Children playing on graves

[Goostacean]

Safety issues aside, should children be allowed to play on graves/gravestones?

There’s a cemetery near me that’s popular with joggers and dog walkers, and obviously with young families currently too. Clearly the “occupants” are unaware, and it’s nice to have some life and laughter there - but also feels a bit disrespectful somehow.

What does MN think...?

My children's nursery took place in a church hall next door to the church graveyard. At hometime nursery children and their siblings used to play on the gravestones, i.e. run and chase each other over them. The stones were hundreds of years old and some looked unstable. The nursery owner really should have informed parents to keep their children off as it was so unecessary and disrespectful.

It's just disrespectful imho.

Having said that, I am surprised that so many cemeteries are still open. My local cemetery is closed as there is a crematorium and church on site and as per a public health legislation update (idk the specific one off the top of my head but could probably try and find it) they had to close it - I assume to minimise the people on site when funerals/grave digging and tending are taking place.

There was uproar from some in our town at being locked out of the cemetery but if it means there arent children playing on gravestones, then I have no objection

DD and I walk through a beautiful cemetery almost every day and I ensure that she doesn't go anywhere near the graves, let alone playing on them
She walks nicely and that's it.

Disgraceful behaviour. If I saw a child playing on my mums grave I'd go insane!!

I've never seen children doing this. I live going to church yards and have taught (or directed) my children never to step in a grave as it brings bad luck. They take it very seriously!

Yes graveyard's are for the living. Which is why it is appropriate to show some respect to those left behind and grieving, by not letting children play on the graves themselves.

From personal experience I can say that going to visit a loved one's grave and finding that the headstone is damaged and the plants have been snapped or trodden on, is incredibly distressing.

I wouldn't allow it from the safety point of view and I do think it's a bit disrespectful but that said if somebody was playing on the grave of one of my relatives I couldn't get that bothered by it as long as it wasn't inappropriate playing or hanging around.

It’s hugely disrespectful. To me, it doesn’t matter whether it is an old grave or a new grave - it is about treating the dead with respect, in the same way that you can’t dig up an old grave on a whim, shouldn’t play about taking photos with a historical skeleton, and archeologists have strict rules about how they treat graves they uncover. You should not be desecrating graves by playing football on them, it’s really distasteful.

You could excuse what happened at Alder Hey by saying the dead children didn’t care and the parents didn’t know, so what was the problem. But most people can see that there is a massive fucking problem with desecration of graves and dead bodies.

I don’t know I went to see my grandparents in their lot recently and it was quite nice to see children running about laughing etc. they were small, cute children, Running in a very adorable tv advert style manner with little balance bikes and sun hats, maybe 3 and 4 years old, and not 13 yr olds on bikes tear arsing about though - that would have annoyed me and been less palatable. So I guess my answer if it depends on the children

I hope children play on my grave when I die :-)

It's a no from me.

Dolly - I presume by playing you mean you hope that they aren't deliberately trying to break grave ornaments, kicking over vases of flowers and deliberately snapping and breaking plants?

Yanbu. We walk through an old graveyard by the church quite often with DD- she’s allowed to run around on the path and pick dandelions from the edge but never allowed to walk on the actual graves.

I live in the country, and since lockdown DD19 and I have taken a couple of walks through fields connecting to neighbouring villages specifically to visit the graveyards. DP thinks it is morbid, but we both like reading all the headstones, admiring the wreathes and flowers left, and pondering who the people were. We found a family plot a couple of weeks ago, totally overgrown in weed, and pulled some of it back. In doing so we had to step on the graves (didn't actually occur to me we were disrespectful. Ooops). Just felt sorry that they were long gone, and wouldn't have had visitors for maybe a couple of hundred years.

I think you live near me, OP... the one by me is beautiful and me and my DC have always walked through it often.

I have spotted some pretty crappy behaviour the last couple of weeks - highlight was a fairly large group of adults and children on bikes, shouting and heading on in. As well as not a place for jumping on graves, I also think cemeteries should be fairly peaceful places and their noise really jarred with me. It seemed so disrespectful even though they were just out, enjoying the sunshine.

I should point out on the back of my last post-it is the historic graves we normally look at. It's not like we are eagerly awaiting the next resident to read the new obituary!

Just encase anyone is interested (probably not) the one we could read, the male occupant died in the early 18th century. Both his young wives, and children also buried. We googled in the archives and found out he was a founder of the village the graveyard sat in. Owned much of the land.

Sometimes a graveyard is a playground.

www.swlondoner.co.uk/is-this-london-playground-located-in-a-cemetery-britains-creepiest-play-area/

I find it disrespectful, even if the person has been dead for 100 years it still seems bad.

IsAnybodyListening I think walking on a grave is fine if you are visiting that grave or if you are trying to look after it. And in some church yards the older graves are very closely lined up, so it's impossible to visit a grave without partially walking over some others to get to it. But as long as the intent is respectful I think it's OK.

I don't think there is anything wrong with playing there. Taking things from graves is disrespectful (at least to the people who put it there, even if the dead person doesn't care).

I think being too serious about it contributes to the fear many people have of death. It is (and should be perceived as) a normal part of life.

And even where there aren't gravestones, there will often be dead people buried anyway. There are about 108 billion dead people, and they aren't all in cemetaries...

Well as an individual and not some MN collective I think its appalling

Are some taught nothing about respect for the dead anymore ?

A boy died in Glasgow, I think it was the Craigton crem in Cardonald, when a gravestone he was playing on fell on him and crushed him to death.

And my daughter's former forest school is on a paupers burial ground. They've played plenty there, despite skeletons beneath.

YANBU at all.

A Victorian cemetery I think fine. There is one near us very popular for recreation. Even the grandchildren of these people are dead there is noone to be offended. As long as noone is damaging the graves I think it's fine.

Old gravestones very likely to topple!