To think the behaviour of these mothers is shocking and they bloody well deserve a slap?

[SassySusan]

Message deleted

I remember when a friend of ours lost his wife. He was heart-broken. He also had 4 children to care for - one a baby of just over a year, and one his wife's child from a pervious relationship. He coped by being 'normal' in public - he didn't want anyone saying anything about his late wife or expressing condolences in case he lost control. So we helped by acting as normal as possible and doing practical things for him and his family.

If anyone had taken his hand and said' I'm so sorry about L' he'd have been distraught and angry, even though it was the 'right' thing to do.

There is never a perfect way to respond.

I agree with Porcamiseria. SassySusan has every right to be angry at the world right now.

Life is bloody unfair sometimes

But there's saying the stupid, insensitive, cruel wrong thing, and the innocent, well-meaning wrong thing.

Yes, but the bereaved are hit by both in equal measure.

The person who says something inadvertently hurtful will think twice about what she says the next time she meets a bereaved person if she understands how much upset she has caused.

But only if she knows that she has hurt that person.

yanbu. The world can bend to what you need, and these threads help others see what that is/isn't.

I meant with regards to people not saying anything, and using the line of not knowing what to say.

I think there's a difference between a comment about the weather, or wishing a nice weekend compared with "your child being too good for this earth", "at least you've got other children"-type comments.....or crazy songs, "you'll never recover from this" comments.

When its happened to us i have noticed a'scale' of insensitive comments ranging from mild to severe.

Marsha - actually, this thread hasn't helped me to see what Sassy or any other bereaved person needs. Other than to be angry.

Enjoying yourself Quimby?

I guess that's the whole point!

I thought I would see how this thread was going. Its obviously a subject very close to my heart.

I am still dismayed (though not shocked) by the amount of people who think the onus is on the newly bereaved mother to be understanding and sensitive to the needs of others.

How does that work then? Does it apply in all situations?

Should the desperately sick get up and make a cuppa for their visitors so as not to make them feel awkward?
Should those ttc for 10 years go out of their way to kiss new babies so their friends dont get upset?

Bollocks should they.

If people cant be bloody careful and thoughtful when talking to a person whose life has been shattered, when can they?

Sassy hasnt slapped anyone. It doesnt even sound as if she has been remotely rude to anyone.

There are hundreds of threads on MNs every year starting with 'that bloke next door said my child was being noisy/rude/setting fire to his cat AIBU to want to slap him?'

Cue lots of 'what a nob/twunk/wanker'

You dont have to swear at someone or be outright rude to upset them.

How stupid do you have to be to wish someone a 'good weekend' when their child has just died?

The song thing is beyond words. My DD's school decided to hold a concert in her memory last year. The didnt bother to tell me and I found out via an invite they sent to the house a week before.

I was absolutly distraught. It shook me beyond description. The school had been worse than useless when she was ill and didnt even send a card when she died.

When I phoned to discuss the concert I was really expecting to hear 'but we sent you letters, they must have got lost' or 'OMG I thought so and so had consulted you'.

I got 'TBH It didnt cross my mind'

But how could I be angry or upset? After all they meant well didnt they? How mean of me to tell I didnt want anything to do with it

Bibbity there is another one on here inspired by this one. Hang on...

YANBU. My sister died very suddenly when I was 4. She was 6 weeks old. My mum still remembers the people she thought were friends who would cross the road to avoid her afterwards while giving a cheery 'look I'm soo busy' wave.

Equally, some of her and my dad's best friends now are the people who insisted on helping - looking after me and my brother / delivering and cooking food / cleaning the house so mum didn't have to think about it or who came round and cried with them. Would those on this thread who have lost children have any views on those as things to do?

That's shocking chegirl , I'm so sorry the school were so ignorant , no card ffs

"Given I have explained in some detail why wishing me a nice weekend is inappropriate, which of the 2 responses do you think is the best?"

