Aibu or is this disrespectful

[Alwaysadramaaa]

Long time lurker here...first time poster. Scrolling through my Facebook feed earlier to see a selfie posted by a family at a grave side of a grandparent, headstone in the background. Aibu to think some things should be private, grief bring one of them & this is just attention seeking or is this a nice way to remember a loved one?

I've been bereaved more than once and one of the few things that makes it even more painful is when someone starts preaching about how you're doing grief WRONG. If they threw in the MN horseshit about 'attention seeking' (apparently code for any woman - it's always a woman - who doesn't go about her life in a sensory deprivation hood), I think I'd go full banshee.

Ooh gosh you’d hate me though as i regularly go and visit my Dad at his resting place and take photos of the children sitting on his bench. I really didn’t think anything of it and posted one on Facebook recently as it was my Dad’s birthday abd we were there planting flowers.

I think that everyone grieves differently and there is no right or wrong.

No worries e1y1 we all read wrong sometimes :)

I think the 'grieving should be private' malarkey is extremely unhealthy.

The family with the selfie sound as if they have the right idea.

Ive got an old work friend on facebook whose mum died a few years ago. Every birthday and christmas her and her brother take deck chairs up to the churchyard and take selfies of one another, grinning away, champagne glass in hand, with their mum. They then open gifts from her (that they buy each other and put her name on) and write "my mums the best, she got me XXX". They then pose for "grieving" shots from behind and ones looking up to the sky etc. They also have parties for her every birthday and christmas and go on nights out "in her name" with groups of 20+ friends.

Wonder if I can state this in my will as a request. This is awesome!

OP it is in my experience (much of which being in death professionally and personally) that making grief a private matter can be very detrimental to the bereaved individual’s recovery. More so if there is pressure from others to keep that grief private or to express it in an ‘acceptable’ way that suits others. I don’t understand how a photo like thy would be disrespect to the dead person. Can you explain why you think that? It’s an odd analogy.

People posts pic of selves with gravestone. Of someone they cared about. So what? Who is there to disrespect? Were they pissing on the stone? I am so not seeing a problem.

I just don’t get it TBH. DH has family members that take their children to “visit” grandparents and great grandparents who have been dead for decades. They take birthday cards, Christmas cards, Father’s Day cards and get the children (I’m talking 2 year olds) to kiss the headstone and put pictures on Facebook.

To me....it’s weird! My grandparents, my mother, a very dear aunt....all dead but I don’t go on Facebook on their birthdays going on about it.....

*disrespectful. Sounded like I was very much down with the kids just then

People used to have casts made of people's faces once they were dead and display them in their houses, this makes taking a photo of a gravestone look quite tame. Family photo's of dead children made up to look like they were alive also were not unsual, sometimes the dead and living DC where photographed together. There is not one correct way to mourn, and it is relatively recent thing to suggest grief should be private.
There are cultures where the dead are brought out of their tombs to mix with the living as well as cultures where shrines to the dead including photographs are built in schools once a year.

SIL does this. Whenever they’ve put flowers on husbands grandmas grave (she’s my husbands brothers wife). I think it’s disrespectful and weird.

It’s just not for me, the ceased party in question was a cantankerous old lady who I doubt would of wanted to be posted on Facebook. But each to their own

I've had some family members in my family doing this by my Mum and Dad's grave,they're the children of one of my siblings(they're all adults and most of them have children of they're own)I was surprised when I first saw it and it's not something any of my DC would ever do and like me my DC are the baby's of the family.

But I know that one of them that had done this has really really struggled with the loss of my parents they're Grandparents and couldn't even face my Dad's funeral so I've taken it as his way of coping with what's happened.

But each to their own hate this phrase but yep, exactly. If it helps them get through it, that’s all that matters. Grief is a nasty thing that outs people at their most vulnerable. It’s pretty low to pass judgement on the way someone chooses to grieve to be honest. It doesn’t matter if the deceased was a cantankerous old woman, somebody loved/still loves her.

Buggeroff I would find visiting graves very normal. In Ireland it's normal to go visit graves and say a prayer at least weekly. There's a blessing of the graves service annually where people all attend a service at the graveyard.
But rural Ireland is very different to England in terms of dealing with death I've found. I would find it completely normal for children to be at a wake and see the dead body, which is a whole other story.

