To let my toddler play in a graveyard

[RegencyRomanceReader]

Just seen a house that we might buy. It has no garden but backs on to a large old cemetary. We went for a walk around it before the viewing and my toddler was in love! obviously I stopped him climbing on the graves (most are raised stone with statues, huge crossed etc from 18th century onwards) and made him keep to the paths. He was running round pretending to see the gruffallo, pointing out squirrels, birds etc and jumping in puddles. He was not standing on graves but he was loud and excited and pointing out angels and authors and things. There was no one around and no fresh graves (not that old graves deserved less respect). As I one off I'm confident we didn't upset anyone or intrude on anyone's grief but if we bought the house this could become a regular thing (its a city so green space like this without cars is good dust). Wibu to take him for runs here regularly?

It is totally disrespectful. Shocked that you are even asking the question.

YABVU

25 years ago as a teenage mum who lived in a small flat with no garden I used to go for picnics with my toddler in a graveyard. It was beautiful and quiet - and the best bit was the 2 donkeys who grazed there to keep the grass down as the old graves were so lopsided and close together they couldn't get a lawnmower through. They were called Gonzo and Kermit . We wandered around, stroked the donkeys and had a lovely (quiet and respectful) time. The donkeys have long gone - there were complaints about them eating flowers off the graves - and by boy is now all grown up but I look back with fond memories. Graveyards are for the living as much as the dead and unless you are being obviously disrespectful (jumping on graves etc) I cannot see the problem.

Running loud and excited

All things that most people who have lost a loved one wouldn't want to see or hear when they visit their husband wife parents friend etc

There are times and places to run be loud and excited

Graveyards are not them

it is a graveyard and NOT a playground very disrespectful what exactly does it teach your child .

Some of my best childhood memories involve visiting my grandads parents graves with him. We'd lay flowers then my brother and I would play. We'd put on 'concerts' on the wall. People used to like seeing us, death is sad, but seeing life is hopeful.

It just wouldn't occur to me if my child had energy to burn to think "oh yes, let's go to the local graveyard!" Unless you have a lack of parks or green space I would say YWBU to bring him there in future exclusively for fun and excitement. If however you were using it as an opportunity to teach him about final resting places, how they should be respected etc then I would say YWNBU, although I would tone down the "play" aspect.

My family cremate so I don't visit a loved one in a graveyard, but I know of people who do so in order to have "quiet time" with them. If I was doing that I'm really not sure how I would feel if a young child was loudly jumping in puddles/pretending to see a gruffalo in close proximity.

Thing is, there's been a lot of people over the years so there are dead bodies most everywhere if you dig deep enough - there's a tiny park in Westminster with a placard explaining that give or take 20,000 people were buried in it.

I quite like the idea of a child playing wherever I'll end up buried.

Graveyards can be beautiful places. As long as he's not disturbing mourners I don't really see the problem. I'd like to think if it was me buried there I'd be quite pleased, but then again I don't believe in an afterlife. Just respect those that do.

Exactly albert. There are so many dead people and that number is only growing. We don't have enough land to make sure every burial site is properly treated for ever. Most will become building sites or car parks in time. I nice park for somebody to enjoy themselves is much more preferable.

Thanks Saltybitch,

It is different if it's a cemetery where the deaths are in living memory - then I agree that it'd be horribly unkind to frolic around - but if it's somewhere that stopped taking bodies in 1900 I really can't see the harm.

I agree Albert. There's a huge different between an 'active' graveyard and one that looks like this.

Playing devil's advocate, but why would it be ok to play on a non-active graveyard but not an active one? Is it about respect to the dead (who are dead whether they died yesterday or 200 years ago) or is it to preserve the feelings of possible visitors?

I think it is to avoid upsetting the living.

5more minutes - I think it is unkind to characterise some of the answers on here as 'bizarrly OTT' - I think the answers on here show what an emotive subject this is.

Personally, I would not find it disrespectful for someone to sit quietly in a churchyard, wasting their lunch, but I would think it showed huge disrespect to sit on a tombstone. Equally, I would have no problem with a child walking round, looking at the trees, flowers etc, and talking about the stones and the stories behind the people, but would be rather if they were running around, being noisy.

