To not take children to woodland burial

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FIL has terminal cancer. MIL has already booked his woodland burial plot and is insisting all the grand children attend.
AIBU to not want my children to attend.
FIL has fallen out over the years with nearly all colleagues, neighbours and even my parents, I suspect turn out will be low.

Not sure if this will help and I haven’t read all the posts so apologies if repeated...

My friends husband was killed in the last couple of months. At the funeral (crem, non religious, beautiful), I wouldn’t have dreamed of taking my LO (2.5 - but attention span of a goldfish!) but my friends godchildren were there, one a similar age. They were impeccably behaved throughout the service. The family are Japanese and ancestors are critically important to their culture and heritage - for them it wouldn’t have even been a consideration. It to bring the children to honour their friend.

We need to talk more about death - it’s inevitable, so confronting it and making it ‘normal’ is important.

In terms of your situation, with it being a woodland setting, if they get antsy, why not walk them away and let them hit things with sticks (quietly!!) but explain from a distance what is going on and why?

I think OP's issue sounds rather more that the family are a bunch of twats (from the most recent post). It's one thing to take DC to a relative's funeral where it will be sad but comforting (quite a few people find it makes them feel better to see small DC, a reminder that life goes on etc) - but if you know because of the people attending that there are going to be drunken rows, performative bawling and adults behaving in a generally out-of-control way, then no, I wouldn't take DC into a situation like that.
(My DS is 14 now. At the end of last year, my oldest friend died and I organised an informal wake as the funeral was overseas. DS, who had known my friend, wanted to come along; I agreed he could but also arranged for his dad to come and take him home after an hour or so, as I expected there to be some drunk people and some filthy stories as the night wore on. All worked out just fine.)

I think children should be protected. What good does it do them to attend funerals. Irish funerals are different there are more children for one thing, not just one or two.

What good does it do anyone to attend funerals? You might as well say.
I wish I could protect my dc from death and grief, but I can’t, not sure how avoiding a funeral shields them from the worst of bereavement which is the living without your loved one.

I think children should be protected. What good does it do them to attend funerals. Irish funerals are different there are more children for one thing, not just one or two.

If someone has died they will know and if it was someone they loved they will be upset and they will mess that person. Ignoring the fact the person isn't there any more doesn't protect them from those feelings - you're just leaving them alone to deal with it. If it's the kind of funeral t which children are invited it's obviously a celebration of life which serves the same purpose to children as it does to adults.

I’d take mine but that’s mainly because at a family funeral I’d have to either take them or stay at home and miss the funeral myself as all my childcare would be in attendance. The fallout that would ensue if I were to not go would be unbearable so I’d have to take them.

I’m not saying that you should ignore the fact that a loved one has died. I just don’t see what can be achieved by a child attending a cremation or burial. Especially a sensitive child.

YANBU to not want to be forced into it.

That said, my mother had a woodland burial and it was really beautiful.

I only had my eldest and she was in a sling because she was a newborn and hadn't a clue what was going on but it would have been fine if she was older.

We go back annually and camp near by and it is truly perfect. One of the highlights of the kids year

I understand not wanting to be forced into anything. But there are times when someone else’s wishes should take priority. And the funeral of your partner is one of those times.

I think children should be protected. What good does it do them to attend funerals. Irish funerals are different there are more children for one thing, not just one or two.

My family isnt Irish. There are always plenty of children at the funerals. They have as much right as anyone to benefit from the shared grief, sadness and celebration. We don't protect children by talking about "passing" or hiding one of the most important aspects of life.

They benefit from knowing they are not alone in their feelings and seeing that its ok to be sad, other people loved the dead person, seeing adults managing the sadness and most of all that they can talk about it. The commonest problem bereaved people report is avoidance of the subject of the dead person.

IME that is a recent phenomena. We grew up going to funerals and talking about the lives and experiences of the dead. I have no regrets taking my children to family funerals and as adults they have no regrets either. Notably though, they are not discomforted talking to a bereaved person because they don't try to avoid the subject.

My kids have been to three funerals, all grandparents. At the first they were very little and one of them slept through. At the second my oldest was about 7 and didn’t want to go into the crematorium, so we went and did something else and met everyone after. At the last one they were 9 and 5 and were fine with it.

None of these were funerals that were highly charged emotionally. I might have felt differently if they had been but I really felt that the children should be able to understand that their grandparents had died and it was okay to be sad.

My grandad passed away when I was 7 and my parents believed funerals aren’t for children so it was all done whilst we were at school. It made his death seem unreal and confusing and for that reason, my children have been given the choice from the age of 5. I don’t believe children need protecting from death or funerals, I think that attitude is doing them a disservice. However, given the family issues, you shouldn’t feel you need to attend if you don’t want to either!

user1457017537
Personally I don’t think children under16 should attend funerals. I think it plays on their minds and isn’t fair on them.

My granddad died when I was nine. I've always regretted not being allowed to attend his funeral.

To add to my previous post, my grandmother died recently and we did not take our five year old, although I did talk to him about funerals and why we have them. He showed no interest in attending.

There weren't going to be any other children attending, and most of those attending were elderly, so I did make the decision that it would be best for DS not to attend. He also hadn't seen his great grandmother for a couple of years.