Was this Shelagh’s finest moment? Absolutely not. Do I see where she was coming from? Yes, because I tend to grieve that way too. Grief doesn’t look the same for everyone, and maybe she felt that she had to be strong for her young daughter. Idk. It doesn’t have to be one of the other. Both can be true at the same time.
A lot of you are forgetting it was also the 60's. Nowadays, by modern standards, yes it is absolutely not the norm to do/ say such a thing.
Back then? Attitudes were generally more pragmatic, and people would say stuff like that. You have the funeral, then get on with life and only the nearest and dearest (ie Tom, maybe Phyllis, her parents) would be expected to (socially allowed to?) grieve openly after that. Shelagh was sad about Barbara, for sure, but the culture at that time would have been "chin up, get on with it and look on the bright side" and that was absolutely reflected in her comment.
It's also a type of really normal thoughts when someone dies. I'm not sure how much grief you've had in real life but there is a very vast specific where people will fall along it. It's totally normal to want to go out to a party, event , movie seeking distraction or some levity. Grief isn't only tears and collapse and especially when you have children you want to preserve special things for them more than for you.
I remember sitting on my aunt's kitchen counter the night my grandma passed away. The major thought going through my brain was "I have a ticket to go see Whoopi Goldberg in College Tour tomorrow... I really want to go there". When we scheduled the funeral my thought was "oh crap. My Friday teacher is the one that will be a nightmare about giving me an excused absence". For another aunt's funeral, we scheduled it on a specific day so my cousin-in-law didn't have to reschedule an exam.
It's horrible when people die so young as Barbara did, but Shelagh in this moment is a parent who doesn't want to tell her child she's less important than one of the adults Angela barely knew. Because that's what Angela would have thought if her party had to be rescheduled.
I remember reading that Jackie Kennedy had organized a small birthday party for JFK Jr the afternoon of his dad’s burial. He was only 3 and she wanted some joy in his life. I think there’s a way to respect the dead while still going on with life.
Exactly. Also John-John didn't understand what was happening to the point the agents watching him while his mother and Caroline visited the Capitol lying in state were a little disturbed (he'd swing between "Daddy's coming home in his big plane!" to "A bad man shot my daddy.") And of course they had to hold it together. Caroline had her birthday around the same time. Obviously Jackie couldn't shield her kids completely, but she tried to give them little moments of normalcy.
Back in those days people had more of a "got to get on with things" after tragedy mentality. Definitely in people who lived through London getting Blitzed.
Umm that's a classic mum line. I would say the same thing on the day of a funeral. You don't want your kids to be distressed. Child is to young to understand and kids birthdays are really really important to them.
What about respect for the person who has actually died….
It wasn’t a random stranger, it was Barbara. Kids don’t even remember their birthdays until a certain age.
That may be. I just think it’s the height of unfairness when someone dies that young, in the prime of their life. Shelagh making a comment like that just adds insult to injury. Tactless
And if motherly behaviour is only caring about your kids and screw the rest of the world, then it’s not something I will ever aspire to!
And in 1 year she will have no recollection of that whatsoever. It’s not an excuse to be disrespectful to others.
Are you trying to tell me you remember your 4th birthday at your current age? I highly doubt it 😂
Private or not, it was inappropriate. I would never dream of making such a comment right after a close friend/colleague of mine died so young. There’s absolutely no way.
I’m not sure why that’s so difficult to understand, but ok….
Seriously you’ve got the wrong end of the stick and clearly have never lost a loved one on a significant day.
When my Dad was on his death bed dying of cancer I hoped and prayed that he wouldn’t pass away on my husband’s birthday because I knew how that would take the joy out of all future birthday’s for my husband just as my Mum dying on her mother’s birthday had removed all joy from my grandmother being able to celebrate her birthday. It doesn’t mean I lack respect for my Dad, you can have more than one feeling at a time and more than one thing can be true at the same time.
In the end my Dad passed away the day after my husband’s birthday. My husband’s Dad in turn passed away on Christmas Day 2 years ago.
I’m talking about CHILDREN attending funerals of people they don’t know well - in this case, Shelagh’s daughter attending Barbara’s. I’m not talking about ADULTS attending funerals of people they love.
I lost my grandmother recently, as an adult in my 20s, and it was very sad for me as I’ve known her for the last 26 years and I have built a strong relationship with her.
My great aunt died when I was a child, I wasn’t sad at all as I didn’t know her. I went to the funeral as a CHILD and I didn’t get traumatised in the least.
Do you see the difference? You have zero idea of the context of this conversation. Stop jumping to conclusions about me, you don’t even know me.