Well no, your response at 12.38 was a deliberately obtuse misrepresentation of my earlier comment insinuating that I had described you as a heartless selfish bitch etc. "You are so right. I am such a selfish bitch to ignore her care and effort" when in reality I was saying that I understood why you felt the way you did but that did not change the fact that you were wrongly attributing malicious motives to those who were trying to be sympathtic in their own way which in this instance did not happen to allign with your own specific requirments. you also went on to claim that those who did not meet your requirments were unintelligent and unable to empathise.
you claim that those people are going out of their way to be deliberately and intentionally offensive to you when in reality your response at 12.38 made me realise that you are going out of your way to find fault and in essence make up your own version of what they said because your response at 12.38 in no way represented what I had posted. I decided that if that was going to be your approach to the discussion there was no point in further trying to discuss the matter with you as your mind is made up and I would respond to your sarcastic "thanks" in kind.

che......speachless about the school & concert

mayor GIVE IT A fucking break, Please

Bibbity, I would have thought, the key point to take away from this thread is, stop protecting yourself from possible trauma. It's not about you. It's about the grieving parent. Just show up for them and continue to show up, because grieving doesn't stop because the rest of us are busy getting on with life.

Also OP has now mentioned twice how she can't even go to shopping. From that I would extrapolate that when you know someone who has lost a child, there is practical things you can do for them.

Those are just two things that people should take from this thread, but so many posters are too busy posting how they don't want to make things worse.

Porcamesia I'd finished my comments on this thread. only returned to address the posts concerning me (presume that's still allowed).
If my name is not mentioned again on this thread I won't be posting on it again. If it is I will address the posts directed at me.
so please, give me a fucking break.

"The key point to take away from this thread is, stop protecting yourself from possible trauma. It's not about you. It's about the grieving parent". Exactly.

yanbu. sorry for your loss, and that other people's thoughtless behaviour has been upsetting you further.

Last weekend, at a big social event, I met an old family friend whose husband had died, young and suddenly, of a stroke. His daughters found him.

I had thought long and hard about what to say, and knew there was very little except that I was terribly sorry, and that if there was anything I could do, I would. When I saw her I moved towards her to give her a hug, as I would normally do, and to try and convey my sympathy. Immediately it was as if a shutter went down: her face went icy, she backed away, and said in a very cheerful brittle voice, "Hello, how are you..." etc. etc.

I was convinced she simply knew she couldn't deal with it, and so I didn't do or say any of the things that I'd intended.

Now it's quite possible that she now thinks I am heartless and uncaring, and is wondering why an old friend didn't comfort her - but it was difficult - of course not one tiny pitiful iota of the difficulty she and her daughters are going through: I know that - but it was, and I had to back down.

I guess what I mean is that an onlooker would have been totally justified in thinking me selfish and self-absorbed and uncaring. She might even be justified in thinking so. But I'm not. I'd agonised over seeing her, and desperately wanted to do the right thing.

Sassy, I am very, very sorry for your loss. And I don't think anyone has any right to accuse you of unreasonableness at a time when you've every goddam right to be as unreasonable as you please. But I do think that at least some of the people you'd like to slap may have struggled to know what to do, and failed you. That's not the same as being heartless and selfish.

PS Quimby? Blimey - choose your battles love, eh?

Thank you Sassy for this thread. I'm so, so very sorry for your loss. Your eloquent posts are so dignified and moving.

It's made me really consider how to respond to the bereaved, and confirmed much of what I suspected too - that to cross the road or say nothing is a metaphorical slap in the face of the bereaved.

Some of the posts on here have dismayed me in their hurtfulness, but hopefully posters - and lurkers - will go away and think about how they respond to the bereaved too.

I think there is still a stereotypically British stiff-upper-lip response to death, and that is not a good one, compared to that of other cultures. Maybe there is hope for change.

I am sorry for the loss of your daughter, I can only imagine you are in hte UK where we are pretty shit at dealing with death.

I think perhaps you express your condolences to the bereaved person, and they will take the lead. They will either discuss it in more detail...or say thank you and change the topic of conversation.

It's often the conversations and encounters afterwards that are more difficult....

Personally I am pretty open about loss and death, although never really affected myself. I would prefer to be told to 'shut up' by a grieving parent than not acknowledge their loss. I can't imagine anything I could say could make the pain worse.