I don't find taking a family photo with the gravestone of presumably a family member in the background automatically disrespectful. They may be trying to include the deceased in their special moments or in their day-to-day lives.
Who are we to judge how others grieve?

I get it entirely. My Nanna was poorly in a nursing home for a good few years before she passed away, she had dementia. One of my cousins didn't bother with her at all in that time, and hadn't bothered with her since she'd got poorly at all, about six years in total. Never went to the home once. But once she passed away, there was a picture of the grave as her Facebook cover photo, looking for sympathy from her friends and acquaintances. I found it a) totally inappropriate and b) absolutely infuriating, that she would use the death of our Nanna as an attention seeking exercise when she hadn't bothered her arse with her at all. The rest of us had been there, held her hand, fed her, brushed her hair. I couldn't help but feel that if the grief was genuine, it wouldn't be used for such shameless attention seeking.

It’s just not for me, the ceased party in question was a cantankerous old lady who I doubt would of wanted to be posted on Facebook.

You don't grieve for the sake of the dead. You grieve for the sake of yourself. Death and funeral rites are more for the living than the deceased. What does the deceased care? It's the living who have to find a way to cope with their loss. And they're not required to repress it to their own detriment because of what you personally would choose.

You may not choose to express your grief in such a way and that's fine, but you have no right to judge others for how they do it.

I get it entirely. My Nanna was poorly in a nursing home for a good few years before she passed away, she had dementia. One of my cousins didn't bother with her at all in that time, and hadn't bothered with her since she'd got poorly at all, about six years in total. Never went to the home once. But once she passed away, there was a picture of the grave as her Facebook cover photo, looking for sympathy from her friends and acquaintances.

The problem there is not the photograph, it's the fact that your cousin ignored your grandmother in life and then attempted to exploit her death. She could have done that without ever taking a photo of the grave. Similarly, I expect you'd have found it more acceptable had she nursed your grandmother through her last illness and been dedicated to her in life.

It's not the photograph that's the problem.

They then open gifts from her (that they buy each other and put her name on) and write "my mums the best, she got me XXX".

^How bizarre

@Objectivist you're right to an extent, but even if she had been there for her, to have the picture as her Facebook cover photo, so public I still would have found disrespectful and odd. I know people can grieve in their own way, but it isn't just her grief, there's loads of other cousins who adored her, not to mention my Mum and her siblings... it's all of our grief and to have the wording on her grave, something so personal, made so public for the sake of some Facebook sad faces and 'so sorry for your loss huns', feels wrong to me.

Well I admit making it a cover photo does seem odd to me, because it's more 'permanent', for want of a better word. It'll pop up every time you see the profile and it makes it something by which the account holder apparently wants to be identified. A one-off post somehow seems different, although I can't quite articulate why.

I still don't think there is inherently anything wrong with sharing a photograph of a loved one's grave if it's done with the right intentions. People grieve differently. One is not superior because one apparently seeks to be ignored all the time.

(I think a lot of MNers suffer from frustrated Cinderella complexes. You know, where they await their reward for being ignored all the time and it never materialises and then they get pissed off at people who made some inroads to interact with others.)

I can't imagine doing this myself but don't see what is disrespectful about it. I also don't see how a family picture at the graveside is attention seeking. I'd rather see this than the sad face, cryptic posts some people make, practically begging people to ask "are you alright hun? ...."

I wouldn't do it but people do as someone else mentioned about Victorians

Genuine question for the OP. Why do you think grief should be private?

I'm not asking why you would, presumably, prefer to keep your own grief private. I'm asking why you think everyone should keep their grief private.

ayn thats a good question that no one seems willing to answer. Death should not be taboo. Graves are not private anyone can go look at them. Why is it being said its tacky and disrespectful to mention or show someones grave on facebook. I think its lovely the person being remembered and visited. I have a few friends that do it and its sweet and i know about someone very special who is no longer here i didnt know existed before.

Memorys should be kept alive and graves are a lovely way to do it. Plus i hate this "they are attention seekers". So what?! If you dont want to give them attention then ignore it. If other people do its their choice. Sometimes we all need attention and if thats what they feel sad about why shouldnt they.