Death & Funerals: Children

    In these series of posts I will be looking informally at the taboo nature of death and funerals.  This post looks at the relationship of children to death and funerals.

Children, Funerals & Death

    Children and funerals are a touchy and controversial topic.  Many are hesitant, reluctant even, to combine the two.  Choosing to keep children as far from funerals and death as possible.

    However some companies like Macquarie Park Crematorium and Eastern Suburbs funeral home are making a deliberate and conscious space for children.

Carrying a Child Coffin

    As odd as it sounds to many I have been attending funerals in my spare time.  It is part of my ethnographic work into the funeral industry and the funeral process.  To learn through observation and participation as much as literary research (which there is little of for this industry).

    So recently I was at a child's funeral and the way they carried the coffin was quite surprising, and a little worrying.