by M. Bustamante-Navarro

Created on: June 13, 2008   Last Updated: September 22, 2010

I believe children under the age of ten should not attend a funeral. I speak from experience when I say children will be affected or traumatized by death. I come from a stable family where my three children have both their father and mother at home. They are very well mannered, and very educated.

I thought with this type of up bringing they would be fine with attending their grandfather's funeral. We had already engraved in them that this world wasn't ours, and that one day we would return to our Lord. We never really talked about death to them, for death wasn't near our corner, or so we thought. No one actually thinks about introducing death to your young one's.

They seemed to understand it, yet again they hadn't lost a loved one in their life time. Until one October evening my mother called us to give us the bad news. My father at the age of 53 had finally lost his battle to cardiovascular disease. My children's ages ranged from 7 - 1 years old at the time of their grandfather's death. My children were very close to their beloved grandfather.

This is the way my children coped. My oldest wouldn't talk or cry in front of anyone. At night I would hear her sobbing like a baby. My second child whom was always a happy child drained herself with sadness. And my youngest would cry and cry, until there was no tomorrow. He couldn't understand why his grandfather wasn't waking up.

I finally got the courage to ask my two oldest children what I could have done different when I took them to their grandfather's funeral? They replied " you should have never taken us to that place to see him lying there so cold. Why couldn't you have just left us with the memories of his life instead of his death? You robbed us of that."

Desperately finding an answer I was saddened by it all. I should have thought of my children first. Now they are left with the memory of their grandfather's funeral. I've tried to instill them with photos of happier times, but they tell me they have engraved the funeral in their mending little hearts.

So, before you decide to take your children under ten to a funeral ask yourself this question.
Would you want to be at a funeral at the age of five? Don't think of yourself or what is right. Think of the causes your children might have to face along the way. Don't be selfish, for there may be extreme consequences in your children's future.

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