Eastenders Baby Death Storyline

[deemented]

Once again, no one can live happily ever after

Ronnie's baby James, dies and she puts his body in Kat and Alfies son's crib, and steals their baby boy, Tommy.

Why oh why oh why do scriptwriters insist on portraying bereaved parents - mothers especially - as mad and deranged??? Maybe it's because they can't begin to imagine how awful the death of a child is, but really, whilst we are mad with grief, it is our own child that we want back, not someone else's stolen child. When are scriptwriters ever going to understand that?

Still, it'll be a riveting watch, no doubt.

Sorry, that should have been a

Fibilou - did you also sit up straight and not break a sweat when you birthed ?

The point is, and I speak as a bereaved mother, that at best it is downright tedious, not to mention unimaginative to be portrayed as a mentally unstable freak who thinks the answer to her grief is to take another random child.

And whilst I do not watch the show, so will not have to deal with watching a poorly acted portrayal of something I really can't perceive as entertainment I can still object to a show (which I fund) portraying "my" character to the masses - many of whom are frankly, pig ignorant enough to believe the reiteration by EE that this sort of trite bollocks is a normal reaction to the loss of a child and behave accordingly.

I agree with above! I just watched the last two episodes and wept :( I have 7 week old and found it a really badly written story line. (Maybe just because I can relate to how it would feel if anything happened to my LO)

clutha - you don't think the issue of SIDS and how it's dealt with on tv is important or have I misinterpreted that?

employmentlawquery: re the story of Solomon

"In the Judgement of Solomon story, 2 women have babies at the same time and one dies and is switched...There is a literary precedent for this behaviour, and it is not inconceivable that exceptionally someone could behave like this in the throes of grief."

Actually, in the Judgement of Solomon two women come to Solomon arguing about which of them a baby belongs to. Solomon suggests cutting it in half and then the true mother is revealed because straight away she says to let the other woman keep the child. Very famous fable and nothing at all like the drivel in EEs.

Yes, grief does weird stuff to people but, as is evdienced by the responses of bereaved mothers here, it certainly is inconceivable that someone would behave like Ronnie.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Brecht deals with this issue too. The real mother is the one who doesn't want to see the child hurt and therefore gives the child to the other 'mother.'

EE is inmho incapable of translating these huge themes into credible storylines.

Oh yeah, forgot Brecht! It is a leeettle far fetched to see EEs as comparable imo.

The answer IS simple as a few posters have pointed out - no not for us to simply turn off if our delicate sensibilities are offended.
Rather that if you are not bothered, if you think we are making a fuss, being precious, silly, whatever - you DONT do anything about anything. Keep watching/sneering whatever you do with EE. DONT complain, DONT talk about it, discuss etc.

Its puzzling though - why, if it is so unimportant, do you feel the need to keep trying to persuade us that we shouldnt do anything either?

I dont care if you think its a trivial matter. WHy do you care so much that it is important to me?

I dont understand the reference to Solomon either. It doesnt seem to be particularly relevant.
And the cases of babies that are stolen from wombs? The most common profile of the perpetrators of these terrible crimes are women who are trying to keep hold of a male partner by feigning pregnancy NOT bereaved mothers.

But I supposed most people just assume that its more likely to be someone who has lost a child - I wonder why

feralgirl. EE was recently featured on a Radio 4 programme where their producers et al were SERIOUSLY arguing that their storylines are Greek. They seriously think they are comparable.

I lol when towards the end of the programme the presenter asked somebody from Corrie if their stories were Greek to. Answer, no!

So.

We've complained... but what happens now?

Can MNHQ tell us if they are planning on asking anyone from Eastenders/The beeb to come in for a webchat to defend or explain their position?

I'm not expecting an adequate response to any of my complaints... but we can live in hope.

FWIW I've always been an avid fan of EE but don't think I will be watching it anymore.

I find this storyline seriously distasteful and badly dealt with.

Although I have not been in the awful situation of losing a child myself I do deal with some bereaved families in the course of my work and can imagine that the way this has been handled could cause real upset.

I don't disagree with SIDS being addressed as an issue but I think there must more sensitive ways of doing it.

Thanks to supernoodle for the excellent link.

I've made my complaint, mentioning that many of us here on Mumsnet have been offended by this "story-line"

So, hopefully they'll get back to us on it.
And consider carefully how they can take the story forward in the least offensive way.

And give more thought next time, before blundering into a story where a child dies at Christmas. And all the rest ...

I've also made a complaint. I actually made a complaint a few weeks ago after I first heard about this storyline, all I got back was a bog standard BBC response. Hopefully now as more people are complaining we will get a decent response.

I made a complaint to both.

I made it clear it was the treatement of bereaved parents that was my problem and not using a SIDS storyline.

Dont correctly soaps can be really good at getting important messages across. Thats what the Archers was invented for wasnt it?

Dont badly they can cause real distress and damage.

For eg. a badly done bone marrow/organ/blood donation storyline can lower rates of registration.

If people think they can just get bone marrow for their child off their sister why bother getting involved? If you can get a kidney off your brother why get involved.

Because that happens in soaps a lot. Oh and peopole dying after donating bone marrow from mysterious 'complications' after a massive operation to harvest the marrow , that is well likely to make people want to sign up, innit?

Have complained!! I tried watching last nights EE and, quite simply, couldn't!!

I watched both the episodes dealing with this issue in absolute horror. It was purely sensationalist. Horrible. Just gruesome.

How on earth have EE script writers got this one so very, very wrong?

Not quite Neon

Mrsdevere, I am wholly with you on your last points; I work in the police and it's surprising how many people really genuinely think that "things" work like they do on Eastenders/The Bill/CSI Miami. People believe what they are presented on TV to be true - otherwise how can you account for people thinking the X factor isn't rigged....

I actually had someone say to me once "but that's what happened on Eastenders". When you have this much influence on people as a broadcaster you should be broadcasting responsibly

i thought most peeps complained about x factor being rigged?

Wow! What a mixture of views here.

I watched the NYE episode after I got home from my parents (at 1am ish lol) and cried my eyes out. I went upstairs and kissed my sleeping children and told them I loved them. It made me realise how lucky I was.

I think that they should cover SIDS, but not the way they did it. I know a newborn is changing all the time, but not into a totally different baby. ALfie would have noticed, and so would Roxy. Jack wouldn't have know any different as the first time he seen his "son" was when she was holding Tommy.

As others have said, it does portray traumitised mothers as "mad". But how can you judge what anyone feels? Even if you have lost a child, you still can't say what another mother feels. No two people are the same. And even worse, Ronnie did only find out about her daughter, Danielle, just seconds before her death. So losing a second child... it doesn't bare thinking about!

For all those who have experienced SIDS, my thoughts, prayers and love is with you xx

I´ve only just seen this so haven´t read all 15 pages, so sorry if it´s been mentioned, but wasn´t there something similar with the Osmans?

Not in my office, Clutha - they all seem to think it's totally aboveboard. Bless them

but wasnt it all over the news and tabloids with some mass complaining about rigging or suchlike?

Clytha you find the portrayal of SIDS on a tv programme and the distress it causes bereaved parents irrelevant but show endless fascination about whether the x factor was rigged says it all really.