Wow, well, I'm sure she'll get better at empathy.
It's ok, you're getting a lot of do-overs.
But seriously, developing empathy seems to be one of the milestones with the widest range of when it happens. I've met nearly-adult-thoughtful six-year-olds and some complete sociopaths. Some people stay sociopaths, but for the most part, they eventually come around, as long as they're directed.
What's not clear from your telling is whether Hawaii was being cruel or herself kind of wigged out at the enormity of the facts on display.
Knowing Hawaii, and her devotion to the granddaughter, my guess was she was pleased that she had extra scientific information about the situation, and was sharing it - not exactly maliciously, but in a know-it-all way.
Death is hard for kids to cope with. I think Mara was almost 5 when her grandma died, so her next-oldest sister was 6.5 and they were both fascinated with the details of the body and what happens to the body. I didn't bring Mara to the service, but I held her sister and listened to her little litany on how different her grandma's body looked and felt now and how it was going under the dirt. Death and burial are pretty creepy. (And to ogged's point, Mara manages both empathy and sociopathy well in different contexts. I'm so glad her language has evolved past the point where she kept telling us "I want to fight you skin off and make you blood.")
The repetition was probably because kids like to keep saying the same thing, especially if it's having a visible effect, or if they think the other person didn't hear them. I don't think she was being exactly evil.
Mara manages both empathy and sociopathy well in different contexts.
And this. Which is probably universal.
At my great-grandmother's funeral, my six-year-old cousin climbed up the floral display pedestals into the casket and yelled to his twin sister, "Hey [sister], come feel Granny! She's all hard!"
9 may not be specifically why my tribe generally has closed-coffin funerals, but if it isn't it's certainly a significant spinoff benefit.
I posted this anecdote on a funeral thread, but it also works on a "things kids say" thread.
I don't think empathy is the right metric exactly. Hawaii was probably fascinated and probably trying to be helpful. I'd see it more as knowing how to tread around taboos, which is pretty hard for almost all kids. It needs a talking about, but I wouldn't worry about this one too much.
At my funeral, little kids should feel free to say "why is he burning in the Viking ship drifting off to sea."
I don't think empathy is the right metric exactly
In my more meta moods, I watch the threads as people (usually one of the lawyers) search and search for a point of contention, so that we can be off and running.
Can you recommend a good paleo book?
There is no such thing as a paleo book.
I assumed it would be inscribed on human skin.
I don't get the open coffin thing. Sky burial is easier to understand. It's like sky burial lite or something.
Ever since not smoking, my cuticles have been chewed.
By the part of me that really wants a cigarette.
15: At my funeral, little kids should feel free to say "why is he burning in the Viking ship drifting off to sea."
Surrounded by Viking/Ninja woman warriors, no doubt.
I want to be sky buried, but statistically my wife is going to outlive me and she hates birds. I guess I'd settle for being dumped in the river.
When my son was 7, a neighborhood friend about the same age died after a long fight with muscular dystrophy. The parents decided against having kids at the funeral. The next time my son
saw the father, maybe a week later, he opened with a very loud, "IS [your son] REALLY DEAD?" Father had apparently been getting a lot of that sort of thing, and quickly said yes, he's in heaven now.
Unsurprisingly, the parents moved away shortly afterwards, and divorced not long after that.
As a silver lining, at least Hawaii isn't totally distraught about death as an abstract topic. My college roomate's explanation of death to her four year old concluded in a therapist's office (kid, not her).
25: Downstream from the water plant intake, please.
Anything other than being eaten by scavengers seems like a waste. I want a low carbon emission disposal.
Enh, if they do it after a storm if anything it should improve water quality. And I'm only suggesting a river because we don't have an ocean convenient.
Is convenience really that important? It's probably only going to happen once, why not live a little.
Our cat died at home yesterday so it has been an opportunity for exciting adventures in witnessing (oof but largely I think not traumatic) and talking about death. Mostly I think it is going OK. Groundwork laid earlier in more abstract discussions is proving pretty useful. And then also there have been awkward exchanges like
"Is his body still in that room?"
"No... actually, it's in the freezer in the basement."
14, 16: "Empathy" is probably the right concept, but this isn't a sociopathic lack thereof, just immature obliviousness. Empathy of that magnitude---"X is very upset about Y and utterance Z is likely to make her more upset"---is pretty advanced. Hm. Maybe it's not so much empathy as judging the likely effects of your utterances?
33: I'm sorry about the cat (although it's good she's taking it well).
I'm sorry to hear about your cat, but I hope the freezer is merely a short-term solution.
31: But that wouldn't be local, you know? Unless by live a little you mean going through all the effort of bringing the shoreline closer. I don't think global warming is going to be enough, honestly.
33: Also sorry about the cat. And thanks for the reminder that I'll probably outlive my cat and should google what one does in that situation beforehand.
Yes, his frozen cat body has already been delivered to the vet for burial. It was an overnight solution. How handy that we had purchased a cheap little standalone freezer when our old fridge was having problems!
