Age when you (or your kids) attended first funeral?

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I was 5 years old My twenty year old brother who was my Fathers son from his first wife was killed in an auto accident That same twenty year old brother told me that he was only five when his mother died and my mother who was actually his stepmother cried as much as anyone else she had come to love him as her own son.
 
I’ve been bringing my daughter to funerals since she was a baby.

Funerals are not usually announced in our parish bulletin, so about once every 2-3 weeks you will turn up to a weekday Mass and it will be a funeral.

Most of the Caribbean families (of which there are a lot in this area of London) have open coffins, so my daughter sees the bodies and will often kiss her hand and touch it to the body. She doesn’t like closed coffins (which is what the white and Asian families usually have), she prefers to see the body.

She’s never been to the funeral of someone she knew while they were alive, just because no one in our family or friends has died since she was born.
 
canadienne said:
A parent died when I was seven. Open casket. I’m glad I saw him. I was very traumatized by his death, and so seeing his body prevented me from actively looking for him later in life. I remember five or so years after his death I saw someone in town who looked like my dad and I thought it was him, but then I reminded myself that I had seen my father’s dead body. Had I not seen the open casket I may have gone legit crazy.
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I wish I knew better. My dear grandchild was just 4 years old when my mother passed. My grandchild was not a part of funeral arrangements. Nearly one year later, my grandchild came to me and pointed out a woman she thought was great grandma. The poor child was searching her great grandma out after nearly a year. Now I wish I had given this dear child a chance to understand and accept her loss at the correct time.
 
I went to an open casket viewing for a classmate of mine in 10th grade. The first actual funeral I went to was my grandmother’s last February, when I was 23. I can’t say that I was negatively affected by not having gone to any in the past. I was actually more collected than my parents and ended up helping out a lot so that my mother wouldn’t have to worry about so many things.
 
It depends on the child and how close the family member was. I attended my grandmothers furneral when I was 4. It was very traumatizing to see my Mom so upset and I wasn’t allowed to be with her which was all I wanted to do. I didn’t understand anything that was going on of of course. My grandmother laid in an open caskette and I thought she was just asleep. I tried to go over and hug her but they grabbed me back. My Grandfather smiled and winked at me which was the best thing he could have done. I still have a distaste of all furnerals I can’t help it. When my grandfather died 2 years later my parents let me stay home. I missed him but I’m glad I don’t have any memory of him in an open caskette. My aunt recently died and it was a closed caskette while not one likes furnals I particularly dislike open caskette furnerals. I’d rather remember the person living then laying in a box. That’s not them just their earthly shell. When my mom died we did the open caskette because that’s what she would have wanted. It was very hard to see her laying there and when I kissed her forehead before they closed the caskette I reallized it wasn’t her at all that she was actually somewhere else. I plan to be creamated and have requested no sort of open caskette thing. My dad said pretty much the same thing. I find the whole open caskette tradition a bit macabe to tell the truth. Maybe I’ve seen too many horror movies…lol
 
When I was barely five, my teenage cousin was the victim of a murder-suicide by a pathologically-attached boyfriend she’d broken up with but went out with one last time, probably because she felt bad for him. Her high-school-age brother went to the funeral but my parents had me stay with the two younger sisters who were around my age, at a neighbor’s. At that age, I think one handles it but some things go over your head.

My grandpa died of cancer when I was 6-1/2 and I did attend the funeral. My mom had been going to her hometown as much as possible as his condition declined, and then when he passed, Dad and I joined her. I remember being aware of my mom’s grief during both the illness and the funeral. That seeing the parent vulnerable thing is scary and sad - but it also, I think, is reality and as long as there are loving people around a child will get through it. The same for seeing my grandpa’s body in the casket.

I am a person who prefers to face reality and see the body when that’s feasible, it gives me closure. Even be there with the dying person if I’m close to them. One of the most difficult things with my Dad’s death was that he died before I could get there - and it was a sudden death. I was praying the Rosary at my Mom’s bedside when she died, and that and the fact that she’d been declining so I had time to prepare, made everything go more smoothly.
 
I was 9, my uncle was the closest person to die up to that point. No one close to me died between then and when I was an adult.

