I'd put that down to stupid laws. The fact that a boatload of countries with lower drinking ages and less stigma on the whole 'drink' thing (See Spain, at one fast food joint I found beer on tap - Everyone loves Pinguins) have less of an issue speaks worlds, IMO.
Sorry for joining this thread late, but I thought I'd add my two penneth because I don't find this weird at all... In fact, it's very similar to what I did for my wife before she passed away with cancer. It's all about making the person who is dying as happy as you can in their final days. It also gives some great memories to those that they leave behind, too. We got engaged before she was diagnosed with cancer and I was very young at the time - I wasn't ready to get married, but I made the commitment to her with the intention to get married a few years down the line. Then, a few months later, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given six months to live... We pushed the wedding through as soon as possible, because that was all she wanted and we got married in December last year in what was a relatively private ceremony (just 12 in attendance, including me and my wife). She moved to the UK a few months afterwards (again, one of her wishes) when the cancer looked like it was coming under control. Following that, we set about arranging a wedding blessing in church (she wanted the church wedding, but it wasn't realistic given the situation) with many more friends/colleagues and family members invited. The day was incredibly special for her, but her condition deteriorated quite quickly following that - she passed away four weeks (to the day) later. It was as if she held on for that day, because it was one thing she wanted to do for herself (and also for me), before letting go and being able to rest in peace. Yes, they're young--very young in fact--but fighting cancer (of any type) is an incredibly painful, draining and tiring experience for not just the sufferer, but also for those around them. Miracles do happen, but generally dying of terminal cancer is a matter of 'when' rather than 'if' and therefore making the sufferer (and those closest to them) as comfortable as possible is paramount, otherwise you just end up with more pain all round. Although it's sad that my wife is no longer here, I'm also happy because she died a happy woman - all of her wishes had been granted. In fact, she was smiling when she went to sleep for the final time - it was as if she was completely at peace. It may seem strange that I'm able to talk so freely about what has happened, but I have come to terms with things very well - she helped me to accept the inevitable, and the happy memories we had also contributed to my acceptance as well because it meant there were no regrets when she did eventually pass away.
It's a bit difficult to argue against you, given that you have recently been in a position that few have us have been in (or may ever be in)... but I'll give it a go. I don't object to making the little boy happy. In fact, I don't really object to the whole situation. But I do find it a little unusual, and as much as I sympathise with the boy, I worry for the little girl. Having a friend die is probably bad enough, but it's the extra emotional baggage that she's laden with that I am concerned with. Maybe it will be a thoroughly cathartic process for her (for them all?), but I'm just not sure.
I didn't want to get married when I got engaged because I felt I was too young. When she was diagnosed with cancer, she asked me to leave her on numerous occasions, but I couldn't do that to her - I feel she would have passed away very quickly had I walked when she asked me to 'get on with my life'. I wanted to prolong that life as long as possible, so I did everything I could to make her as happy as possible. Even doing that though, there were many occasions when I wanted to walk away from the whole thing towards the end of my wife's life because of the pain I was suffering--and believe me, it's the easy way out--but seeing her happy made me realise that was never going to be an option. Like me, I'm sure the girl got some happiness out of the ordeal, because it's not only the sufferer that suffers during the fight against cancer. It's often very tough on those around them too, because they experience the sufferer's frustrations first hand. Of course, there's quite a difference in age between me and the little girl... but I don't believe she will be any more traumatised by the ordeal than she would have been had this not happened. If anything, it'll make her feel better in the long run because she will live to know she made the poor little guy happy in his final hours.
as sweet as it is , the kids were 8... I dont exactly clearly remember what being 8 was like but i can remember that i certainly didnt want to get married lol. Im sure it brought the kid happiness, which is fantastic it really is. But it sounds more like something the parents did. btw Tim i admire you so much
I'm sure she'll feel good for it when she's older, atleast it was a mock wedding or this could come back to leggaly haunt her. Should've pulled for a huge life insurance policy before he died though I wonder who took care of the rest of the list, obviously the media covers the edgiest part of it *sigh* bravo to someone who knows what they want.