Maybe, for some people, graveyards are reminders of their losses, and a child playing noisily in a graveyard would feel like disrespect of that loss and pain. Does a child's wish to play outweigh the possible hurt it could cause someone who is grieving the loss of a loved one?

This is quite close to the knuckle for me today, because we are going to visit my lovely MIL's grave tomorrow, to see her headstone in position for the first time.

Bottom line - how hard is it to avoid activities that would cause offence in a churchyard? There are plenty of other places where children can run around to their hearts' content and make as much noise as they want - is it really so,unreasonable to want some places to be quieter and not used as playgrounds.

Id like to think children are still playing and being children after I have gone to my peaceful slumbers, as long as your safe and respectful of others- there's no problem. Our cemetery has an excellent conker tree 😃 love a walk through and a look for conkers in autum.

Fran it's about the feelings of living visitors, absolutely.

As I said very old graves used to be reused until Victorian times and probably will be again as space runs out (they already are in London), deconsecrated grave yards have been given planning permission, many old and no longer in use for new burials graveyards have found a new purpose (and source of income to prevent them falling into total disrepair) as recreational space and for hosting events. Old grave yards without mourners are a totally different proposition to ones still in use visited by mourners.

SDT I wrote that there were some responses that were OTT because the OP talks of an old graveyard and refers to many of the graves as being from the 18th century. I have not thought of bereaved people considering all grave yards, not specifically the one where their lived one's grave is, as a place with a connection to their own bereavement... If some do it does change things, but I wonder whether that is true?

I don't think it's unreasonable. I would imagine that many of those who have passed would be delighted at having the joy of young life around them. I loved visiting cemeteries as a child.

What kind of house doesn't have a garden?

I can't believe you are posting this OP.

Graveyards are not playparks, and can be very dangerous places for children to play,
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/11633764/Boy-eight-dies-after-being-hit-by-falling-gravestone.html

You may be able to supervise him atm while he is young, but not in a few years when he takes himself off to play.

What about active cemeteries where people are still being buried which also encourage recreational use? My children have been on school trips to our local cemetery for pond-dipping, forest schools, sketching trips and to see plays. They often go there to play after school and at weekends, where they sometimes go just to play or have a picnic on the picnic lawn, but also to go to concerts, exhibitions, geocaching, plays or organised history or nature walks. The cemetery encourages such recreational use. We stay away when there is a funeral, and don't do much active playing in the modern section, and steer clear of people visiting graves, but there are several cemeteries nearby, and only one encourages recreational use (which has been encouraged since it reopened), so I also assume that the families have made a choice to bury their loved ones in that particular cemetery with that particular atmosphere.

Llangennith - Lots of older houses by us don't have gardens. Small back yards but not gardens.

Personally I would not encourage supervised toddlers to see graveyards as a recreation space even sticking to paths etc. Toddlers grow up and eventually get out to play out unsupervised a toddler who thinks graveyards paths are ok to ride a scooter on become kids who will be more than tempted to play tig / tag around the old headstones. Which is very disrespectful and dangerous.

With regards to the age of the graves and the 75 year plan for reuse I remember reading on the BBC comments about it at the time a man complaining 75 years was not long enough for graves to be out of living memory. His 90 year old father still regularly visited his fathers grave who died when he was just a small boy of 9, so the grave was over 80 years old but still regularly visited.

Llangennith* - I've seen a fair number of houses without gardens. Usually older terraced houses with tiny concrete back yards.

Oh I see I thought OP meant no outside space at all!

I can only think of what our own dead parents and grandparents would think. And I honestly don't think any of them would mind children playing around their graves - I think they'd rather like it.
(That is, if they had graves - they were nearly all cremated.)

Having said that, cemeteries are really for the living rather than the dead, so as long as you kept your dc quiet and not tearing around shrieking when anyone was obviously visiting a grave, and didn't let him climb on anything potentially dangerous, I don't really see the harm.