never left alone).

Sadly, a teenage girl from the same unit died about a month after her from AML, but as she was a relapsed case and 15, she and her parents made a decision together with our consultant that should she require ICU care, she preferred to instead die in the onco unit and not be removed. She did not want to be on a vent (wisely enough, when a person who has undergone that much treatment - 6 rounds of that protocol for chemo and a stem cell transplant in the space of a year), the odds of their survival are extraordinarily slim).

I think YABU, OP, for all the reasons set out in this very sad thread. Death is a part of life and younger children are, in a lot of ways, better equipped to deal with it. I can sort of understand you being a bit annoyed that your mother has explained something important and sensitive to your child without checking with you, but it sounds like she was probably simply answering questions your child asked, and it doesn't sound like she did a bad job.

I've always been comfortable in graveyards and cemeteries. I occasionally walked through one of the old local graveyards with my gran who liked to look at the graves of old family members (back in the 1800s) and there was a little country chapel and graveyard that she had a particular attachment to for various reasons and we sometimes visited it, so I've always understood what graveyards were about, and I was always taught to treat graves with respect.

As an adult I still find them peaceful places. I am interested in family history and whenever we go somewhere where I've had ancestors I always go to look in the local churchyard. I've taken DS1 with me before and told him in very simple terms that the graves are where people are sleeping after their lives are over and that some of them were related to us a long, long time ago.

MrsMPlus - you may not have intended to be insensitive, but your posts come across as incredibly flippant, particularly with the smilies and comments about not arguing with bereaved mothers. I'm not a "bereaved mother" but the posters who have lost children aren't some sort of breed apart who can't be engaged with rationally. They are perfectly normal people who have suffered a horrific loss and are entitled to challenge your views without being brushed off or patronised.

When Dc was 3.6 he was fascinated by death asking when people died/how/what happened next ie where did they go and practicalities like who would live in their house. Many a day I would be asked when I was going to die!

Expat, mine knows it permanance, she knows its sad but she can't understand how big a deal it is. Iyswim.

Maybe its because only g gp or guncles have died or some of our animals. ( not an immedaite family membervthank goodness) She sees death a lot through farming.

My fiesty Nan used to say 'its not the dead you should be frightened of - its the bloody living!!'

My nan said the same thing, shabba.

shab mine said the same

Nothing wrong with a walk through the cemetery imo - all part of life's circle etc

When I was growing up, death was a very taboo subject. My first real experience of death was when I was thirteen and lost my grandfather and a friend within months of each other. I had an extraordinarily hard time getting over it as in my family, we go to the funeral and then bottle it up and don't really talk about it. We don't visit the grave. I suffered from depression on and off for years after as I just couldn't cope emotionally with it.

Thankfully we are a lot more open as a family now but I'm trying to raise ds to know that death is a part of life and he is free to talk about it. I took him to my granny's funeral when he was 4yo and have recently had a lot of questions about death as the family dog died last week. Yes, it is sad but some of life is and there's no point in hiding it from children.

We've always lived in villages and my kids have grown up playing in churchyards as the most convenient, safe green space. We like to look out for the graves of people we knew, or their parents, or gravestones with a space which is waiting for someone we know. I've always found them to be safe, welcoming places.

I think there's something really touching about little children being in a cemetery. I used to take my little ds and his cousin to the place (a forest burial ground) my brother is buried.

To hear their laughter and watch them running and playing amongst the growing grass is somehow natural and cyclical. They don't see the maudlin side and its a good way to open conversation about the natural order of things.

We used to talk about the birds that ate the worms that ate the soil where Uncle was "planted" being the best singers and highest fliers, and how the flowers grew stronger because they had Uncles energy. Might be silly to some, but no sillier than talking about 'heaven'

People do die. Its part of life. Sounds like a very gentle, educational introduction to the cycle of life in a way that won't traumatise your DD.