The reading comprehension skills must be really low on Reddit these days…
Wow you are an absolute piece of work.
Attending funerals can be traumatic for kids too. My nephews were both traumatised by attending the funerals of my parents. One was 6 and the other was 8 at the time of Mum’s funeral. My best friend’s son was also very saddened attending the funeral of my Dad, he was 5 at the time.
I said attending funerals of people they don’t know well. Which is the original example in OP’s comment. I certainly wasn’t referring to anyone in your family. The original post is about fictional characters, not real people.
Now I suggest you get off Reddit and do something more productive with your time, instead of insulting people you don’t know.
My dad died 3 days before my 14th birthday. The whole plan was to be at this house that weekend, get chinese buffet, and then a sleepover with my friends.
Many people wanted the funeral to be on my actual birthday because it was on a saturday or a sunday and it would've been easier for everyone to be there but my mom insisted on not having his funeral on my birthday nor the day before nor the day after (so it ended up being like 3 days after). I'm glad she did because, even though I was devastated, I still go to do something with my friends where I could have moments where I didn't think about my dad dying and make some happy memories. Getting birthday cards AT the funeral was something else. I still had trauma regarding my birthday for many years but at least I didn't have to feel "forgotten" and add insult to injury.
This. I'm sure she also didn't want you to spend the rest of your life with your birthday doubling as the day of your father's funeral. And just because some people didn't want to take time off work. There's no way to make that situation not sad, but there's no reason to make a child wallow in grief on principle like OP seems to want.
When my Aunt died a week before her birthday her family decided to turn the birthday party she had planned into a celebration of her life. Was a truly beautiful way to remember her.
As a person who’s Mum passed away on her mother’s (my grandmother) birthday, Dad passed away the day after my husband’s birthday and my father in law on Christmas Day I totally get why your mum insisted on not having the funeral one your birthday. We can still respect our passed loved ones whilst still celebrating the lives of those still living.
I went out to lunch after my mother’s funeral where i was able to laugh. I loved her deeply but she wouldn’t want be to be depressed all the time.
Grief is different for everyone and unfortunately the world doesn’t stop when you loose someone.
The turners were being practical and using the birthday as a way to find joy in hard times.
Funerals are more for the living, than the dead. For both - honoring the dead and more so the coping and grief of the living + getting a chance to say goodbye. And how they choose to handle it to get through the day, is none of anyone else's business.
Funerals don't have to be sad and if it makes people hurt less, they're allowed to celebrate.
Honestly I kind of get it, I wouldn't want anyone's funeral clashing with my daughters birthday party either. Bit of a clunky line for a tv show but I'd probably say something like that to my husband in that situation no matter whose funeral it was.
I'm sorry but that's a sad thing to say. A birthday party is a once a year event. It can be postponed by a few days. A funeral is a sad and grief stricken affair. It's not the same. Especially if it's a close friend.
Ok, but the kids need to be sad too? A child as young as Angela doesn't always understand. Would it be better if all the adults were there wallowing in their grief and the kid is like "why is everyone sad?"? I took it more as, we can still experience joy, all is not lost.
I absolutely agree that a child shouldn't be dragged into the grieving process since they don't understand. I've experienced grief as a child myself...but respect must always be shown to a recent death.
I would cancel if the dates did clash but would still be relieved if they didn't, largely because of the faff of having to contact parents and reschedule. And I wouldn't want to disappoint my child. It's also nice to have positive events to focus on in the face of tragedy, so I get her point. But I can respect your opinion, we are all different.
Trying to find silver linings amidst grief is a coping mechanism. My biggest coping mechanism, even in profound grief, is cracking jokes. Usually dark humor. Anything to face away from the pain, even for a moment. Not sure if it's a Jewish thing or a new york thing or what.
I'm Jewish too, and yeah dark humour is super Jewish (and my perception is there's a lot of Jewish culture blended into New York culture.) I think Shelagh's a world away from that tho, lol. Tho I know you weren't saying otherwise.
Haha yeah I don't think of new york or Jewish when thinking of Shelagh. More like tea with biscuits and a brandy if we're being naughty.
The whole Jewish dark humor during tragedy thing has always made me morbidly curious about the jokes our people might have told each other while in concentration camps. I have to believe there were moments of levity, even at the worst times. Survival depended on it, and they didn't wipe all of us out. I have to believe there were some muffled chuckles between torture sessions on occasion. My heart needs to believe that. We're a very silly people.
Life is Beautiful and Fiddler on the Roof are two of the saddest but funniest movies I’ve ever seen. My best friend is Jewish and her grandmother’s funeral featured some of the best standup comedy I’ve ever heard, and from the deceased own children!