My parents got divorced when I was 8, and I understood what was going on.... in short, it wasn't easy. But I feel that the girl would have at least understood what she was doing. I see what you're saying about the parents being a big influence - and they probably were - but I don't believe any good mother would put their kid through something that was potentially bad for their state of mind. The only way to really know the full implications on the girl is to be inside her mind - or at least to have been through the suffering with her - any assessment of whether it's right or wrong is essentially trying to guess what was going through her mind. I can talk about the way my mind worked when I was going through a very similar situation (although with a good few more years on my shoulders), but even then I'm not sure my view is any more authoritative than anyone else's. Everyone handles death/terminal illness differently, but I think any good person's end goal is the same if they find themselves in the situation (and I sincerely hope nobody here has to go through it) - it's to make the sufferer and the suffering as happy as possible in what is ultimately not an easy time.
Fish of the day? I understand your situation Tim, but I still don't think it's applicable to these children. They are children, after all. While I agree that it is very important to make this boy as happy as he can be before he passed, I think that does have to be weighed against any long term effects that it might have on the girl. When your 8 you understanding is massively detatched from the understanding of an adult, even if you can grasp what is going on and are only doing it to keep your friend happy and share something special with him. At that age, even if that is your reasoning, having your parents put it in the newspaper and buy you a small wedding dress and take photos of you kissing the boy is going to have some sort of effect. I'm not against the action per se because, as I said, I think it's understandable for both of these children to want to get some sort of connection out of the event and to find a way where they can ease their pain and draw understanding from it. What I think is weird though is the way that the adults around the situation all jumped atop the situation with such vigour - buying dresses and suits, publicising it in the newspaper. A girl who has a small and mostly harmless psuedo-marriage (which is what this really was) with a boy of the same age before he dies? Understandable. It will undoubtedly have an effect on the girl, but a minimal, unavoidable one. A girl who tells this to her parents and is then dressed up, pressured, has not inconsiderable amounts of money put into the event by her parents and then finally nationally held up for discussion and debate? That would have a longer term and more debilitating effect I imagine. It's the type of thing someone of her age could become too sensitive about or build up in her head or be bullied about. That's why I think the whole thing is a bit weird - because of the way the parents leapt on it and exacerbated a situation unhealthily.
Closure IMO. Eight-year olds have a more straightforward (though no less significant) concept of friendship and death. You cannot attach the same emotional luggage to it that you would for adults. Elleanor just did a really nice thing for her dying friend. She'll grieve his death as friends do, and she'll then move on. As CardJoe says: As she grows up she will develop a greater awareness of the concept of marriage but she'll also be able to see the event in the appropriate context of their eight-year old lives. When you kissed a girl in primary school you don't look at it in the same ways as an adult kiss with your adult girlfriend, do you? What is more important is how the parents move on: This "wedding" was for the parents as much as for the boy. He is dying; they want to fulfill his last wishes to the best of their ability. There's the grief that he'll never grow up, never get married, have children; all those things that you want to witness your children doing as they grow up and you grow old. This "wedding" is perhaps an attempt to seize ever so briefly briefly a life lived, all its dreams fulfilled, and to affirm that to the world in order to be able to affirm it to themselves. If the parents can see this appropriately as a little girl just doing a nice thing for her friend before he died, it's OK. If they start to seriously treat her as a widow then Houston, we have a problem. There is a possibility of that; an attempt to hang on to their son through his bond with her. Same thing with the media: this will only be as big a thing to her as people choose to make it (and keep it). However if everyone can see the event as just a celebration of his life and a goodbye, then it will be OK.
