I disagree. If the cause of death isn’t my business, then the death isn’t my business. If it’s in the newspaper then it should state basic facts like that.
“Because I want to know!” isn’t justification for revealing private details about how a person died.
Typically, the reason it’s in the newspaper is because the family paid to have it published, right?
If you don’t tell them something, the gossips will assume the worst.
That’s brilliant!
To the OP, the people who need to know already know or they know who to contact to find out, those who don’t know don’t need to know. The obituary lets acquaintances, who might not otherwise find out, know the person has died. If they are close enough to the family they can contact them for further info and send condolences etc.
Sure, but if you’re an acquaintance you’re probably not going to be scanning the Obits to see if someone you casually know, but aren’t particularly close to, died. In fact, I would bet that most people don’t even look at Obituaries unless they’re looking for a specific person who they already know has died.
Let’s say I’m an acquaintance and just happen to notice someone I know in the Obituaries and there’s nothing about how they died. Am I supposed to call the family and ask them how the person died? I’m just an acquaintance they have never met. How awkward a conversation would that be? Or should I ask them at the funeral service?
Is this related to the recent death of Shane O’Connor, the seventeen year old son of singer Sinead O’Connor?
O’Connor did not say how her son died but it seems pretty clear from what she wrote that it was a suicide.
No. Completely unrelated to Shane O’Connor. I’ve just been wondering about it for a while.
If you aren’t a close enough acquaintance that you have someone you can comfortably ask, then you fall into the “don’t need to know” group.
It would have to be a pretty distant relationship if you don’t know and can’t easily find out how someone died.
I have never seen a “death notice” in a newspaper or an online obituary that mentioned the cause of death until the one linked in this thread. The most that will be there is something very general such as “suddenly” , “after a short/long illness” or “passed away peacefully”. Sometimes you can find a hint in a request for donations - but it’s also possible that someone with cancer died from hitting their head in a fall.
If you knew the person or the family well, you are very likely to know the cause of death - but the people reading the obituaries are typically not the people who are that close to the family. I mean, I just looked at my great-aunt’s obituary yesterday to see where and when the services would be - but her grandchildren and nieces and nephews wouldn’t have needed to find and obituary to get that information. They either got phone calls or helped in the planning. I assume she died of old age since she was 99 - but I don’t actually know that. Nor do I need to know that.
I didn’t give information regarding my father’s funeral services to my job - of course, I told my supervisor why I was going to be out , but that was it. People apparently looked up the obit online and a couple came to the wake and a few more sent flowers. That was fine - but if my father had died by suicide or of an overdose, I probably wouldn’t have wanted everyone I knew to know about it. And they have no need to know the cause of death - what difference does it make? Are they going to only send flowers/a card/attend the wake if they deem the cause of death to be “good enough”?
Really, you answered this yourself:
Many families still feel that a suicide is a bad point, not to be mentioned. Same for drug overdose, DWI crash, etc.
About the only causes that are occasionally mentioned are those from old age or diseases, but often the family doesn’t want to emphasize those – you pay by the word for these, so why spend the money talking about a disease when you could talk about the good things he did in life?
I’ve seen suicide listed directly as a cause of death. Again, doing so is the family’s business.
Not really, the fear is that a suicide being published will lead to a spike in suicides of people who read about someone else successfully committing suicide.
Generally if someone dies before the age of 40 and no cause is given, I assume its probably either an OD or a suicide though. Not always, but probably.
Not if you neither gossip or listen to gossip.
In general, the older someone is, the more likely they are to read the obituaries. My grandmother always read the obituaries, as do my parents, who still get a daily newspaper. They have been in the same place for a long time and have lost touch with a lot of people. This means that once in a while I get a clipping from an obituary from a former teacher, for example.
Because obituaries cost so much, I know many people never published an obituary, as their friends already knew about the death, and they were not concerned about telling others. With Facebook, Caring Bridge and online memorials, such as those provided by funeral homes, expensive newspaper obituaries are going by the wayside.
A quick “ohmygod, what happened?” Should tell you where you rank on the “need to know” scale.
You assume that the only good or harm that matters is to the person reading the obit. What about others? People in general will gossip or listen to gossip; it’s human nature and acting like they “deserve” any harm that comes from such isn’t really fair.
I think a family’s wishes should be respected, and if it causes them pain to mention that a death was a suicide then it’s reasonable to omit it. But, I respect and applaud those who choose to acknowledge that a death was from suicide. Leaving it out merely adds to the idea that a stigma is appropriate. We’d be better off as a society if we destigmatized it. Why should family members have to feel ashamed because a relative committed suicide? Depression is a disease. I wouldn’t be ashamed if someone close to me died of other diseases like cancer or heart disease.
That depends on who you mean by “they.” If it’s the people actually participating in the gossip, then it’s entirely fair. Inasmuch as gossip is acceptable, it is only so if you are extremely careful with it, making sure to only discuss things at the rumor level, with a healthy dose of skepticism. No bringing it up just because it’s “juicy” or clearly getting a thrill out of it. Be careful with who you talk to, and don’t tell it to the people who you know who are nosy bodies and will tell everyone.
If “they” means the family, then I agree it’s not their fault. But I’d argue that the most likely rumors aren’t all that bad. The rumor that gets spread will likely simply be that the person died of suicide. But, because people realize the family doesn’t want to say it out loud, they won’t actually let that affect their interactions with the family. Announcing that it is suicide has a bigger chance of reaching people who are not part of the rumor mill who may not be as gracious. Just because something is part of “human nature” doesn’t mean we have no control over it.
As for the rest of your post: yeah, ideally we could just mention it, with no real taboo. But those who choose the buck the taboos tend to face the brunt of the problem.
Plus there are other factors, such as whether the deceased would want people to know or the aforementioned belief that mentioning it actually winds up increasing suicide numbers. (Said belief needs to be tested.)
And, of course, there is the aspect that many people don’t think that cause of death should be mentioned in obituaries at all, for the reasons stated above. In that sense, suicide is not being treated any differently.
If you’re asking for international comparisons, then I have to say that family-written obituaries aren’t a thing in the UK, nor (off the top of my head) Germany or France, as I recall. There are “death notices”, which are usually brief and fairly formulaic, with a note about funeral arrangements, perhaps.
Perhaps there’s something different in the relative costs or attitudes to cost (I’m assuming family obits are paid for as adverts in the US, as they are here, in which case, if they’ve paid for it, the family can volunteer as little or as much information as they wish)
Newspaper obits for public figures are another matter, and don’t shy away from things like causes of death or embarrassments that are matters of public record - though they can have their euphemistic codes, too:
“Famously demanding” = “Impossible to work with”
“Did not suffer fools gladly” = “Bloody rude”
“Gregarious” = “Always in the pub”
“Life and soul of the party” = “Drunk”
“Vivacious” = “Promiscuous”
and so on
A very valid point.