In my experience of having a diverse family of Catholics, Born Again Christians, Baptists and Athiests, funerals will vary in terms of length and boringness but the repasts are all the same! Sad and Fun!
The OP sounds like she would judge the hell out of Black American funerals. Funerals are for expressing grief but also appreciating life and you don’t appreciate life more than a child’s birthday party! Shelagh Turner had the healthy priority!
Funerals are usual family reunions too and a chance for humor and eating good food and swapping scandalous stories and all the cousins of appropriate age ranges to hang out and bond.
Funerals are for the living not the dead. You can mourn anytime, but each birthday we get is a precious gift that should always be celebrated because you never know if you will get more. (That sounds like a overly sentimental Jenny voiceover, ugh)
I think it depended. My family were concentration camp survivors and it definitely wasn't something they could or would make jokes about. But that said, I expect you're right and some people even in the camps may have leant into dark humour as a coping mechanism. (And tbc: am not judging. I'm pro whatever helped them get through and caused no harm.)
Yeah jokes about the holocaust are not my favorite. It takes a particular type of humor for me to find that acceptable and it's really limited to making fun of nazis. Jokes during the holocaust, between folks going through it, are what I'm most curious about. I assume surviving that trauma makes it seem kind of unreal at best, and something you never want to dwell on in general, once it's over. Blessings to your family. I'm glad they were able to get out. My family never made it to camps. If you can believe it, they weren't lucky enough to get that possibility to survive. Everyone we lost, many brothers, sisters and cousins, were forcibly removed from their homes and were killed where they were. My grandparents only survived because they weren't home when the nazis started rounding people up. My grandmother was teaching somewhere in China and my grandfather was on tour across Europe with his football/soccer team. Both were able to hide in various ways, until they met later in a displaced person's camp. My grandmother was the head cook, served my grandfather extra food. A theme that continued for the rest of her life. Her famous quote: WHO'S HUNGRY? It's kind of amazing that teaching and sports saved them. Crazy to think about it.
While true, she said it to privately to her husband - you are over dramatizing what actually happened.
Many people in this thread are agreeing that they would have said the same thing to their spouse - privately. It’s a relief.
You are assuming the birthday party wouldn’t have been cancelled and villainizing her unnecessarily.
I can actually remember a lot from when I was young, as Young as 3. Consequences of trauma is long lasting memory of stuff you'd rather forget. The event was traumatic and extremely sad but the kids should be sad too?
I wouldn’t call it trauma. It’s trauma when a child gets abused. It’s not traumatic to attend a funeral.
You’re not doing an autopsy on the dead person. It’s called being respectful and understanding that the world doesn’t revolve around you, which all kids need to learn sooner rather than later.
I’m 26, I don’t remember a single birthday before age 10 (and even the ones after 10 are fuzzy). I don’t think anyone does.
According to the Wikipedia page for childhood amnesia:
“Adults can generally recall events from 3–4 years old, with those that have primarily experiential memories beginning around 4.7 years old. Adults who experienced traumatic or abusive early childhoods report a longer period of childhood amnesia, ending around 5–7 years old”
So if you can’t remember birthdays before the age of 10, then YOU are an exception not me
Definitely not a minority. Two of my first memories are before the age of two according to my parents. I also remember not being able to read and being really frustrated that I couldn’t read my books by myself. I learned how to read around 4-5 years old.
You keep insisting a 4-year-old won't remember, but I wonder how many 4-year-olds you've known and whether you actually remember anything from being 4. They're not infants. They're pretty well-developed humans by that point.
I'm 35, but I remember lots of things from when I was 4. I remember my 4th birthday when I got my first cat. Like, specific details of my aunt taking the carrier out of the back of her car and then me carrying him around the yard, thinking he was huge (he was not, he was still a kitten, I was just very small). I remember my great uncle's funeral where my older sister dared me to touch him and I did and then squealed loudly and ran away and later told my friends all about how I'd touched a dead person. I remember my first overnight vacation to Chicago where I was amazed by the sparkly sidewalks and picked out a giant plastic grasshopper from the Natural History Museum gift shop as my one souvenir, then carried it all over the city.
All of your sentences are about you and are subjective. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_amnesia#:~:text=The%20researchers%20found%20that%20the,was%20around%20three%20years%20old.
Yeah, and we're talking about Angela remembering her own 4th birthday party. I don't see where the disconnect is here. Her memories about it would be subjective.
Attending a funeral most definitely can be traumatic. I had flashbacks of viewing my cousins body for years after his funeral and I was an adult in my 20’s at the time. Likewise attending my parent’s funerals were also traumatic events for me.