There have been three deaths in my children’s lifetimes. The only one they were old enough to be aware of was when they were about ages 4, 7, and 11. They attended, but I don’t recall if they were in the viewing room at the funeral home.
 
I’d say if they are under 8 let them stay home. They can only be upset by the experience and not have a correct understanding of death either so why put them through it when they are that young.
 
I think I was older, maybe 7?

We don’t use babysitters, so my kids have been to multiple great-grandparent’s funerals. My daughter would have been 1.5 and my son would have been 3 at their firsts, that I remember.
 
skigirl1689 said:
Thank you all for sharing your experiences. I agree it gives closure to attend a wake and/or funeral.

I guess I didn’t word the situation about closing the casket. It was open prior to the Mass but the funeral directors actually removed the crucifix that was on the inside of the top, her jewelry, and the flowers and closed the casket in front of everyone except for the children of the deceased, who had been escorted out into the entryway of the church. The funerals I attended prior to this, they always closed the casket with no one present; everyone was already in the sanctuary. Obviously, you knew they closed the casket, but you didn’t actually see it. I just found it a bit hard to witness.
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I have seen that. It was tough, but I do prefer an open casket to closed. I prefer a coffin to an urn, and I prefer a graveside service immediately following. I do not really like being ushered off in the middle of the graveside service so that they can lower and cover the casket, only to return for more. My grandmother’s funeral mass did more for me than conversion to her Catholic faith. I have cemented some of my own funeral plans and need to update my will.

I have even seen the bobcats cover the casket with dirt after it was lowered. A childhood friend who committed suicide…
 
My first funeral was when I was 17.

My children’s first was when they were 7 & 4. Starting when they were 12 & 9 we attended a minimum of one for the next five years (7 total), all family members. It got to the point where my youngest feared October thru January. Most were in December and January. Three uncles, cousin (their age), grandpa, and father.

However, they did come to see death as a natural thing.
 
sallybutler said:
My first funeral was when I was 17.

My children’s first was when they were 7 & 4. Starting when they were 12 & 9 we attended a minimum of one for the next five years (7 total), all family members. It got to the point where my youngest feared October thru January. Most were in December and January. Three uncles, cousin (their age), grandpa, and father.

However, they did come to see death as a natural thing.
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We had the same thing in my family every year around the holiday for 5 years. First the cat then my mom, my grandfather, grandmother, an uncle. It’s been like that again for the last 3 years…my stepgrand father and an aunt died last year and another aunt died a few months ago. I was glad at last in the most recent case they opted for the closed caskette. I really liked my aunt and it was more peacefull
to me not to see her directlly lying in the box. 🤷
 
The only thing that small kids are not good at when it comes to death is risk assessment. When it hits close to home-- someone their age or the close relative close in age to their own relative – they can have a hard time grasping that their danger of falling to the same fate is indeed remote. With help, though, they can even get through that. Still, if they don’t have to cope with it early, it is OK to wait–if no young kids they know die, they can wait until they are older to learn that death can come to the very young, and to moms and dads. (On that note, I told my kids the truth about fairy tales. The author has to have the mom dead so the kids have no choice but to solve their problem themselves. Otherwise, the kids in the story would be naughty for having an adventure without permission or help from their mom! My kids saw the sense in that reasoning.)

Our kids were never shielded from the idea of death and dying generally. By the time someone close to them died, a funeral was a familiar ritual. I had that background, too. It is good to go through a death knowing that many have had to cope with what you are coping with.
 
I hate open caskets, and quit viewing them. I find the heavy make-up bizarre and somewhat upsetting in its fakiness.
 
I was 14 when I first went to a funeral Mass.

I was 16 when I first went to a wake.

My children haven’t been to a wake, but have been to a funeral Mass. I think their ages were, 1, 5 and 8.
 
As with the OP, my first funeral was also that of my grandfather at age 8. I do recall being very sad (naturally), but I don’t recall being traumatized. I actually remember being more concerned for my then 3 year old cousin who wasn’t old enough to really understand that Grandpa was gone. What I remember most about that day is sitting in the room downstairs in the funeral home listening to my uncle tell jokes for a long period of time. I think that helped me a lot not to focus too much on the sadness.

