# Explaining death to a child **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 14, 2018, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explaining-death-to-a-child/808836 "2018-02-14T17:24:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2018, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explaining-death-to-a-child/808836/41 "2018-02-16T22:44:37Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > I’ve read that losing a child is considered more stressful than losing a spouse. > > Anyone who thinks times were better in “the good old days” should remember how mush higher infant and child mortality was back then. my maternal great grandmother bore six, and lived to see four of them die. One was the day after birth, one was three, one was eighteen, and one thirtyfive. > > Her only daughter that lived to see her own grandchildren was my grandmother. One miscarriage, one who died at birth, and three who lived. But she herself became the longest lived person ever in our family, dying just before her 108th birthday. Yeah, it’s a weird seeming paradox if you’re a fan of evolutionary psychology, as I am. Losing a child does seem like the most horrifying loss possible, yet until very recently it was incredibly common. (My dad’s older brother, so my uncle I guess, died from polio not long before the vaccine was invented; my great-aunt, who is second-from-left in the family photo at my Twitter profile and who looks strikingly like me, died not long after that photo was taken.) So shouldn’t we have some built-in psychological protection against the extreme emotional pain it causes? If this falls more in the “nurture” than “nature” category, was it easier (or, I should say, less extremely painful) for parents to lose young children in the “old days” (or more recently in the less developed world)? BTW, 108th birthday: wow! I wonder how that ranks in the centenarian population–like, what fraction of a percent make it that long? ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2018, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explaining-death-to-a-child/808836/42 "2018-02-16T22:57:53Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So shouldn’t we have some built-in psychological protection against the extreme emotional pain it causes? I think we do, we just don’t like it. We might think we’ll die from the heartbreak, but mostly people continue on. The alternate, being less hurt by the death of a loved one, would probably be less evolutionarily successful. My son is 2, so I haven’t had to do this yet. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. I appreciate the thoughts of those who’ve shared, and I’m sorry for your losses. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explaining-death-to-a-child/808836/43 "2018-02-17T00:58:41Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Yeah, those are all mumbo-jumbo, not physics. > > “Yes, your Auntie is gone, but the covalent bonds of her molecules remain, and the breaking of those bonds by metabolic pathways in microbes will contribute to the general increase in entropy, bringing us one step closer to the heat-death of the universe, when all tears will be forgotten.” Boring the kid will work too. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explaining-death-to-a-child/808836/44 "2018-02-17T02:58:23Z")
I remember when I was around the age of five or six, I used to visualize what a coloring book of my life would look like. Various stark black and white images of myself in school or playing at home drifted through my mind. Then I wondered what the last page would look like. I saw a cutaway display of ground and casket, with me lying inside it with my eyes closed. I remember that image in my head so well, I can still remember my corpse wearing the little dress with the tiny little treehouses printed on it. It was my favorite dress at the time. Not sure how I found out about death, but I was well aware of it by then. That last page in that imaginary coloring book is the only image I can remember from it. It may have been the Jehovah’s Witnesses around me with their endless Armageddon prattle that I absorbed. Strange, the image didn’t disturb me. I actually enjoyed thinking about it. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explaining-death-to-a-child/808836/45 "2018-02-17T05:04:50Z")
[Here’s a podcast done by a Maine Wildlife Warden chaplain](https://themoth.org/stories/the-house-of-mourning) about trusting people, including children, to grieve. There is a tiny amount of religious content, but it isn’t a religious talk. You might find it helpful. StG ---
**Author:** ![Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Backwater_Under_Duck)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explaining-death-to-a-child/808836/46 "2018-02-17T06:57:38Z")
When my Dad died, about a month before I turned seven, I was summoned to my folks best friend’s house, into a bedroom where my mom was sufficiently prostrated. She informed me that daddy had gone to see Jesus. I will swear on my dying bed that I almost said, but six year old wisdom made me hold my tongue, _when is he coming back_?. She didn’t let me come to the funeral. That’s all I ever got from her about that. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explaining-death-to-a-child/808836/47 "2018-02-17T08:56:08Z")
Wow. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explaining-death-to-a-child/808836/48 "2018-02-17T11:34:27Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So shouldn’t we have some built-in psychological protection against the extreme emotional pain it causes? The cynic in me says that’s why most religions believe the deceased “is in a better place” or for the Buddhists, you recycle a few (or many) times until you’ve learned what you can on this plane, _then_ move onto a better place. It’s one of the drawbacks of intelligence, awareness of our own or others’ eventual death. There are are other creatures that seem to mourn death – apes and elephants spring to mind – but even they live in the now. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explaining-death-to-a-child/808836/49 "2018-02-20T15:11:20Z")
> [@StGermain](#): > > [Here’s a podcast done by a Maine Wildlife Warden chaplain](https://themoth.org/stories/the-house-of-mourning) about trusting people, including children, to grieve. There is a tiny amount of religious content, but it isn’t a religious talk. You might find it helpful. > > StG Kate Braestrup is a great storyteller. Here’s another story she told at The Moth, about giving blessings at a difficult murder scene: [The Blessing](https://themoth.org/stories/the-blessing). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explaining-death-to-a-child/808836.md?page=2)