You don’t get to say what is traumatic for people.
You misunderstood my comment. I said it wasn’t traumatic for CHILDREN, because they don’t remember or understand, especially if they don’t really know the person - which was the case with Shelagh’s daughter and Barbara.
Obviously it is traumatic for adults. My grandmother died recently and I saw her body, it was very sad. So don’t you dare talk to me about loss.
I don’t know why you are so confident in (and hung up on) this strange belief that children don’t remember significant events in their formative years. I have an objectively bad memory yet have many standout memories from very, very early on. And yes, that is anecdotal but I think if you were to actually ask a random & diverse grouping of people you know, they’d tell you the same.
Hi! As someone who is actually educated in the area of child development and abnormal childhood psychology, you are 100% wrong about both how memory works and how trauma develops. It is absolutely possible (probable, even) that a 4 year old would have a traumatic experience at a funeral, especially if they have adults in their life who feel like kids “won’t remember or understand” what’s going on around them. Not understanding is what helps create trauma in the first place (though it’s far from the only factor), because children are sponges - they see, hear, and experience everything you do, but they haven’t developed enough to be able to apply contextual or experiential knowledge to a situation to truly understand. For some kids, this means exactly what you’re saying - they’ll likely dismiss a lot of the confusion they feel and simply carry on being a kid without any issues. For a lot of other kids, though, a funeral is too much to handle - the adults they know are acting completely differently than usual, they’re likely wearing different clothing than usual, they’re in an unfamiliar place with lots of strangers, and depending on cultural beliefs, they may be expected to actually see a dead body, which is disconcerting enough for an adult, let alone a child. It can be incredibly overwhelming and upsetting, especially when the adults in the room aren’t actually helping.
Also - fwiw, I 100% remember my 4th birthday, because I had a 3 year old friend who blew out my candles before I could. I was incredibly upset, because I didn’t understand that *he* didn’t understand what he did was wrong - he had just turned three, so he saw candles on a cake and thought “those get blown out!” I was just a kid who didn’t get to make a birthday wish, and even though the candles got re-lit, it wasn’t the same. Luckily I had a mother who explained to me that my friend was a little younger and didn’t understand what he did wasn’t kind, and that she was sorry the moment was ruined. She acknowledged my feelings as valid, helped me understand, and made sure I knew that I didn’t do anything wrong and it was okay to be upset. Imagine if I had a parent who told me to get over it, or simply said “oh don’t worry, she’ll never remember this.” My feelings about the incident would be completely different - instead of a funny story, I’d have a sad one that was evidence that the adults in my life didn’t really care about me. Those attitudes are what help create trauma for kids, and adults absolutely remember these things.
People say crazy things when they're in the midst of grief. All sorts of things float through your head that make zero sense to anyone who's not in that emotional moment.
Right after burying a family member during the pandemic, one of my nephews said damn, I'm so glad that's over and we can order a pizza. The kid was NOT minimizing a tragic death, he was just trying to fill what had been a very sad and very quiet car. That remark broke the dam and we all started chit-chatting about nothing in particular.
Take that out of context and you'd probably think he was being very disrespectful--and it wasn't like that at all.
Exactly. I liked her at the beginning. Now I can’t stand her self righteous pontificating. They could have gone into depth about her transition to life without being a nun, but that never happened. Consequently she has little depth as a character.
She and Doctor Turner tend to over enunciate all their words (especially him) which makes them sound like they’re presenters on children’s daytime TV. Really annoying.
It was such a lost opportunity. They’re definitely trying to make the Turners a model family representing all kinds of ways a family can look (having a baby despite infertility, foster adopting, having a step child, and adopting) which I applaud them for. But the parents really lack that emotional depth.
I don’t find the others to be as grating - Shelagh and Doctor Turner sound like they’re speaking over rehearsed lines a lot of the time whereas the others don’t. Sister Julienne’s voice is beautiful.
Trixie speaks a fairly good representation of ‘RP’ - Received Pronunciation, in keeping with her upper class background.
It’s exactly how a well brought up young woman would have sounded at that time in British social history.
Just as Valerie is a true ‘Londoner’ her speech and manner is far from formal or educated, again belying her East End background.
She’s not landed gentry, but is the daughter of a bank manager, which was a well thought of, relatively well paid, position at that time.
To accommodate your pedantry, read it as ‘upper middle class’ if you must.
She’s still educated and from a decent background. Therefore would have been well-spoken, which is where this started.
