AIBU to think that thousands of people loving charlie and bradley is some what false.

[Lonelymummyof1]

I know exactly what It is like to have a poorly child same as hundreds more parents in the uk.
Set aside my belief that I believe that bradley has very little dignity and both him and charlie are now used as some weird sort of click bait.

The supporters I do not understand it ?

We love you, we are heart broken and we will miss you.

Now I get empathy but this is not empathy this is media posts just gone crazy to write the most heart breaking post they can.
I wish neither of these children would have to lose their life and can undetstand the parents pain just like the rest of the terminally ill children in this country.

You can feel sad that these things happen but this just seems weird and could not imagine allowing a nation of people watching my child pass away.

I mean how many of them 2 years from now will wake up on the morning of their anniversary and automatically remember them ?

Lonely I have thought a lot about what the parents and indeed other children with these diseases must think when they see the likes on telly every other day.

Lastqueen - I will tell you how it feels.

" turning off life support is murder "
Knowing that once upon a time that and again in the future it may be a decision I have to make and that I would probabky withdraw treatment.

" every parent would do what they could and fundraise"

No very little of us actually do, we look for great hope not minor hope that would not be beneficial

Makes us currently apparently the worse murdering parents in the country.

Other children and bradley.
There is so many children with diffetent illnesses that are not in the media.
Fanous would not even reply to an email for but they will watch the telly and know that it was purelt down to they have the "wrong thing wrong with them"

Sorry for the typos have a toddler asleep across me haha

It just blows my mind the venom directed at the hospital. It's a terribly sad situation but do people honestly believe the hospital has come together and said 'look guys I know we are in the business of healing and are very successful at that but this Charlie lad nah let's not bother' and all these professionals conspired and yeah great plan. That's delusional.

I have massive sympathy for the parents and however they choose to conduct themselves through their grief is their business so far as I'm concerned. They can rage against the world and the hospital if it helps them accept and heal.

Ol Doris whose just posted a ton of blue hearts on her social media and said she will storm the hospital and save the baby well she can fuck off and stfu. She couldn't storm tescos.

I just feel the children should be anonymous in this. They don't have a choice in being ill or having their pic plastered everywhere.

Some of the posts I've seen from supporters are a bit odd. I've seen a couple that say things like "sat here in utter shock. Absolutely devastated and in tears over this, my heart's broken" etc etc

Then there was the whole sucking a lemon video thing for Charlie.

I don't know how it works, why Bradley was elevated to be the poster child for his cancer. My friend lost her son at 3 years old to the same cancer but she kept it all off social media so I don't know if papers etc search media for stories and pick one to escalate.

I see how Charlies made it to the news because of the nature and circumstances round his illness.

As previous people have said, who will remember the dates etc when the two pass away? It's another media shit storm led by the Daily Fail who think, once again, they are journalists.

Agree OP and this whole media circus has achieved nothing positive in terms of educating people on the condition or raising funds for GOSH, a fantastic institution who have had their reputation tarnished.

I feel for the parents, I really do. However, GOSH funding has been hampered by the media coverage and that is an absolute tragedy to many families with very unwell children who are reliant on the hospital and the support it provides.

I agree with a lot of these comments.
I find the constant posting on FB over these types of situations to be incredibly insincere. A young girl passed away recently locally to me and the amount of people posting about in on FB and what they were posting was distasteful to me.... I've seen selfies taken at her grave even WITH the parents tagged in... !

Obviously it's tragic for the children and parents but I do not like how Charlie's parents have handled this. Turning people against the hospital is horrendous
And the lack of critical thinking from the followers is worrying

The same people can watch hundreds of children starve to death I a foreign country with no outpouring at all

I think it is deeply disturbing that that the Gard family have been so vocal about their "rights" in all of this, but where were Charlie's rights to privacy and not having his entire life made public over the media and internet? And Bradley Lowery, whose Mother is at best desperately oversharing information online about her son's condition.
GOSH has done nothing but fight for Charlie. For him to die in dignity and not be kept artificially alive with no chance of recovery. For him not to be dragged half way across the world on a wild goose chase.
His parents have incited thousands to donate money to a useless cause, they have found lawyers to act for free - yet GOSH have spent thousands of pounds daily on Charlie's ICU bed, money on lawyers for court after court process. And even now when their son has a chance to go in peace, they are still dragging his suffering on by making social media pleas for relatives to visit.

I have lost a son, and stood behind his tiny coffin in a crematorium. I have cried more tears than I knew possible, and had a lifetime of missed moments with him. But would I have put him through what Charlie has been through - no way in hell. That poor baby has been on life support since October. Seven months. They had 8 weeks with a baby that was already dying, since then he has been technically dead.
It isn't right however you look at it, and the ignorance behind the army of people supporting these well meaning but deeply misguided and even deluded parents is shocking.

""Blue hearts all over Facebook for Charlie, that's really not going to help the situation is it?""

It was Charlie's Parents who started this.

I am one of the people who thinks about the hypocrisy of grieving for the right coloured/religion children.

But Connie looks like a shell of herself and both her and Chris are taking comfort in the support that they have had. I think that on a personal level they are being unfairly criticised for not behaving as some would and for holding on to hope that their little boy would live.

He's going to be gone soon. I think these threads could have been put on hold until both children are dead, at least.

""This has become more about the parents and their wishes than Charlie. ""

And yet MN tells Mothers everyday that the baby is hers and to cut paternal family members out, especially the GM, if they breathe wrongly.

I dont believe these threads should wait.
Thousands of people trying to ruin a hospital that people like us rely on.

