Dear Glowers,
I’ve been hanging out at Glow for a year now and I’ve been hanging out in the real world with other bereaved parents like myself for 15 months. The rant below comes from my amazement at some of the stories I’ve heard of how tactless people can be towards bereaved parents, and how much harder it makes our experience sometimes. In writing this, I wasn’t thinking about most people I’ve encountered, who are doing their best and are just clumsy in what they are doing or saying. I’ve found most people are like that: they have good intentions but they don’t know what to do. I have been like that myself in this past 15 months. I have strong memories of sitting in a SIDS and Kids meeting with one particular bereaved Mum, not knowing what to do or say to her because no matter what anyone in the meeting did it seemed to upset her or offend her. I didn’t like feeling helpless and clumsy in that situation, and I think from memory it led to me making even further comments which offended her!
My rant here is instead about a small subset of people who really go the extra mile in terms of tactless, hurtful behaviour towards bereaved parents. I’ve found them to be very few and far between, thank goodness.
Anyway, it’s just a rant from me and I’m too gutless to put it on my blog because then I’d have friends and family thinking I was writing about them and getting all angsty about it, and it would be completely the WRONG people who would worry about that, if you know what I mean....
How to Annoy a Bereaved Parent
The golden rule for how to annoy a bereaved parent is to start from your own shit and stay there. When interacting with someone who is bereaved, most people start from their own discomfort, their individual and cultural understanding of death, grief etc, and their own personal strengths and oddities. That’s normal: after all, the death of a child is a socially awkward situation for everyone. But the thing that will mark you out as someone who has gone the extra yards to annoy the bereaved is if you steadfastly stick to your own shit and don’t move beyond that. Keep putting your own views and discomforts at the forefront of any decision you make about interacting with the bereaved. Don’t muddy the waters by adjusting your behaviour to what seems to be the preferences of the bereaved. That way lies anarchy.
Beyond that there are lots of ways to annoy a bereaved parent, as many ways as there are personality styles. Here’s a few for you to consider, and some suggestions of how to start:
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5. Do you use your spirituality or religion as a podium to stand on to remove yourself from the pain and messiness of human existence? All major religions have comforting, supportive things to say to bereaved parents. However, with a little thought (or lack of thought) the teachings of any religion and spirituality can be twisted into comments and theology that are guaranteed to annoy bereaved parents. The trick here is to avoid the basic tenets of the religion or spirituality, like the intrinsic value of human life, the universality of human suffering, or the willingness of a deity figure to grieve alongside us in our grief. No, you don’t want a bar of that hootenanny. You want to offer the bereaved parents comments that are much smaller in scope, something that implies that God gives you permission to get the boot in when they are down. Remember you’ll have more luck in annoying bereaved parents if you avoid the actual teachings of the religion, and just stick to dismissive remarks that use some of the religion’s terminology. Here’s some to start you off, but it’s easy to script your own. If you get stuck, have a look inside some religious-themed condolence cards:
• Christian background: “I guess God wanted another angel”.... “God thought your baby was too beautiful for this earth”....”Well if this isn’t a wake-up call for you to turn back to Christ, I don’t know what would be”.... “It’s God’s will, and it’s wrong to question God’s will” .... “Your child is better off now, being with God. If you’re sad about that, then you must not really believe in the resurrection”
• Buddhist background “Do you think your child died because of Karma?”.... “Oh well, we all know life is suffering anyway”.... “ It’s a lesson for all of us in how important it is to be detached, even from our own kids” ....
• ‘The Secret ’ “Do you think you brought about your child’s death by putting so many worries about your child’s wellbeing out there?”....”I guess if you have another pregnancy you’ll know not to let yourself worry about your baby’s health while you’re pregnant because see what happens when you put those bad thoughts out there. “
• More general spiritual / philosophical statements “I’m sure there’s a reason for it all. What is the universe trying to teach you, do you think?” ... “Look at all the good that has come from your child’s death. I bet you never knew you’re own strength before now. Look at all the lasagnes you’ve been given, and how nice everyone has been to you.”
Your options are endless. Aim for a tone of ‘smug’.
To reiterate, the guiding principle for doing a gold standard job in annoying a bereaved parent is to use their distress as a stage on which to roll out your own messed-up, destructive habits. Just keep it all about you, do what comes naturally, and you are bound to annoy any bereaved parent in a 10 km radius.