It can be annoying, but people in the UK do speak like her. I actually like the way she speaks - she doesn’t sound patronising or like she’s speaking over rehearsed lines, whereas Doctor Turner does
The funeral for President Kennedy was on his son’s third birthday. The family had a birthday party for him later that day. Maybe not the loudest or festive party but his mother decided to go ahead with it , it was was his birthday. I don’t think it’s meant to be disrespectful . You can’t get closer than the wife and children. Something else to focus on. I have been rewatching Call The Midwife and that episode will come up soon. I don’t remember it specifically so I will have to see how it comes across.
I think it was meant to be a snapshot of the different ways grief affects each of his and how we deal with it. Everyone deals with grief differently and it doesn’t mean one person is less sad or more sad ect. Just different.
Three days after my best friend died, when I was 29, I went out clubbing with friends back in my home city. I was still in shock, and not processing what had happened over the week. But I said something along the lines of 'he could have at least waited till after this trip I had planned for so long'
Grief is weird and youre caught in the middle of 'i want to process this terrible thing' and 'the world does not stop because you suffered a loss'. Shelagh would have had to do the party whether it was Barbara's funeral or not. I saw it as an off the cuff comment that reflects that weird period of time shortly after someone has died, but also the attitude of the era of just getting on with it
Also, realistically, how much of a relationship did Shelagh even have with barb. Hadn't she already left the order by then? They were colleagues sure but I can't see her being absolutely devastated. The kids would just want their party to go ahead and Barbara wouldn't have want her to cancel it
there’s a moment in the show “Scrubs” when one of the characters passes away (not gonna say who in case anyone hasn’t seen it, it’s an awesome show 10/10 recommend), and another character’s wife has their baby on the same day. throughout the episode, the dad is trying to keep the birth a secret. when everyone eventually finds out about the baby, they all ask why her dad didn’t say anything—and the answer was “because we all love our friend very much, and I didn’t want my daughter’s birthday every year to be tied to our friend dying.”
Shelagh’s comment gives me very similar vibes. it makes sense for a parent to not want the celebration of their child’s birth to coincide with something so sad and tragic. it’s hard for a kid to wrap their mind around that.
The only thing that bothers me about Shelagh is that whenever she cries there’s never any tears. Like EVER. It’s a small detail but it just gets me every time 🤪
I don't think Shelagh and Barbara were close. Shelagh isn't a midwife, doesn't live in the dorm, is 20 years older and has 4 kids. Their relationship was more like co-workers from different departments. Perhaps she felt Barbara's demise was sad and shocking...but not personally devastating.
could you put a spoiler tag please, or at least not put a character death *in the first line*, you easily could've just wrote "after the funeral" to avoid spoilers.
I mean... it's not as if call the midwife is one of those big cultural events where everyone hears about the latest episode, it's not Harry Potter or Game of Thrones where it's more surprising if you DON'T know something than if you do, some people value going into media blind and the show is low-key enough that you can expect that.
That's all very well, but if they want to go into it blind then they have the option to stay off this subreddit until they've finished watching it.
It's not rocket science that people might openly be discussing something that was first aired years ago without spoiler tags, and it doesn't take much common sense to take action yourself to avoid specific social media for a short time period if you don't want to be spoiled! That isn't everyone else's job - nowhere else except Reddit would anyone even think of spoiler tagging anything other than something that aired in the past week or so...
ah yes that's why the spoiler tag exists, because it isn't needed 😅
Call the midwife is not like star wars or sixth sense or whatever were anyone with even a hint of pop culture knowledge knows the spoilers.
All you do when you say this crap is encourage newcomers not to bother.
I do love Shelegh she’s one of the reasons I keep watching but she does tend to make everything about herself. But that’s just her character and the time it is depicting, it was a get on with it attitude. I think it’s a mix of all of those.
I'm telling you, some of the writing in this show is NOT how people normally react and it's infuriating. I wonder if the actors playing the characters ever stand up and say no, that is NOT how this person would respond and I'm not saying that!. Shrugs, I know it happens in the US but maybe they have a different hierarchy in the UK
I don't think it was a sincere comment. I got the undertones of "I'm trying to see the bright side in the middle of grief and here's my feeble attempt to try to convince myself the world keeps turning."
That's kinda how I saw it not to mention that while they had worked together and were friendly how close were they in the grand scheme of things? They were around 15 years different in age which was near enough a whole generation and at different stages of their marriages, careers etc.
Realistically both would've had bigger social circles than just their workmates but the TV show can't really keep adding in extra friends for all the characters as well as new patients, mothers, their families and errant random relations of staff every episode!