I had alot of sympathy for them, still do but they are wrong.
Its a shame that people are to worried to express their feelings of greatness about GOSH because they will get mobbed.

There are children and parents just like them all over the country.

Charlies army is a hype - sorry to say in 2 years leas than half will even remember.

With Charlie it was always going to be news because of the court fight and the crowd funding and I can see why the parents have kept it in the media because they were told they could give him a chance if they raised the cash.

With Bradley I don't understand why he's been put through so may publicity opportunities, he's looked so poorly yet still been paraded for photos and the most recent one of him looking in terrible pain shouldn't have been taken in the first place let alone shared worldwide.

Everything jane said.

DD2 is only alive today because of Southampton general and a couple of years ago they were getting similar threats regarding a child's treatment.
Fairly sure that all the people making death threats to the staff and picketing the hospital can't now remember the child in questions name.

I think this about most things all the terrible things that happen especially death "in my thoughts and prayers..." yet they don't pray or have wrote a status or quote how God and Religion is a load of crud

Anyway. If it brings them comfort then let it be, they aren't hurting anyone. Just a bit odd. I have had several people die for different reasons in my local area and all of a sudden all these people pop out the wood work claiming they were best friends, only spoke to them the other day 6 years ago always there if they needed a chat... ect ect.

I also think this when we look at the terror attacks and people go to social media yet do not open their eyes or mind to the bigger picture, this happens in some countries daily. Yet where is all there front page news, love, support and help?

Non of that probably makes sense but I know what I mean!

I agree completely. I understand that everyone deals with trauma and grief differently, but the media don't respect the privacy or dignity of the children and it's a slippery slope for the parents.

DS had a very rare cancer as a baby, one which needs awareness raising of the symptoms for early diagnosis. We had always said that we wouldn't do any media until DS was old enough to understand and give his consent. I am conscious that he will eventually Google his own name and I could imagine that finding his story and image online would feel really uncomfortable for him and I don't want him defined as a cancer survivor.

We are also insistent that DS should be surrounded by positivity- if DS want to be upset, or scared, or angry then of course he can, but he shouldn't be surrounded by adults parading these emotions in front of him.

I was approached by the charity that supports patients of this cancer to do a radio interview to help raise awareness of the symptoms. I thought about it long and hard and was convinced by DH to do it- it wouldn't be online forever for DS to find and it would reach a wide audience with the awareness campaign, so I agreed to do it.

The journalist was appalling. She wasn't interested in the symptoms at all and was just looking for a sad face cancer story, asking me questions like "it must be devastating to know that your child is disfigured by cancer" and "going back to the moment you were told your baby had cancer, how did that feel?". Thankfully I am fairly tough and have media training as I do a lot of interviews through work and calmly gave answers solely about the symptoms and our key messages, however the interview left me shaken and I can see how easy it is for the media to hijack the grief of a parent.

I can understand Charlie's parents and family feeling furious, in denial, clinging on to any shred of hope they think is out there. But I can't understand what this Facebook lynch mob are doing. Making threats against the hospital and individual staff members over a child they don't know with a medical condition they clearly know nothing at all about? What are they getting out of that?

It certainly isn't helping the parents at this stage (I've no idea what would help them but pulling them further away from the awful reality they aren't ready to accept can't be the answer) and is hindering GOSH's work treating other patients.

I just can't grasp how sympathising with this child and family escalates to this sort of mob mentality.

The hearts don't have a problem with..but happens so much starts to mean so little when they are shared.

What do find odd is comments on the group..Someone whose dad/grandad had had a stroke and kept saying Charlie..another whose child/toddler kept saying his name..those are bizzare!

Morning, everyone. Can we please ask you to be mindful of the fact that behind this story are real parents who are going through an extremely painful experience? While we don't want hinder a discussion that is prevalent in the news, we will remove posts we feel are not in the spirit of the site. Thank you.

I don't know about Charlie, as the first I've heard of his situation is the current threads on Mumsnet - don't get to watch the news much these days.

For Bradley, it's my understanding that the family needed to fundraise for treatment, so had no choice but to go public to appeal to people to contribute to the fund. I don't know if they went to Sunderland football club first, as Bradley is a big Sunderland fan, but I think the club's involvement in the fundraising gave it a wider platform than their appeal would otherwise had. I've read that they've said if the money cannot be used to help Bradley after all then it will be given to support other children with the condition. I only know about Bradley as I'm a Sunderland fan too so have seen the appeals via the club and in the local newspaper's facebook posts.

I think maybe it would be best that the actions of the parents are left off this thread. Like I said before grief has no rules as to how it will affect you. I think it's just too emotive a topic and too inappropriate a time to discuss them.

And maybe concentrate on the behaviour of those that do not have a personal connection with the children in question?

It's the family and friends of the parents who need to look at themselves imo.

My relative died of cancer recently, not a child but only in her 40s. There is a doctor who could have done a bit more than might have got her diagnosed sooner, and the doctor who broke the news to her did so disgustingly. Her partner started to rant and rave, talking about shaming them online - as family and friends our job was to support him and guide him away from that. It wasn't to stoke him up into a frenzy. Where is their calming influence.

I agree OP. Obviously I feel hugely sorry for Charlie's parents. It's a tragedy.

But some of the 'support' for Charlie and his parents is getting out of control. This is an extremely complex medical, legal and ethical situation. Not one of these 'supporters' will have any idea of the complexities involved and I now feel so sorry for GSOH and the staff there. They do an extremely difficult and punishing but absolutely vital job for pretty unrewarding money. The hospital has spent £££s on legal fees and other costs associated with the furore which now can't be spent helping other sick children - of which there are many thousands up and down the country!