Toddlers at the Funeral

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Age is not the problem, Omicron is. I would not go to a funeral right now, at the peak of the Omicron surge.

Many years ago, we flew to Europe and Asia with our then toddler for my grandmother's, then grandfather's funerals, back-to-back. The timing and opposite jet lags made it exhausting, but since there was no pandemic at the time, we felt it was our duty.

Children at funerals are valuable comfort for the grieving family members. Our relatives' faces lit up when they saw my son. He was not in the least perturbed by any of it, including the Japanese ritual of passing the deceased's bones from person to person to put in the urn. Since then we've had several more funerals, and I've always noticed that people are cheered by the presence of children.

But right now, please don't go. It's not responsible for any of us to contribute to viral spread.

I agree with all of this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Toddlers at funerals is inappropriate. My husbands grandma died in June and all the great grands attended and it was very confusing and sad for them. Don’t do it.

I find your take very strange. Perhaps you view it as “inappropriate” but I see the presence of family of all ages as perfectly appropriate. My young son has attended several funerals and has been well behaved and his presence has been a comfort.

[Anonymous]

1) age-appropriateness: no universal rule for this. When my MIL died our 3-yo was the only child under 16 at the service and it was difficult, I had to leave the service with him and wander the hallways. When my dad died 6 months later the church had a "crying room" where you could see everything and hear everything but they couldn't hear you and I took him in there and was by no means the only parent in there. MIL and my dad were the same age but there were plenty of young families at my dad's service, not the case for my MIL, and these funerals happened in very different communities.
2) family all together: in my extended family funerals are a major event for reuniting (I'm now in the grandparent generation so weddings not so much) BUT you were there for 2 weeks already and I assume everyone saw everyone, goodbyes were said, etc.
3) always a good chance of weather related flight delays, etc this time of year and a lot to put the little ones through after a lengthy trip

Those are the things that come to mind to present as a case for not going.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the harsh response of many posters. I lost both of my parents when my kids were small. First my dad when DC1 was a few months old, and then my mom when DC2 was just 1 and DC1 still a toddler. Even in my deepest grief I recognized that my kids' needs come first, and that we needed to plan around things with their best interest in mind. So if that means that my spouse would stay behind with them while I had to fly solo to my parent's funeral, so be it. It's not personal; it just comes with the territory when you have small kids.

But we are not talking about a child needing chemo or something. We are talking about toddlers and their “routine”. Who cares if a “routine” is slightly disrupted for a few days. In this case, the short term toddler being fed and napped at an adjusted time is NoT even remotely as important as a grieving person whose parent just died. Kids adjust. It’s the parent here who is being inflexible. (And I don’t buy that it’s the kids who are tired a week later.)