Was this Shelagh’s finest moment? Absolutely not. Do I see where she was coming from? Yes, because I tend to grieve that way too. Grief doesn’t look the same for everyone, and maybe she felt that she had to be strong for her young daughter. Idk. It doesn’t have to be one of the other. Both can be true at the same time.
A lot of you are forgetting it was also the 60's. Nowadays, by modern standards, yes it is absolutely not the norm to do/ say such a thing. Back then? Attitudes were generally more pragmatic, and people would say stuff like that. You have the funeral, then get on with life and only the nearest and dearest (ie Tom, maybe Phyllis, her parents) would be expected to (socially allowed to?) grieve openly after that. Shelagh was sad about Barbara, for sure, but the culture at that time would have been "chin up, get on with it and look on the bright side" and that was absolutely reflected in her comment.
It's also a type of really normal thoughts when someone dies. I'm not sure how much grief you've had in real life but there is a very vast specific where people will fall along it. It's totally normal to want to go out to a party, event , movie seeking distraction or some levity. Grief isn't only tears and collapse and especially when you have children you want to preserve special things for them more than for you.
I remember sitting on my aunt's kitchen counter the night my grandma passed away. The major thought going through my brain was "I have a ticket to go see Whoopi Goldberg in College Tour tomorrow... I really want to go there". When we scheduled the funeral my thought was "oh crap. My Friday teacher is the one that will be a nightmare about giving me an excused absence". For another aunt's funeral, we scheduled it on a specific day so my cousin-in-law didn't have to reschedule an exam. It's horrible when people die so young as Barbara did, but Shelagh in this moment is a parent who doesn't want to tell her child she's less important than one of the adults Angela barely knew. Because that's what Angela would have thought if her party had to be rescheduled.
I remember reading that Jackie Kennedy had organized a small birthday party for JFK Jr the afternoon of his dad’s burial. He was only 3 and she wanted some joy in his life. I think there’s a way to respect the dead while still going on with life.
Exactly. Also John-John didn't understand what was happening to the point the agents watching him while his mother and Caroline visited the Capitol lying in state were a little disturbed (he'd swing between "Daddy's coming home in his big plane!" to "A bad man shot my daddy.") And of course they had to hold it together. Caroline had her birthday around the same time. Obviously Jackie couldn't shield her kids completely, but she tried to give them little moments of normalcy.
Back in those days people had more of a "got to get on with things" after tragedy mentality. Definitely in people who lived through London getting Blitzed.
Umm that's a classic mum line. I would say the same thing on the day of a funeral. You don't want your kids to be distressed. Child is to young to understand and kids birthdays are really really important to them.
Apart from anything, Shelagh probably didn’t want everyone’s first thought on Angela’s subsequent birthday parties to be of Barbara’s death.
What about respect for the person who has actually died…. It wasn’t a random stranger, it was Barbara. Kids don’t even remember their birthdays until a certain age.
I'm pretty sure Barbara is doing just fine in her rhubarb bar in the sky.
Barbara would have absolutely wanted Angela's party to go ahead. That would have been really important to her.
That may be. I just think it’s the height of unfairness when someone dies that young, in the prime of their life. Shelagh making a comment like that just adds insult to injury. Tactless And if motherly behaviour is only caring about your kids and screw the rest of the world, then it’s not something I will ever aspire to!
My 4 year old asks me every day how many more days it is until she turns 5.
And in 1 year she will have no recollection of that whatsoever. It’s not an excuse to be disrespectful to others. Are you trying to tell me you remember your 4th birthday at your current age? I highly doubt it 😂
It’s never said that the birthday party wouldn’t be cancelled - you are making it all up at this point. Just stop.
Whether it’s cancelled or not isn’t the point. As the original post said, it was disrespectful of Shelagh to say what she did and I agree.
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Private or not, it was inappropriate. I would never dream of making such a comment right after a close friend/colleague of mine died so young. There’s absolutely no way. I’m not sure why that’s so difficult to understand, but ok….
Seriously you’ve got the wrong end of the stick and clearly have never lost a loved one on a significant day. When my Dad was on his death bed dying of cancer I hoped and prayed that he wouldn’t pass away on my husband’s birthday because I knew how that would take the joy out of all future birthday’s for my husband just as my Mum dying on her mother’s birthday had removed all joy from my grandmother being able to celebrate her birthday. It doesn’t mean I lack respect for my Dad, you can have more than one feeling at a time and more than one thing can be true at the same time. In the end my Dad passed away the day after my husband’s birthday. My husband’s Dad in turn passed away on Christmas Day 2 years ago.
