If refusing to see your dying parent "wrong"?

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Vader@sopuli.xyz⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

If a non-abusive mother or father has cancer and is on their deathbed, and their son refuses to see them, is that cold, unforgivable, and ‘wrong’? Would it be wrong if the son or daughter celebrated their death?

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klugerama@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Not necessarily.

You didn’t provide any further context, so I will not bother providing further explanation.

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yesman@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I used to work with Hospice. I once witnessed a nurse explain to a patient that their son wasn’t going to visit. The patient did not take it well. I asked her about it later and she said that conversation was common.

I don’t know wright or wrong, but I do know that death regularly fails to overcome estrangement.

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Archangel1313@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
If the parent was “non-abusive”(?), why would the child refuse to see them? If the implication is that the parent did nothing to warrant this refusal, then yes…the child is a special kind of asshole for “celebrating their death”.

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CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
If you actually mean celebrated a non abusive parents death yeah that’s wrong, that’s psycho level stuff.

If you mean more like feels relieved by I think that’s way more of a gray area.

I still think it’s bizarre to not visit them regardless especially if they didn’t do anything bad towards you but feeling relief over a death of a loved one isn’t inherently problematic.

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southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Wrong is such a loaded term. And the text of your post shows why. It’s linking “wrong” with a specific set of traits. Then, there’s the follow up question that’s kinda fucking weird, but that’s a different issue.

So, for something to be “wrong” it has to violate some set of standards that set limits on “right”

And there is no single, universal consensus on the obligations of an adult child to their parents. It’s all situational. Abuse would only be one factor in trying to determine wrongness. Same with it being unforgivable or not. Cold would be about the Indian internal emotional state and is separate from the other two.

So, here’s what it comes down to. If the choice is made in a vacuum, fully on the basis of the convenience of the child of the dying person, you’d be pushing into a wrong by most moral and ethical systems. But if there’s other reasons, it can push things back into being acceptable.

I personally don’t hold that being “bedside” for a death is inherently a good act. It can be worse for everyone involved. The same is true for the concept of a final goodbye. It isn’t inherently of benefit to anyone. It can be. And, very often, it ends up being the wise decision because you only get one chance at it. But it absolutely isn’t inherently right, the way something like feeding a starving person is likely to be. It’s a choice. One that has to be weighed situationally.

I still tend to say that for most people, that final visit is likely to be more beneficial than negative, even though it can be traumatic. That’s even true when abuse is a factor. Closure has become a bit of a trope, but it really is a net positive. Part of death is that it can be difficult to really accept the fact of it if it happens “off screen”.

Being there, seeing the reality of it adds weight to the fact of the death that makes it real, even if it isn’t for the final moments of death.

Now, celebrating death? I tend to think that if someone is celebrating the death of a parent, there’s a significant reason. Usually either that the parent was fucking horrible, or that the child is. Celebrating death can be more neutral in theory, but in practice it’s never a good look.

Fwiw, I’ve been bedside at deaths. More than I should have. It hasn’t been my parents yet, but some close family. A lot of patients as well. I can’t say I regret any of them I was there for. But I regret not having been there for some that I missed.

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MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Stupid question. No where close to required info to get legit responses.

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FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Yes it would be wrong. By what possible reasoning would it not be wrong? You made sure to tell us the parents are non-abusive, because otherwise people would say “yeah, it’s okay to be mean to your parents if they’re abusive”. You know people are going to tell you you…uh I mean the hypothetical offspring, is a fucking sociopath. Is that the answer you’re looking for? Yes, it’s wrong to be indifferent to your parents suffering and it’s wrong to be happy about their deaths, unless they did something to deserve it

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- DahGangalang@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Hey friend, this is c/NoStupidQuestions.Ease up on the tone.
  
  I know I feel for OP’s take since I feel largely the same way about my Mom. I’m hesitant to enumerate my grievances against her, but I don’t think her actions really ever quite amounted to “abuse”.
  
  There’s been a lot of keeping secrets, lying, asking me to keep secrets and lie on her behalf, insisting I maintain relationships with legit bad people in the extended family, feeding the worst tendencies of people in the near family, and just being manipulative in general. And that’s before we talk about her probable (though never proven) cheating on my old man or her heavy marijuana use during mine and my siblings early childhood (older sis talks about her doing things that probably hit the level of abusive neglect while high for days at a time, but that was before I can remember).
  
  So yeah, now that I’m in my mid-late 30’s, I don’t really talk to her much. I don’t think I hit the level of “would enjoy her suffering”, but I don’t intend to go out of my way to see her again.
  
  I hope I’m the outlier in the sense of my story is rare, but I do see why others can not love their parents, even when they weren’t abusive in the strictest sense.
  
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  - FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I see you assume op is a normal person. There’s a history of posts on this and other accounts (some deleted) that indicate op is a sociopath. They have said repeatedly they care about nobody but themself and maybe a romantic partner. They find it unthinkable to care about anyone else in your family. They have said they’ll celebrate children dying because of how little They care about anyone. Even in the context of this post, they’re not only expressing indifference, they’re trying to get a reaction by saying at the end they’d be happy if their parents died, even when the parents clearly did nothing to them, they just don’t care about others
    
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Tedesche@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It depends on the reasons they’re choosing not to visit them.

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kungen@feddit.nu ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
What is this situation?

If your reasoning is that you “want to remember them in their healthy days”, you will regret not seeing them. Spend as much time with the people you love, as that time won’t come back.

But if your reasoning is that you simply don’t care about them, whatever… but it’s pretty cold, as I assume they’d get happiness from you visiting?

And they’re apparently non-abusive, and yet you want to celebrate their death? I personally want my funeral to be like those African parties instead of depressing shit, but I assume this isn’t what you mean…

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- FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Op has a deleted post saying they’d celebrate children dying of cancer
  
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  - nocturne@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    99% certain op is also grimreaper and pixelnomad, both of whom are obsessed with virginity, age gaps, gatekeeping comic fandom, rich person with poor person relationships.
    
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  - HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Just your friendly neihbourhood psycopath
    
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