I don't see how you can know any of that and state it as fact. From my experience, child psychology is a myriad subject with many different facets and theories within and since you've never met the child in question it seems kind of flawed to start hypothesising about how she will continue to develop or what her motivations are. True, you could argue that my view does the same, but then I don't lay the view down as fact saying that "She will be able to see this in an appropriate context". Sure, she might if she's stable enough to start with and guided through the event properly and not overly scrutinised - but that's a lot of ifs for someone whos parents put the story in the papers.
I'm only giving my opinion (hence: IMO), based on the scant information I have, and my professional experience that most children grow up OK in spite of far more outrageous crap happening to them. You are the one who lays down your view as fact: Nowhere in the linked article is mentioned how much "pressure" was brought to bear on her. We don't even know if the girl even saw the resulting media attention. We don't know if a week later she was just playing out with her friends again as usual, although I'm willing to bet some good money that she was. I'm thinking that you are possibly not considering the parents' point of view here. You accuse them of turning this into a freak show and marketing it to the papers, whereas it is more likely that they got seduced into the boy's idea by their own grief, their own desire to do what they can for their dying son and see him have some life lived. The media tends to get hold of these human dramas and runs away with it all by itself, no encouragement needed (and yes, I've seen that too. I work in cancer, remember?).
I think this sums up my thoughts on the whole thing based on the experience of losing someone incredibly close to me many years before I should have done. The parents (of both children, IMO) were trying to extract happiness out of what is ultimately a **** time--for all involved, including the girl and her parents... and for his parents, I can only imagine it was potentially worse than my situation. Having suffered from the disease for half of his life and from such a young age, the poor little boy didn't have much time to enjoy life for what it is... and his parents didn't have time to enjoy his journey from childhood to adulthood. At least with my wife, we were both grown up and had time to have some good life together, even if it was shorter than we would have both hoped.
True - but I have a basis to infer the parental pressure from in the evidence that they took photos of the event and then gave (or at least allowed them to be given) to journalists for national papers as varied as The Sun and The Metro. You have no basis to infer that there was no pressure. That the story was so widely circulated, well that doesn't happen without someone pushing and from that we can infer pressure from somewhere. Parents most likely, IMO. As for parental point of view, it isn't that I don't take it into account, it's just that I don't see it as relevant. We could speculate on it endlessly, but doing so would also be pointless. The only thing we can properly discuss is their actions - which are the only things which really matter too. It doesn't matter if they meant to turn their kid into a freakshow - which is a massively emotive twist on my actual point, but nevermind - what matters is that regardless of intention, they have done so. I can see good-meaning intentions behind the event, obviously - but since there is no real evidence of what the intentions were, I judge it on the proven event and what details were obviously given to the press (which I work in ). They could be really nice parents as you say who are psychologists who have thought this through as you have. They could be non-working chavs with eighteen children and a desire to chase fame in any form. We'll never know and really shouldn't care because the actions are more important. Or: You might not have meant to break the vase, but your past intentions aren't going to glue it back together. Besides, while parental intention may play some role in how the girl responds to the situation, this story has been publicised to the degree that outside responses will outweigh that, IMO. It's also a case of adult pressure from outside source. I (pointlessly) wonder what role the parents of the boy had in the whole thing.
Of course they are going to take photos (duh!). But that does not imply pressure. The press could have got involved relatively late into, or even after the fact for all we know. The parents were naive to do so, perhaps, but it does not prove that they press-ganged the little girl into a media freakshow. The parents' point of view is relevant in inferring their actions. And you're the one talking about pressuring this girl into something that will psychologically damage her, and exploiting it as a media event for persona gain. Emotive twists? Please. You're assuming that a vase was broken --possibly even deliberately smashed. I disagree that you can make such an assumption. The actions of these parents cannot simply be judged based on an assumption of vase fragments. There is no real evidence that there are vase fragments. Show me the broken vase, before we talk about whether they actually broke it. If the girl was even shown the tabloids. I would say that they probably initiated the whole thing and that the girl's parents cooperated.