37.2: If you're me, you keep it in the freezer for far too long until you get your act together and drop the body off in a forest with a healthy coyote population.
34, cont'd: "When you say, 'X is stupid,' it makes X feel bad about herself," is a first order effect. Even that takes some time to learn. "When you say, 'X, that's your dead grandmother. She's in a box,' it makes X think about the reality of her loss and this is likely to make X feel bad," is a second order effect.
I like Yawnoc working his way through theory of mind. Next up: how would you feel if somebody said that to you?
37.2: You have a yard. Dig a hole and put the cat in.
33: I'm very sorry about your cat.
When my previous cat died, I also had to keep her in the freezer before burial. (It wasn't ages but it wasn't overnight either.) I still get teased about this.
Downstream from the water plant intake, please.
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_11413.html#1330361
Thank you for the kind condolences. We are of course sad and very much hoped he'd live longer than this (age 13) but the general trajectory and timing of his rapid decline was pretty humane for all involved.
42: The whole thread up to that point showed a stunning mastery of brain development, yes?
I'm sorry about the cat's death and glad it went as gently as it could for all involved. Our vet has a burial plot on her farm (I know, right?) and our kitten who died unexpectedly ended up buried there.
the general trajectory and timing of his rapid decline was pretty humane for all involved
I can't help reading this as "he jumped off a cliff but fortunately didn't land on anyone".
Our vet had a lovely brochure about a country farm with apple trees, and it cost $30 to have my cat buried that. It was just the right combination willing suspension of disbelief and convenience that I needed in my time of grief.
My sister had her dog cremated. Dad has been trying to get her to bury the ashes or at least get them out of his house. I don't think he's been successful yet.
Ah, sorry about your cat.
We had a gerbil in our freezer for quite a while. And then my brother dissected it with the kids. And put it on youtube. And got comments about what a horrible gerbil-murderer he was.
My grandad died when Kid A was about 3 1/2. I can't remember if we ended up taking her to the funeral or not, but she wanted to know all about it beforehand anyway. So I was telling her that his body would be in this big box, and she looked at me horrified and asked "what have they done with his head?"
Poor Hawaii; she was just trying to impress her second cousin.
49: I didn't mean you got it wrong! I just liked the progression.
Further condolences, and seconding the wish that it's a short-term solution. A friend of mine (the sister of the infamous SDB) kept two cats in her freezer for long enough that it seemed very creepy. Then she had a taxidermist fix up the hides, and now she has two little kitty carpets. They're very soft.
A friend of mine (the sister of the infamous SDB) kept two cats in her freezer for long enough that it seemed very creepy.
My friend's ex did this. Also he did not clean up the dog crap on his carpet. He was the most atrocious procrastinator I've known, including friends in college who switched to dry round oxyclean-style pads when they ran out of toilet paper, because the sister had inexplicably been given a jumbo pack for Christmas from their step-mom, and then ran out of those and started using newspaper, which then clogged the toilet, and then they started peeing in the bathtub. I swear to god. Also they dedicated a wall in the kitchen to storing trash bags instead of taking them outside. Their existence now makes me hyperventilate, but at the time I figured it was all just a reasonable choice in how to live.
How long can you leave a dead pet in the freezer before it seems creepy? And does it matter if there's food also stored in there?
Thinking back, it's hard to say whether the college friends or the friend's boyfriend were worse procrastinators. Maybe such things don't always have to have a winner.
57: Wow. That puts more own procrastination tendencies in perspective.
57: house I lived in at eighteen, after a party we never quite finished cleaning up one room, but it smelled because it had puke on the floor, so we sealed the door. I think a year or so later somebody cleaned it.
I can't help reading this as "he jumped off a cliff but fortunately didn't land on anyone".
Ha!
Then she had a taxidermist fix up the hides, and now she has two little kitty carpets. They're very soft.
Gosh.
Yes. Why pay a taxidermist if you aren't going to get the skin mounted?
Then she had a taxidermist fix up the hides, and now she has two little kitty carpets. They're very soft.
Well, that's not creepy at all.
How have the people described in 57/59 not ended up commenting here? I thought that we were the hardcore procrastination vanguard.
And does it matter if there's food also stored in there?
I think I've told the story of the other place I lived in with a cat in the freezer (the timber baron's mansion that burned down because the landlady, who also ran a combination wedding chapel/Rottweiler kennel, rented the basement to meth makers who torched their lab when they got word that the cops were coming*). Anyway, the sleazy realtor who rented the bottom two floors (and was trying to scam the lady out of the place) had a cat in his freezer along with tons of meats and other edibles, all of which, including the cat, looked as though it had been there for a very long time. Incidentally, his other cat, whom he introduced as male, ended up having kittens, all four of which died of flea anemia. Man, I still hate that guy.
*I swear upon the eyes of my children that every word of that is true.
My friend's ex did this. Also he did not clean up the dog crap on his carpet.
When I was a kid, our next door neighbours did this, but it wasn't from laziness, they were just a dirt poor, desperate, completely dysfunctional family. Over eight years, there were three dogs and a huge litter of puppies, all crapping all over the place, and they'd just let the turds slowly rot into the carpet.
