guardian family article about bereaved child.....

[controlfreakythecontrolfreak]

did anyone else read this today? rebecca tyrell writing front page full length feature about her 3yo neice whose mother died from cancer a month ago.... with half page sized pic of the little girl....

very hard to see whose benefit this was for.... except rebecca tyrell's who got paid to write this insensitive twaddle. a lot of the article was about how her late sil was a v v private person who didnt want to talk about her illness.... sure she'd have been thrilled .

I read this and thought it bizarre and disturbing. The writer's line seemed to be that because the little girl hadn't displayed any negative emotions, she was 'coping fine'. And yet all through the article it was clear that no-one in the family was talking to her about it and helping her feel something and make sense of it. Completely repressed - they even didn't tell her for several days when her mum died, didn't anyone even cry in front of her?
I don't know how they think a three year old can cope with the sudden disappearance of their mother without it having a profound effect - presumably the poor girl has learnt from those around her that it is not something that is talked about.
And the writer showed such lack of insight - I mean, just because her father hadn't thought to get any advice about how to cope with it, doesn't mean she can't!

i know... that rather whimsical wistful tone and the complete apparent lack of any emotional intelligence behind it.... yuk. completely silent too about what the bereaved dad thought about why it might be a good idea to have his little girl's story and photo sold nationwide.... yuk.

Well yes and it seems the mother died only a month ago - a rather unseemly rush to get it into print, no wonder it was so superficial - I guess its the Goody effect

and writing about your dcs / close family who are children as currently promoted and popularised by julie myerson

I couldn't read it - I can't bear to read things like that at the moment

you did the right thing. sorry if you're having a difficult time tommy.

thank you controlfreak, Had a couple of friends who have been through breast cancer and just found out that another one has it - all with young children. That and all the Jade coverage makes me scared silly as to how my DSs would feel if I died

Glad to see others thinking the same thing about this article. I really don't like the way people pimp their kids' stories, photos etc. for cash. There was just too much about how the little girl was happy happy happy, which I found odd, and rather over-the-top. A child who is never mournful or tantrumming or angry, in a house where her primary carer is dying?

Also, why does everyone apart from me seem to casually mention their second home in the country. Sigh.

Strangely I was wondering what had happened to Rebecca Tyrrell, she used to write about her son Louis in a column some years ago. Thankfully she's shut up about him now (prob turned into a surly teenager). I didn't read that article properly in the Guardian yesterday but will now.I should think all these columnists are keeping their heads down now after the Julie Myerson debacle.

can anyone link to it ?

it's ok,I found it

here

Yes I agree that it was naive at best and really quite stupid at worst

yes,I tend to agree

she is a godawful woman, I used to loathe her columns

I hated her columns too...I think she is related to / married to someone famous...I always assumed her column was about jobs for the boys more than about any writing talent

matthew norman (he is v funny)

It ws dreadful, I agree.

I'm feeling a bit down just now and it set me off into all sorts of crap.

Not well written, just no need for it.

I'm a bit bored of the G family section.

It's all so "me me me" somehow.

quite an odd and invasive article.

The Guardian family section often seems to be used by people who've got either a book or a personal agenda to push. I remember a really odd article by a man who had joint custody of his son and was slagging off his ex who he said wanted the son to go to private school and become a banker while he wanted him to be an artist. It really read as if he was trying to score points against her.

I read it thinking I'd agree with OP but actually thought it was too painful to really judge. I agree that making her neice's pain public isn't really a good thing to do and agree entirely that she will clearly be suffering even if not obvious (I wondered about the significance of stealing flowers from graves for example). But I also felt that rebecca tyrell is trying to make sense of her own painful experience and it is hard to judge her for that. I think it is much less intrusive than the other journo with her son who is clearly old enough to read what is written and resent it.

So pleased that others felt the same - I sat down to read the papers last night, finished that article and promptly burst into tears

I think she did it on the back of the Jade Goody stuff that is in the press just now.

It is very sad, I felt so profoundly sorry for the wee girl.

Throughily depressing, and as others have said there was no real need or point to the article.

Grrrr to the Guardian.

it's been a matter of weeks and the little girl is supposedly come to terms with her mother's death? the situation sounds really badly handled to me, though I don't want to be too judgmental, since different methods work for different families. I still find it shocking that my DH's father died suddenly when he was a child and apparently he just wasn't really mentioned again!

also agree that there was no good point to that article. Maybe the writer could have taken a bit more time to reflect on children's bereavement, and done some proper research. As it was, it was like she dashed off a couple thousand words that sounded like something she could sell to the Family section.

I'm glad to find this thread. I felt really uncomfortable with that feature and wondered if it was just me being oversensitive - clearly not.

this made me very uncomfortable I think it showed terrible lack of insight, poor little girl

glad it wasn't just me! crapola.