To think that if you find a deflated helium balloon in the street with a RIP message on it..

[Palomb]

You don't pick it up and post all over Facebook that you've found it, including pictures of the balloon and the note because you apparently want the poor bereaved person who sent it skywards to to know it landed.

That's not the point is it?

Or how about people find a more environmentally friendly way of handling their bereavement?

That comment actually made my jaw drop.

Absolutely staggering.

Most of us do what we can, but not many of us are willing to give up the big stuff in the name of the environment. It is hypocritical to moan at other's habits while you have your own damaging ones.

That statement I agree with. But you have been going on about car usage, when for many people a car is an essential. Where I live buses are rubbish and expensive. I couldn't work without a car. A car isn't a luxury its an essential for many.

"Being po faced about the tiny amount of balloons released for dead children is silly.
Its worth keeping in mind that our children don't litter, drive cars, have children of their own, use fossil fuels or water. If their only carbon footprint is a balloon on their birthday who on this thread objecting can say that theirs is smaller?"

I find it sad that you even have to say this, tbh.

This thread really makes me think of that saying about you can either be right, or you can be kind.

A little kindness would go a long way here FFS.

MN can't seem to do 'kind' at the moment.

Mrs DV, they were just ideas from the top of my head - there are a range of alternatives that may be more accessible:

balloonsblow.org/environmentally-friendly-alternatives/

Much love and compassion to all my fellow travellers on the shittest of journeys.

Just to pick on a very minor point, I am kind of shocked that a child young enough to try to eat a random balloon was left unattended in the garden for long enough to make the attempt.

That statement I agree with. But you have been going on about car usage, when for many people a car is an essential. Where I live buses are rubbish and expensive. I couldn't work without a car. A car isn't a luxury its an essential for many.

A car may well be essential to some people sometimes but surely not always. My mum needs her car to get to and from work each day as she starts before the buses run. So yes her car is very much essential. However she also drives the car to the shop, it's a 3 minute walk just across a busy road, and you can see the shops from the corner of her street. The drive takes twice as long as she has to go round a busy roundabout and drive round the back of the shops before she can get onto the road in the front. That car journey isn't necessary. Likewise her driving to do the after school club pick up when the school is just a 5 minute walk away is equally unnecessary. I imagine most people who own a car do similar be it regularly or only occasionally.

Hellyeah thank you for the flowers.

And I see your point about bereaved people feeling they have to defend what they do. Believe me the amount of threads I've posted on where someone has decided they hate 'baby on board' stickers in cars "because nobody's going to think 'oh, I was going to crash into that car but there's a baby in it, I'll crash into the one without the sticker instead" and they think they are being original and witty when they say it.

I've seen people post that no end of times on here, and felt that I've had to defend myself feeling the need for that kind of sticker because my baby was killed by a man who couldn't be bothered to use the handbrake of his lorry at red traffic lights on the downward slope of a hill. I was pregnant with her at the time, so no Baby on Board sticker in the car. I nearly died, she was born too early and did die.

A sticker probably wouldn't have made any difference but the next time I was pregnant it felt like the only thing that might make a difference to the drivers behind me. Fortunately I wasn't on MN then, because the outright hatred of them probably would have taken away the one thing that made me feel better about getting back in the car.

That was my comfort gesture, something that might make people think about the people in the car in front of them, instead of their own little bubble. He didn't plan on crashing into us, but his mind was not on the road or the people around him.

I personally think that hating Baby on Board stickers is as pointless as hating the signs that remind you you are driving on a road that has a school, or are approaching a zebra crossing, or passing an ice cream van which might have a child step out from behind it.

The Baby on Board signs do no harm, yet they are hated on MN and the people who have them are frequently ridiculed. The balloons can and often do cause harm, yet people are made to feel they can't give an opinion on them because they are the province of bereaved parents.

In my heart of hearts I could, now, admit that my Baby on Board sign did nothing to protect me and my son, if only because people hold them in such contempt, rather than thinking of them as a worried parent hoping to make the road that little bit safer for everybody. But at least it did no harm to anyone or anything else. Unlike the balloons, and there was a recent thread on here about someone losing an animal because of a balloon. I think it might have been a small pony but I could be wrong.