How have the people described in 57/59 not ended up commenting here?
Well, they keep meaning to, but somehow...
67 is the Twin Peaks/Breaking Bad mash-up I've always wanted.
I might tell my son that I might be dead soon so he better be nice to me.
33: Deepest condolences on the loss of your cat.
To the OP, yeah, that's just one of those kid things, I guess. I remember saying a few really stupid things (not in exactly that situation, but maybe not far off) with no overt malice intended when I was little.
Relatedly, I was just scoping out cremation information yesterday, and was actually fairly surprised, contra-The Big Lebowski, to see how many modestly-priced receptacles were on offer. Like $275 for a fancy marble urn? That seems pretty reasonable. I think, though, that I might opt for the golf-themed ash-scaterer, just to give folx a laff.
20
I don't get the open coffin thing. Sky burial is easier to understand. It's like sky burial lite or something.
It's a tradition to make sure they're really dead. In these enlightened days, most people have started to leave out the following tradition of beheading the corpse and burying it with the head backwards.
58
How long can you leave a dead pet in the freezer before it seems creepy? And does it matter if there's food also stored in there?
Yes, it matters. Without food there: until spring, assuming this is in the winter and you want to bury the pet, or a month, whichever is longer. With foot there: three business days.
67: How long ago did all that happen? Because a couple different people in that mess actually sound kinda familiar.
58: With a foot there, it would be even scarier.
74: OK. Before the people I'm thinking of, then. Vermont's a small state but I guess it's not that small. (I'm not saying I know anyone that all that happened to, that exact story happening twice would be really weird, but a couple different parts sounded familiar and I could believe the rest had happened without my knowledge.)
75: That's why so many rabbit foots are on the market. Frozen pet bunnies.
Oh, no, that was here in Portland.
These stories of rotting poop and corpses are making me hyperventilate.
I lived in a place that did the garbage-sacks-against-the-wall thing (only it was garbage-sacks-around-central-50-gallon-garbage-can). It was amazing how much more spacious the kitchen got when we moved out and took all the trash out. (We had to drive around with trunks full of garbage sacks until we found unguarded dumpsters, as we were unwilling to pay the city the extra fees for taking more than one garbage can's worth of trash.) Good times.
I lived in a place that did the garbage-sacks-against-the-wall thing (only it was garbage-sacks-around-central-50-gallon-garbage-can). It was amazing how much more spacious the kitchen got when we moved out and took all the trash out. (We had to drive around with trunks full of garbage sacks until we found unguarded dumpsters, as we were unwilling to pay the city the extra fees for taking more than one garbage can's worth of trash.) Good times.
83: I had school friends who did the same unguarded-dumpster thing but made the mistake of including discarded envelopes with their address. They were confronted early one morning by the hauler, who then threw the open bags of fetid trash through the doorway.
Did they get to say, "I cannot tell a lie, officer! I put that envelope under that garbage" ?
This summer, I took my kids to visit the cemetary where my mother is buried. As we were walking back to the car, my daughter turned, faced the headstone, waved, and called out, "Bye, skeleton Grandma!"
I am sorry about your cat, rfts/snark/Jane. I am enough of a wuss about pet death these days that I fear ever getting another one. However, I jumped on the opportunity to introduce the theme of death to my 3-year-old when the pet guinea pig of some friends died earlier this week. "Did they eat it?" she asked. She knows animals die before you eat them. No, we said, people don't eat their pets. She seemed very sad for a moment. Urrrgh.
It turns out that the biggest problem with the Disney princess thing in my world is that the stories are wildly age-inappropriate for a 3-year-old, and before I developed any kind of game plan for handling the age-inappropriate stuff I got swiftly sucked into hour-long explanations of the plot of "Frozen," so now this is just part of life. I've been cheerfully bowdlerizing everything, but at some point she is going to learn to read, or want to watch an entire movie, and then the shit will hit the fan. I have this sinking feeling that I'm setting her up for a pretty big hit. Timid, vegetarian parents who produce lengthy narratives rehabilitating all the villains -- this is not going to end well unless we can yank a viable organized religion onstage, is it?
I was SO DETERMINED not to double-post, and now my comment is gone. Short version: I do not know what to teach my 3-year-old about death. I am probably going to fuck it up. Sorry about the loss of your cat, rfts/snarkout.
When my cousin was very young, his parents took him to visit his grandparents' graves. On the drive there, they explained that they were going to the cemetery.
"What's a cemetery?"
"When people die, that's where the put the bodies."
[very, very long pause]
"Where do they put the heads?"
"On spikes on London Bridge. I'm afraid that your grandparents were traitors to the King."
At some point "procrastination" edges over into insanity. There's a case going on in Barnstable MA that you can read about with a little googling: house full of feces, dead cat, dog and three babies (possibly stillborn). Four children, two of whom apparently never left the house. Their mother managed to keep up appearances with Facebook posts about cooking, crafts, etc.
The house involved will be demolished.
I don't think you can blame the house.