Funeral ettiquette

Post Reply New Topic

My grandma just died. She was 85, and had been diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer last month, so this was not at all unexpected. I am fine, we have never been close to that side of the family. I'm sure I'll get to thinking about something about her and cry at the funeral, though. My youngest, the 5 1/2 year old, does not do well in unfamiliar situations, with unfamiliar, loud perfume, huggy, loud speaking strangers (which covers a lot of that side of the family). He doesn't do well with being quiet and still for long boring events, especially if there is music that might be played suddenly (which describes most funerals I've been to).

I would rather leave him somewhere than take him. I am fairly sure he will be loud and disruptive at some point. Knowing him, probably the worst time possible. Probably shouting something very inappropriate for a funeral loudly (he loves to throw the "hate" word around when he doesn't want to be somewhere). I know it is sometimes acceptable to leave babies out when it comes to funerals, but he's not a baby anymore. Is he at the age where it is automatically offensive to not bring him to the funeral of pretty close blood relative?

I mean, honestly, most of that side of the family, I will be glad that I don't have to see them at Christmas anymore (so not worried about offending them), but there is my dad, grandpa, and one of his brothers that I do care about and don't want to hurt. I know the most obvious thing would be to ask one of them, but they aren't really the kind of people who talk about that sort of thing. My grandpa's way of telling my dad and his brother, who were 5 and 7 at the time, that their high school age brothers had been killed in a car wreck by drunk drivers (who happened to be another set of brothers and 3rd cousins to my dad) was "Get up. Your brothers got killed last night and you've got their chores now, and you'd better not be late to school!" And that was the last he ever spoke of it.

I would not take him. You can honestly say that you thought he might disrupt things and you did not want anything to take away from the memories of grandmother. He's still awfully young for going to funerals.

I went to my grandfather's funeral when I was 5. my 4 y. o. sister and cousin acted up and we were all immediately ushered out. better to have not been there at all, I think.

I agree. The last funeral I went to last year, My brother and I both left our kids home with our respective spouses and our kids are older than yours. No one said anything and I think it was implied that people understood why, but you can spell it out, if need be. People were more focused on their own grieving and feelings and such.

(Honestly, my son doesn't understand death either, and he might perseverate on it, (loudly and inappropriately) but I did not need to volunteer that.)

My husband's family bring kids to everything no matter how young and if we had another funeral on that side someone might say something b/c they tend to use funerals partially as an opportunity to socialize, but they think I am a hover mom anyway so they would automatically blame me, anyway. They would also blame me if he acted up, so I might as well stay home with him, if that were to happen.

Edited to add: My MIL thinks it necessary to go "visit with the body" and that you should want to do this. When we took my then infant-aged son to a funeral on her side, she thought nothing of having my infant son in there, too, when she summoned my husband to go look at the body, and I had to go swoop in and retrieve him(my son, not my husband.) (I had taken my son to this function,and really should not have, b/c he did cry and I had to take him out during the service--but I bowed to social pressure and felt like no one would blame an infant when I would have to take him out)

Being Aspie and having a son who is also an Aspie I can say neither of us like funerals. When my mother passed away he walked around telling everyone how sorry he was they were sad and then he's turn on his game boy and start laughing out loud. He told me that if grandmother went "home" they why was everyone acting so dumb? I agreed too. I understand my family but I can't help thinking to myself that if they really believe in heaven they why were they crying so much? I know they will miss her and certainly I do too but it all seemed so well, dumb to me. Personally I would have rather stayed home and talked to mom about her passing in the privacy of my room while I munched on pizza. But I understand your situation. I have the uncanny ability of being two people at once which makes me a great diplomat. Honestly I think you should leave him at home just because in his mind he doesnt want to be there so why force him? Why shouldn't he "hate" being there if you are forcing him? Just because the world believes we should act a certain way and go through certain customs does not make it correct for everyone. Best of luck!

I agree - don't take him to the funeral - it doesn't matter how old he is if he is going to be disruptive it is a bad idea to take him - if you really think he needs to 'say goodbye' to Grandma take him to the viewing if there is one - then you can walk in, go directly to the coffin for goodbyes and leave - no need to dwell or interact with others for very long. Another option is to hire a babysitter who can drive to attend the funeral also and when he gets restless have her remove him and leave. We did this when my mother died with our infant daughter - I was completely overwhelmed with the situation and my wonderful Mother In Law came to the funeral to care for our infant while I dealt with the rest of the family - it worked really well.

I am sorry to hear of your loss - even if you weren't close to your grandmother she was still family.

I guess it depends on your customs.

Here everyone goes. Babies up to grandmas. And no one gives a side eye if a kid a acts up. They just take the kid into a different room.