I've had my share of the other crap bereaved parents get as well. Hasn't it been long enough now, why do you still go to their graves, but they don't count as proper grandchildren to us because they died, did you ever feel like stealing a baby, you should have more children, you should't have any more children, it's not like you lost a real baby.

And yes, it does get tiring, and upsetting, and even now, nine years on and eight years on, it can feel like the first day we lost them, or it can feel like it's been forever. I do get why people feel so sensitive about this issue.

I still don't think that the first people on this thread were wrong, or were in any way po-faced, or smug, or superior, or were claiming to be perfect, or were being cunts for giving their opinion. Especially as no bereaved parents had posted at the time.

Maybe they are not bereaved parents, but they will have been bereaved, and what they said was not wrong. I think they said it gently and reasonably enough, especially at the start of the thread, to not deserve the name-calling that has taken place since.

Thank you Tough

I've done it before, released balloons into the air. Let a bereaved parent have something that may ease their pain. As a PP said, it's a wonder they're able to get out of bed each day.

I can just see some of you guys in the background of Tangled wagging your fingers and tutting at the town letting off the lanterns to bring Rapunzel back home...

Hygge

I totally agree loads of people make silly car journey rather than walk. I see people do it all the time. But for anything in my town unless its en route I always walk.

Humans have been the worst thing ever for the environment. Its always possible to be critical of someone.

I personally wouldn't be critical of someone going through a beehive ment. I've never been there and god knows what I would do. There was a thread on Caroline ahern and lung cancer here, wasnt nice reading but I think one poster nailed it when they said something about the empathy for her needs to be separated from any other thoughts.

Everything that we do will have some effect on the environment, but its about reducing anything unnecessary that can cause harm and trying to balance it out a bit by trying to do good things.

Putting up nest boxes and feeding stations for bird and insects. Planting trees, hedgerows, wildflower meadows, wild bird mix and pollen&nectar mix. These are a few things that can really help wildlife.

That's a great alternative, even in london or new York you can find somewhere to throw some wild medow seeds

Number 3 www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/30-ways-to-be-a-better-londoner

to you too MrsDV.

One poster has been less than sensitive, I've seen that, but quite far into the thread and I was talking mostly about the beginning of the thread, when it was less personal to people. I think those first few posters, and some of the ones who have followed, have been quite sensitive in their posts, although the thread has become more heated in places, which is a shame. I do think MN on the whole is very supportive to people who are bereaved.

I try not to take the Baby on Board threads personally anymore. People disliking the signs doesn't meant they don't have sympathy or empathy for my loss. I doubt my posting has changed many minds, but if it's made people a little kinder in their disapproval of the signs then that is still a good thing.

I think its the same with the balloons, people feel there may be a better or safer way of remembering someone, but it doesn't mean they don't have sympathy for those who are grieving and choose to remember the people they have lost in this particular way.

I'd like to think that most of the people posting here did so with their hearts in the right place.

I think some people have been a bit insensitive. I don't agree with balloons, buti don't judge those that do. I grieve everyday in my own way so i don't judge those who do this. Grief is horrendous.
It's been 8 years since i lost my parent and the pain is as raw as though it were yesterday.

One thing though, there is no evidence to say that cats are the cause of the bird population.
My cats have never killed anything, we've raised baby birds and they were terrified! Soon as they swarked, they fled.
We have two house rabbits who they guard when we go outside.
We used to have a hedgehog and guinea pig and the hedgehog terrified them.

I have learned a lot from this thread. Thank you to each one who has taken time to explain what things mean to them. Hygge I won't see another BoB sign again and not discount the idea that the parent has not experienced some type of loss.

Grief is so personal and there is no right or wrong way of doing it.

((flowers)) to all those who are living bereavement every day.

There is a lot of truth in what people are saying about cats and the huge environmental impact. Australia in parts has a ban on cats outdoors and they are looking to extend it nationwide. They are planning on culling millions of Farrel cats, I think Brigitte Bardot is organising a protest against it.

mrsd no i'm sure you're not, not singling you out btw
It was just a post to say that there's no evidence to suggest cats are to blame for wild birds dying ( from rspb themselves) and just saying not all cats are go after wildlife. Wildlife usually go after mine! I was always rather amused to see a huge cat go running from one sniffle from my hedgehog