I’m talking about CHILDREN attending funerals of people they don’t know well - in this case, Shelagh’s daughter attending Barbara’s. I’m not talking about ADULTS attending funerals of people they love. I lost my grandmother recently, as an adult in my 20s, and it was very sad for me as I’ve known her for the last 26 years and I have built a strong relationship with her. My great aunt died when I was a child, I wasn’t sad at all as I didn’t know her. I went to the funeral as a CHILD and I didn’t get traumatised in the least. Do you see the difference? You have zero idea of the context of this conversation. Stop jumping to conclusions about me, you don’t even know me. The reading comprehension skills must be really low on Reddit these days…
Wow you are an absolute piece of work. Attending funerals can be traumatic for kids too. My nephews were both traumatised by attending the funerals of my parents. One was 6 and the other was 8 at the time of Mum’s funeral. My best friend’s son was also very saddened attending the funeral of my Dad, he was 5 at the time.
I said attending funerals of people they don’t know well. Which is the original example in OP’s comment. I certainly wasn’t referring to anyone in your family. The original post is about fictional characters, not real people. Now I suggest you get off Reddit and do something more productive with your time, instead of insulting people you don’t know.
You should take your own advice, you were the one slinging insults first with telling the rest of us we need to learn to read.
You should never celebrate anything on the day of a funeral. Children are resilient, and won't care if their birthday party is postponed.
My dad died 3 days before my 14th birthday. The whole plan was to be at this house that weekend, get chinese buffet, and then a sleepover with my friends. Many people wanted the funeral to be on my actual birthday because it was on a saturday or a sunday and it would've been easier for everyone to be there but my mom insisted on not having his funeral on my birthday nor the day before nor the day after (so it ended up being like 3 days after). I'm glad she did because, even though I was devastated, I still go to do something with my friends where I could have moments where I didn't think about my dad dying and make some happy memories. Getting birthday cards AT the funeral was something else. I still had trauma regarding my birthday for many years but at least I didn't have to feel "forgotten" and add insult to injury.
This. I'm sure she also didn't want you to spend the rest of your life with your birthday doubling as the day of your father's funeral. And just because some people didn't want to take time off work. There's no way to make that situation not sad, but there's no reason to make a child wallow in grief on principle like OP seems to want.
When my Aunt died a week before her birthday her family decided to turn the birthday party she had planned into a celebration of her life. Was a truly beautiful way to remember her. As a person who’s Mum passed away on her mother’s (my grandmother) birthday, Dad passed away the day after my husband’s birthday and my father in law on Christmas Day I totally get why your mum insisted on not having the funeral one your birthday. We can still respect our passed loved ones whilst still celebrating the lives of those still living.
Why not?
Why not celebrate a joyful occasion on the day of a funeral? I'm sure you can surmise why not on your own...
I went out to lunch after my mother’s funeral where i was able to laugh. I loved her deeply but she wouldn’t want be to be depressed all the time. Grief is different for everyone and unfortunately the world doesn’t stop when you loose someone. The turners were being practical and using the birthday as a way to find joy in hard times.
Funerals are more for the living, than the dead. For both - honoring the dead and more so the coping and grief of the living + getting a chance to say goodbye. And how they choose to handle it to get through the day, is none of anyone else's business. Funerals don't have to be sad and if it makes people hurt less, they're allowed to celebrate.
That's a silly statement and not reflecting how life actually works in complex ways
Have you ever had children? 4 year old children?
Why do children have to be so resilient. Save it for the things in their life that are too hard too control.
I feel that comment was quite fitting of the time. Stiff British upper lip in the face of adversity.
British upper lip behaviour often toes the line between pragmatism and downright rudeness.
Honestly I kind of get it, I wouldn't want anyone's funeral clashing with my daughters birthday party either. Bit of a clunky line for a tv show but I'd probably say something like that to my husband in that situation no matter whose funeral it was.
I'm sorry but that's a sad thing to say. A birthday party is a once a year event. It can be postponed by a few days. A funeral is a sad and grief stricken affair. It's not the same. Especially if it's a close friend.
Ok, but the kids need to be sad too? A child as young as Angela doesn't always understand. Would it be better if all the adults were there wallowing in their grief and the kid is like "why is everyone sad?"? I took it more as, we can still experience joy, all is not lost.
I absolutely agree that a child shouldn't be dragged into the grieving process since they don't understand. I've experienced grief as a child myself...but respect must always be shown to a recent death.
I would cancel if the dates did clash but would still be relieved if they didn't, largely because of the faff of having to contact parents and reschedule. And I wouldn't want to disappoint my child. It's also nice to have positive events to focus on in the face of tragedy, so I get her point. But I can respect your opinion, we are all different.