I think the lack of empathy for some Aspies really shines through at funerals. My husband is like that. Dead=gone=move on=your crying is aggravating me=acting socially unacceptable because the increase emotional atmosphere is putting him in meltdown mode.

My husband was terrible at my mother's funeral. She died 8 years ago today. Yeah mom was old and 80, but it sucks not to have a mom at 42. People thought he was stoned on Xanax, which is better than them thinking he didn't give a s**t. And he didn't give a s**t. He doesn't understand how you can still have emotional feels for people who are dead.

And it isn't the macho male thing of burying the pain. He really feels nothing, at least that's what he tells me.

Part of it is his parents never took him to funerals. If you never learn how to act properly, the fairy wand doesn't give you that information as an adult. No one goes yee haw! Funeral! CAN'T WAIT! And part of it is because of Autism. I understand that.

Anyway.....

If your family is going to give you side eyes and hate if you boy acts up, don't bring him. In my family, no one would give it a thought. We know little kids act up, but we celebrate births, birthdays and death. Everyone is included, everyone goes. I have a small duffle bag full of quiet kid friendly things to do if we have to go to the hospital or funeral.

My kid is 9, and would probably play Minecraft on my cell phone now...lol...

Different families have different expectations. Mine would have more problems with a child that played video games at a funeral (this would be viewed as disrespectful) than with a child being left at home. I'd think mandatory attendance starts round the teenage years, not 5.

You could take him to some church services to learn how to act in that setting, but a funeral is definitely not where you want to start if he is not currently used to church.

In my area, it's a bigger deal to go to the funeral home, than the service. Kids go to the funeral homes, not necessarily the service.

I grew up around Orthodox Jews, Catholics and Chaldeans. No one was spared from any rituals lol....Those communities include kids in everything. And that includes kids with special needs.
My Muslim and Hindu friends also include everyone in their funeral rights.

(At least where I live)

So the fact you would leave kids at home (NT kids), is just totally alien to me.

Interesting discussion...

Well, I took him to my mom's dad's funeral a couple of years ago. Different side of the family. We were a lot closer, and it was unexpected. He was still two, I think, because it wasn't long before his birthday, so more leeway is given to younger kids. He did act up a little bit, but I don't think anyone thought to much of it as he was so young. If it was today, I would still take him to that one. One of my great grandma's died when I was 7 and my parents didn't take me, and I sort of regretted it, because it was like it wasn't real, but I think he has even less awareness of his great-grandma than I did, and isn't going to be bothered.

We do take him to church, nearly every Sunday (unless there is ice on the roads or someone is sick or something like that), and we have a very understanding, ASD (and other differences) friendly church. In just a few weeks of attendance the Sunday school teachers got him to loving to be in their classes, which after his experience in preschool is amazing. He still rolls around in the floor and generally misbehaves in the service, mostly because of the organ being too loud (even with headphones on).

So I am pretty sure he'd be trouble from experience, and he's big enough now that that like ASDmommy said, I'd be blamed for him not being there, and for him making trouble. You have no idea how awful some of the members of that side of my family are. But I'm not going to take him.

Thank you for the responses.

You know something interesting? My grandma smoked (mostly literally chain smoking of lighting one with the butt of the last one), for 76 years and never got lung cancer. She grew up in the Great Depresssion, got married at 16, had 7 kids (5 still living) over a 20 year span. Lived in such a rural area that when she was pregnant with my dad, she had planned to go to town to have him in a hospital, but was two months away from having him, so she went to visit her brother who lived a couple of hollers off the main road, where what passed for a road really wasn't much, and phone and electric lines still wouldn't come for another 10 years (this was 1959, my dad is the next to youngest). She went into labor early, and had him at her brother's house. He wasn't breathing properly and he was very tiny and very cold. They wrapped him up and put him in a cast iron skillet and put him in the bread warmer of the wood cook stove to keep him warm. Then had people go tell the relatives to come see Ollie Fae's baby now, because it was going to die. But he came out of it, and when he was two weeks old, they took him home, and on the way stopped at the general store and weighed him in a full set of clothes and a baby blanket on the store's scale, and he was just over 4 pounds.

She only went to through the 3rd grade, because she was the next oldest and the two of them had to stay home and work to feed their family. There is a story that when they went to get her birth certificate that her parents couldn't agree on how old she was, 3 or 5. The officials ended up going with her mother and saying 3, but everyone else always believed (including me) 5, because her mother hated her even as a small child. When she married my Papa, it was the day before he turned 16. They built their own cabin, cleared their own land, built their own furniture, and generally made their own way in the world with all kinds of things from hand picking cotton to stealing a litter of piglets from a wild sow (now that's a story!) so that they could raise them, smoke the hams, and sell them, and have enough money to buy a truck.

Anyway, thank you all for your responses.