regarding abby, if that IS her real name
i've been out of it and have just had the dear abby stillbirth photo controversy brought to my attention by laura. i haven't written about the issue in a long time, and not much even then, but laura's post has brought to the surface what i've been meaning to say for a while, which is:
yes, of course, almost everyone who hasn't lost a child is uncomfortable with pictures of stillborn children. i remember going to deadbabymama's house and about passing out with the shock of seeing a picture of her husband holding strummer, right there on the shelf in their front room. justin, who knew her better and had spent some time traveling with her and talking about baby-anxiety stuff, thought it was perfectly normal, but i was bothered about it for months.
about three months to the day, actually. because that's when we lost hans. we took dozens of pictures of him before we let him go, and those pictures of him became the most precious things i owned. we looked at those pictures a dozen times a day, printed them out and framed some, put them in a small album which we included on a table at hans's memorial service along with the spanish books justin had gotten for him for christmas and the calendar we had gotten for him in belgium and the little alpaca sweater and hat our friend mike had brought him from peru and other things. we wondered how the pictures would be received, but we decided they were important to us, and we wanted them there for people who loved him to see. if anyone didn't want to see them, they didn't have to look at them; they were in a flip-album with a cover.
i often wanted to put hans's picture on my desk at work, but i never figured out how to do it in a way that would let me cherish him and show him to people who genuinely wanted to see him without exposing him to people who would disrespect him with their lack of understanding, so i never did it. that the mother in the letter that started this whole conversation was brave enough to do what i never had the ovaries to do blows me away. she deserves the purple heart or whatever the medal is they give for bravery. i hope she knows it.
so here's the thing: while i understand that most people are uncomfortable with pictures of stillborn babies, it doesn't make it okay. discomfort is not indicative of righteousness.
for much of our nation's history, a large percentage of people who identified as white were supremely uncomfortable at the thought of equality for blacks, much less frequenting the same businesses or sitting in the same section of the train or bus or - god forbid - their children socializing with black children. was that prejudice, that phobia, okay? no.
my late father was a minister, and while he did much to support and encourage younger ministers, he was extremely disparaging of women who attempted to enter the clergy. he was uncomfortable with women penetrating the ranks of pastors. it was okay for them to be children's pastors, or to direct a church-run preschool, or to maybe direct the missionary society, but not to be the senior pastor or - gasp - to preach. he saved special venom for a woman who rose to the top rank in his denomination, one of a board of six people who govern the denomination; he went out of his way to badmouth her at church conventions, to campaign against her eventual election. [at his funeral, the condolence letter that came from that board and was read out loud was signed by none other than that woman he hated. i had to smile.] was his treatment of her, and his opinion of women invading his profession okay? is the institutionalized discomfort with the equality of women in most of the world's religions okay? no, of course not.
i'm not equating my first son's worth with abolitionism or the equal rights amendment. but there are plenty of ways in which people are uncomfortable because of ignorance, and only after ignorance is dispelled does society in general learn to deal with the former bogeyman. it will take people like deadbabymama displaying strummer's picture alongside owen's. it will take me not giving into the pressure to say "yes" every time a restaurant server smiles at milo and asks me, "is he your first?" it will take the people who put those big pink and blue magnetic ribbons for infant loss on the backs of their cars to keep doing it until there are so many of those that every driver knows what they mean, as well-understood a symbol as yellow or red ribbons. it will take the international stillbirth society and other groups like it getting the kind of marketing savvy that the SIDS campaign has. it will take people like the woman in the letter to have the beans to display their child's picture on their desk.
p.s. strummer, i owe you an apology. the next time i see your picture, i'll be sure to give you your due.
yes, of course, almost everyone who hasn't lost a child is uncomfortable with pictures of stillborn children. i remember going to deadbabymama's house and about passing out with the shock of seeing a picture of her husband holding strummer, right there on the shelf in their front room. justin, who knew her better and had spent some time traveling with her and talking about baby-anxiety stuff, thought it was perfectly normal, but i was bothered about it for months.
about three months to the day, actually. because that's when we lost hans. we took dozens of pictures of him before we let him go, and those pictures of him became the most precious things i owned. we looked at those pictures a dozen times a day, printed them out and framed some, put them in a small album which we included on a table at hans's memorial service along with the spanish books justin had gotten for him for christmas and the calendar we had gotten for him in belgium and the little alpaca sweater and hat our friend mike had brought him from peru and other things. we wondered how the pictures would be received, but we decided they were important to us, and we wanted them there for people who loved him to see. if anyone didn't want to see them, they didn't have to look at them; they were in a flip-album with a cover.
i often wanted to put hans's picture on my desk at work, but i never figured out how to do it in a way that would let me cherish him and show him to people who genuinely wanted to see him without exposing him to people who would disrespect him with their lack of understanding, so i never did it. that the mother in the letter that started this whole conversation was brave enough to do what i never had the ovaries to do blows me away. she deserves the purple heart or whatever the medal is they give for bravery. i hope she knows it.
so here's the thing: while i understand that most people are uncomfortable with pictures of stillborn babies, it doesn't make it okay. discomfort is not indicative of righteousness.
for much of our nation's history, a large percentage of people who identified as white were supremely uncomfortable at the thought of equality for blacks, much less frequenting the same businesses or sitting in the same section of the train or bus or - god forbid - their children socializing with black children. was that prejudice, that phobia, okay? no.
