Why why why must we do this to greiving parents?

[Josh]

Many years ago, a distant cousin of my wife (age 20 at the time) made the jump from her church to a more liberal church (think from Hope to KMF). Her parents were okay with it as she had many school friends from that congregation, and she fit in quite well. Distant relatives, and folks from her previous church) were quick to cry "back slidden" and such like.

Two years later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. All the nay-sayers were quick to shout from the mountain tops "this is what you get when you stray from the Lord!".

Maybe not apple to apples in my OP, but that is the sort of damage conservative people tend to do to each other.

(Thankfully she caught the cancer early and she has been cancer free ever since!)

The simple fact is many people view moving to a less conservative group as a negative thing, not a positive thing, and even more so if someone seemed to be going in such a direction and then dies.

But more importantly… if you don’t like what you’re seeing on social media, maybe that’s a good reason for folks to not use social media.

[steve-in-kville]

*sigh*

Yet another carcass of a thread that must be left for the wolves.

[temporal1]

*sigh*
Yet another carcass of a thread that must be left for the wolves.

i’ll take a stab at it.
OP:

.. Why must we do this? ..

i’ve no experience with plain response, my experience in the world is great attempt is made to “respect the deceased,” and their loved ones. My mother often recited, “If you’ve nothing good to say, say nothing at all.” My big extended family was really good at this, i believe people, and the culture, were generally more stoic - before talk TV opened the floodgates.

That generation is nearly passed away. i’m not sure what my extended family is like now, the pandemic ended family reunions, the “old guard” that kept them going for decades has passed, i don’t hear of revivals planned. i don’t follow social media, no one writes or calls, those archaic methods. How many families “bit the dust” as a result of the pandemic?

Back to the OP: i believe there’s another factor in the OP complaint.
“Chatter,” even critical chatter, can be a form of grieving, of expressing feelings of helplessness, regret, fear, confusion, loss, inadequacy, attempts to make sense of that which cannot be resolved. It may be denial. Esp denial of one’s own mortality.

i sometimes think of this when reading on this forum, esp the contentious topics. Like Ukraine. No one likes it. There are various forms of responding, not one changes what’s happening. It’s a form of wailing out to God. imho

The chatter that annoys you may not be as thoughtless as it sounds.

i try to ignore such things. Believing i’ll never know what all is really behind it.

Anything in there?

[Soloist]

Wife: So this does happen, and it is totally horrible when it does, but I don’t think it’s limited just to plain people, although there might be a different flavor of it with them. Also, some of them cringe just as much when they hear that socially awkward person at their church do it.

Being a mother of an autistic child, specifically one who ended up dying in an accident, I have heard various flavors of this. After our son went missing, we called 911 and had a bunch of friends helping us search, and cops were going to come help us find him before we found out he got hit, and afterwards, we stayed off of social media, because we knew that the wolves would come and leave all sorts of nasty comments on any news articles. We already felt horrible that it happened and I felt like the worst mom ever, and the police and CPS were very nice and said it happened to a lot of people, and the Mennonites/other plain people were perfectly kind about it, but it was the one socially awkward guy who left for another church and hated Mennonites that came up to me in a store one day and started asking me how I didn’t lose my children to CPS. Most people who knew anything about autistic or down syndrome individuals were very compassionate, and I had people who I met who had children like that who told me about times that their children had ran off or how it happened to someone else they knew.

It’s just like any news story where someone accidentally leaves a child in a vehicle when there was a change of schedule, and they often start receiving online death threats, and if they don’t get hit with jail, people are angry that they didn’t. Secular people are not compassionate either.

Now, I do know of situations among plain people where individuals make assumptions about somebody’s health issues based off of lifestyle or choices, but I don’t think all plain people do it, and I just know which people to avoid talking to about certain subjects. I’ve heard this question from a few plain people as well as other people whenever I mention my son was autistic, and I am always satisfied when I get to say that, “No, he was not vaccinated until he was almost 4 and very autistic, and the worst that ever happened to him was a sore leg from a tetanus shot that he bent the needle while trying to stop.” Doesn’t mean it could never happen, but some people act like the only cause of autism is poor parenting or vaccines. I definitely got some of the parenting one (usually from non-Mennonites before we went plain, or the occasional old lady seeker), until he was old enough that it was quite obvious to anyone that he was disabled. That also made me feel like a horrible mom, and it was nice after my second and third children were born to show that I could raise fully functional children too, and it wasn’t just me. I know a lady around here that is a former druggie, and her child is even more severe than my son was, and one lady (another in the in the old lady seeker category) apparently implied that it was because of the drugs, which I don’t think is appropriate, because even if it was true, there’s no way to know that, and it’s not helpful. My non-Mennonite dad blames my alcoholic mom for my deaf (also autistic) brother, which may be possible as well, but also impossible to tell and not helpful or kind.

The point in the long ramble is that you’re going to find this wherever you go, and the best you can do is not do it yourself and stick up for the people you hear it done to, and encourage them. And, stay off social media if you don’t want to hear everybody with a keyboard’s opinions.

[Soloist]

Wife: Also, at some point, those who are hurt by thoughtless comments and assumptions have to learn to move past it and forgive. I still find myself sometimes struggling with bitterness towards family members who gave us a hard time back when we first thought our son was autistic as a little child (thinking I was overreacting or that it was a parenting issue being excused by labels), and a lot of people don’t even realize how offensive or hurtful they might be being, and are just socially awkward, and sometimes just have no filter, even if they mean well. We all have probably said offensive things without realizing it at the time, and what we should learn from these things is what not to do, and try to extend grace to other people.

[temporal1]

.. I don’t think it’s limited just to plain people ..

i hope what i wrote isn’t misunderstood to suggest i think worldly people don’t do this. it happens, it’s awful, and shouldn’t happen.
i suppose about any review of “comments” on anything in public display today reveals darkness.

steve’s subject line asks, “why why why” .. there are various reasons. beside idiocy and cruelty.

life can be hard.

[steve-in-kville]

Thank you for the respectful posts.

Another "conservative anabaptist" assumption I've heard that always bothered me a bit: if a couple has a child with Down's Syndrome, it's because the father was unfaithful to his wife. That one is rise for concern .

[Soloist]

Thank you for the respectful posts.

Another "conservative anabaptist" assumption I've heard that always bothered me a bit: if a couple has a child with Down's Syndrome, it's because the father was unfaithful to his wife. That one is rise for concern .

Haven’t heard that one but that is hogwash. You can’t even make a compelling Scriptural argument for it.

[temporal1]

Thank you for the respectful posts.

Another "conservative anabaptist" assumption I've heard that always bothered me a bit: if a couple has a child with Down's Syndrome, it's because the father was unfaithful to his wife. That one is rise for concern .

in the world, when i had a newborn, a loved close family member (who hated alcohol) talked about birth defects caused by fathers drinking alcohol at the time of conception.

i didn’t try to convince her. but i thought, an awful lot of babies are conceived when their fathers have been drinking.
i’m not sure there’s no connection. females are warned against alcohol, drugs, smoking. not sure about dads.

i don’t differentiate between tobacco/marijuana regarding smoking. smoke in the lungs can’t be good. regardless of source.

my obstretician once told me, “you aren’t eating for two, you are breathing for two.”
i thought that was pretty important.

[ken_sylvania]

Thank you for the respectful posts.

Another "conservative anabaptist" assumption I've heard that always bothered me a bit: if a couple has a child with Down's Syndrome, it's because the father was unfaithful to his wife. That one is rise for concern .

Only person I ever heard that one from was a guy named Steve.