Call me macabre, but I prefer the open caskets. And when it’s my parents time, I want to be right there when they close the casket. Then I will follow the casket to the Church. And from the Church to the cemetary. Then I will get out my lawn chair and wait for the casket to be buried. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. :o But not by much.

My kids haven’t been to one yet. I had an aunt pass unexpectedly last summer. But with the distance it was easier for me to just go by myself and my wife to stay back with the kids. Plus, with our son being autistic, we would have just been chasing him around the whole time – which I don’t think would have been the best idea. :o
 
skigirl1689 said:
My family was discussing this after my mom and I attended my brother-in-law’s grandma’s funeral this week. I said if I had kids I would try to introduce them to the funeral process at an early age, if possible, before they would have to attend a funeral for a family member just so it wasn’t such a scary thing. My parents couldn’t do that as no one us kids knew died until my grandpa died.

I was 8 when I attended my first funeral, my grandfather’s, and it was kind of traumatic (maybe not the best word) for me as I totally lost it when my dad brought me up to the casket during the visitation at the funeral home. I mean, I’m sure my parents tried to prepare me, but I still had a difficult time. Since then I can’t go up to a family member’s open casket at first…I might do so as the day goes on (where my family is from, visitations are long the day prior to the funeral).

Anyways, since then I’ve went to 7 funerals for my remaining grandparents, three uncles, and an aunt (all prior to graduating from college), plus a handful of others for nonfamily acquaintances and friends. I have a big family. But I knew people in college who never attended a funeral…they are so fortunate not to have had to!

I just am curious as to when you or your kids were introduced to funerals.

On a different note, has anyone been to a funeral where the casket was closed in front of the congregation? Witnessing it for the first time this week was a little unexpected…the funerals I have attended prior to this one always had the pre-service (Mass) viewing in the entrance of the church, so everyone was already in the sanctuary when they closed the casket. It just had me wondering.
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I was first introduced to what a funeral was when I was five years old, when my Papa died of Lou Gehrig’s. I don’t remember much of it, just sitting next to my Aunt, wondering why she was crying. There was an open-casket viewing for the adults, but for the children, they closed it. I didn’t attend another viewing/service until I was nearly 15. That one had a huge impact on me, and unfortunately kept me from attending the funeral.
 
We have a large extended family, so we seem to experience a lot of death. We’ve always taken our children to callings and funerals. I think it’s important to not shelter them from the reality of death. Most funerals and callings we attend have open caskets, and the bodies never seem to bother my kids. In fact, when we’ve encountered one with a closed casket, they seem slightly indignant that they can’t see the deceased!
 
One of our duties as Catholics is to pray for the dead. And Children are sometimes the best praying of us.
 
I think I was 8 or 9 when I went to my first wake. It was my mom’s aunt who had died and someone my sister and I only met a handful of times. I don’t remember the wake or viewing the casket but I remember spending most of my time playing around with my sister at the funeral home.

I’ve been to 9 wakes/funerals. The hardest one for me was the death of my grandmother when I was 13. That was the first big loss in my life. I had a hard time figuring out how to handle my emotions. I remember I didn’t cry during either the wake or the funeral, even when my dad went up to give a Eulogy and he cried. I think I was really numb and mentally had checked out during the entire process.
For whatever reason, I vividly remember getting a bad grade for the first time in any class. My grandmother died during winter break and we had a project assignment to do during that break.
I didn’t do the assignment then and I didn’t do it even after my teacher gave me extra time to finish it. It counted for a good chunk of my grade and it suffered for it. It didn’t really bother me that much.

My eldest has been to one funeral. She was 11 months old and it was for her great-grandmother. She loved to crawl and spent the entire time doing cirlcles around the funeral home while I chased after her.

I don’t think children should be sheltered from a death in the family.
Despite having a un-emotional reaction to my grandmother’s death, I’m glad I went. It helped me process her death and understand what death was and that it was permanent and it gave me hope that she was in a better place.

It’s one the reasons why I love Catholicism. We can pray for the dead and for their souls. It gives me comfort and solace and I think it’s a very wonderful way to move through the grieving process.
 
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