my late father was a minister, and while he did much to support and encourage younger ministers, he was extremely disparaging of women who attempted to enter the clergy. he was uncomfortable with women penetrating the ranks of pastors. it was okay for them to be children's pastors, or to direct a church-run preschool, or to maybe direct the missionary society, but not to be the senior pastor or - gasp - to preach. he saved special venom for a woman who rose to the top rank in his denomination, one of a board of six people who govern the denomination; he went out of his way to badmouth her at church conventions, to campaign against her eventual election. [at his funeral, the condolence letter that came from that board and was read out loud was signed by none other than that woman he hated. i had to smile.] was his treatment of her, and his opinion of women invading his profession okay? is the institutionalized discomfort with the equality of women in most of the world's religions okay? no, of course not.
i'm not equating my first son's worth with abolitionism or the equal rights amendment. but there are plenty of ways in which people are uncomfortable because of ignorance, and only after ignorance is dispelled does society in general learn to deal with the former bogeyman. it will take people like deadbabymama displaying strummer's picture alongside owen's. it will take me not giving into the pressure to say "yes" every time a restaurant server smiles at milo and asks me, "is he your first?" it will take the people who put those big pink and blue magnetic ribbons for infant loss on the backs of their cars to keep doing it until there are so many of those that every driver knows what they mean, as well-understood a symbol as yellow or red ribbons. it will take the international stillbirth society and other groups like it getting the kind of marketing savvy that the SIDS campaign has. it will take people like the woman in the letter to have the beans to display their child's picture on their desk.
p.s. strummer, i owe you an apology. the next time i see your picture, i'll be sure to give you your due.
Labels: rants, stillbirth
posted by laura at 1:00 PM
8 Comments:
Hooray, that is an excellent rant, well done! I couldn't agree more.
You don't owe Strummer an apology, you were being perfectly rational. Freakishly there is always a part of me that feels like some kind of bad luck charm for you (the collective you: Laura, Justin, Hans & Milo), like if you hadn't known us Hans would have been okay. I know it is totally irrational and weird but that's how I feel.
Hear, hear! I had planned to rant about this whole episode on my blog at some point, but you've said it all so well.
I still haven't gotten very brave when answering the "do you have kids?" question, and this is a good reminder why I should. If more of us who have experienced a stillbirth/neonatal loss felt comfortable enough to mention our "lost" children when the subject comes up, the more the rest of the "untouched" society will be exposed to this possible scenario and the less we may feel like freaks...
I haven't talked about this, mostly because I don't want to piss off any of my bloggy friends. My feelings about the subject are different. Now, maybe take them with a grain of salt. Because I don't have any pictures. It's a non issue for me. But my feeling is that displaying photos of your obviously dead child at work is not appropriate. I say "obviously" because I think it depends on the photo. If the photo is "tasteful"...I don't know a nicer way to put that...meaning I suppose that the child appears to be alive...I think it's okay. Or perhaps a rendered drawing from a photo. That too I think is okay. But a photo of an obviously dead child. I don't think work is the best place for that photo. In your home. Yes. But at work. No. The reason I say that is because I loved my grandpa very much. But I don't display pictures of him after he died. And I KNOW. Those are the only pictures some people have. I know it's not an option. I don't know if someone's right to grieve trumps other people's right not to be inflicted with pain (ha...can't believe I'm saying that).
I'm not sure if it's tasteful...if it's respectful to both co-workers and to the child.
That was so well said and beautifully written Laura. YOu are brilliant how you capture and idea so suscinctly. It makes me wish you posted your 'rants' more often! The photo thing is a prickly issue for me because I never took photo's of Rainer because he'd already been dead for about 2 weeks prior to being born and just looked dreadful and not pretty and perfect looking at all. (His skin was falling off a bit etc). I could barely look at him myself it hurt so much and didn't keep him in my room over night. We took no photos and have no mementos. Just a lot of unresolved pain and regrets. If I did have a photo that was 'nice' enough to frame, I definitely would hang it on the wall or put it on the mantle to share with family and friends. I just don't have one.
I did keep a photo of Julian on my desk for a long time after coming back from from my first maternity leave, and before having Natalie (about 18 months). It was so that I could look at it--no one else had to see it unless they asked. Folks who were covering for me when I was out on leave with Natalie were forced to look at it while they used my computer. I have no idea how it made anyone feel, nor do I care. Although Julian was born alive, he is dead in the photo b/c that is the only photo I have of him without tubes in his nose and mouth. He looks very peaceful. The reasons I don't keep his photo on my desk anymore are complex, but I will say that I would no more tell someone that they didn't have the right to display their dead child's photo than I would ask someone to remove a photo of a child with a disability, a big nose, or a bad case of cradle cap. To me, workplace fairness means that either we should all be able to display our family photos (family trip to the nude beach, not so much), or none of us should. When folks start arbitrarily deciding whose child is acceptable and whose isn't, well, that sounds like a lawsuit to me.
Family trip to the nude beach! I nearly spat out my lunch, Alysse! LOL!
Laura, i think you put it very well.
Vixanne, i agree than not every stillborn baby photo would be appropriate in the workplace. I tend to think, as a rule though, that people do put up 'appropriate' photos in public or don't put up photos at all. The 'abby' letter was abberant in part because the letter-writer clearly had serious issues with the grieving mother and was only picking on the photo because she *could* pick at that. I suspect the photo is in reality perfectly reasonable.
I think that there are always family photos which are not appropriate for the workplace, (like Alysse's example!), but the simple fact that the baby is dead in the photo is not enough to automatically put it in that category, as 'dear abby' did.
I actually got into a big argument about this with one of the message boards I used to frequent. Well, it was about displaying photos in signatures online. I said that women should certainly be able to. However, I really have to admit a few of the pictures I've seen people display online went beyond what I felt was appropriate or even respectful to the baby.
I guess it's hard to say what the picture in the dear abby letter looked like. So maybe my mind jumped to those photos that I felt were disrespectful.
What a beautiful sentiment. I think you should take out the references to Dear Abby and deadbabymama and turn it into article and shop it around.
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