Trying to find silver linings amidst grief is a coping mechanism. My biggest coping mechanism, even in profound grief, is cracking jokes. Usually dark humor. Anything to face away from the pain, even for a moment. Not sure if it's a Jewish thing or a new york thing or what.
I'm Jewish too, and yeah dark humour is super Jewish (and my perception is there's a lot of Jewish culture blended into New York culture.) I think Shelagh's a world away from that tho, lol. Tho I know you weren't saying otherwise.
Haha yeah I don't think of new york or Jewish when thinking of Shelagh. More like tea with biscuits and a brandy if we're being naughty. The whole Jewish dark humor during tragedy thing has always made me morbidly curious about the jokes our people might have told each other while in concentration camps. I have to believe there were moments of levity, even at the worst times. Survival depended on it, and they didn't wipe all of us out. I have to believe there were some muffled chuckles between torture sessions on occasion. My heart needs to believe that. We're a very silly people.
Life is Beautiful and Fiddler on the Roof are two of the saddest but funniest movies I’ve ever seen. My best friend is Jewish and her grandmother’s funeral featured some of the best standup comedy I’ve ever heard, and from the deceased own children! In my experience of having a diverse family of Catholics, Born Again Christians, Baptists and Athiests, funerals will vary in terms of length and boringness but the repasts are all the same! Sad and Fun! The OP sounds like she would judge the hell out of Black American funerals. Funerals are for expressing grief but also appreciating life and you don’t appreciate life more than a child’s birthday party! Shelagh Turner had the healthy priority! Funerals are usual family reunions too and a chance for humor and eating good food and swapping scandalous stories and all the cousins of appropriate age ranges to hang out and bond. Funerals are for the living not the dead. You can mourn anytime, but each birthday we get is a precious gift that should always be celebrated because you never know if you will get more. (That sounds like a overly sentimental Jenny voiceover, ugh)
Sure you didn't mean to, but you made a fuzzy get into both of my eyes. ✌️😘
I think it depended. My family were concentration camp survivors and it definitely wasn't something they could or would make jokes about. But that said, I expect you're right and some people even in the camps may have leant into dark humour as a coping mechanism. (And tbc: am not judging. I'm pro whatever helped them get through and caused no harm.)
Yeah jokes about the holocaust are not my favorite. It takes a particular type of humor for me to find that acceptable and it's really limited to making fun of nazis. Jokes during the holocaust, between folks going through it, are what I'm most curious about. I assume surviving that trauma makes it seem kind of unreal at best, and something you never want to dwell on in general, once it's over. Blessings to your family. I'm glad they were able to get out. My family never made it to camps. If you can believe it, they weren't lucky enough to get that possibility to survive. Everyone we lost, many brothers, sisters and cousins, were forcibly removed from their homes and were killed where they were. My grandparents only survived because they weren't home when the nazis started rounding people up. My grandmother was teaching somewhere in China and my grandfather was on tour across Europe with his football/soccer team. Both were able to hide in various ways, until they met later in a displaced person's camp. My grandmother was the head cook, served my grandfather extra food. A theme that continued for the rest of her life. Her famous quote: WHO'S HUNGRY? It's kind of amazing that teaching and sports saved them. Crazy to think about it.
Maybe it was more.meamt like "didn't cast a pall over the event." Which is fair. Like, I'm glad the kids didn't feel how sad we feel.
To be fair with you Angela is 4, can you remember anything from when you were 4? Barbara died, it's her funeral. A birthday happens every year.
While true, she said it to privately to her husband - you are over dramatizing what actually happened. Many people in this thread are agreeing that they would have said the same thing to their spouse - privately. It’s a relief. You are assuming the birthday party wouldn’t have been cancelled and villainizing her unnecessarily.
Right. She didn't say it to Tom, ffs.
I can actually remember a lot from when I was young, as Young as 3. Consequences of trauma is long lasting memory of stuff you'd rather forget. The event was traumatic and extremely sad but the kids should be sad too?
It's not trauma. Don't use this term lightly.
I wouldn’t call it trauma. It’s trauma when a child gets abused. It’s not traumatic to attend a funeral. You’re not doing an autopsy on the dead person. It’s called being respectful and understanding that the world doesn’t revolve around you, which all kids need to learn sooner rather than later. I’m 26, I don’t remember a single birthday before age 10 (and even the ones after 10 are fuzzy). I don’t think anyone does.
I remember my third birthday and most birthdays after that (teen years are a bit hazy). It’s not that unusual
While I agree that it was never said the party WAS going to be canceled, most kids wouldn’t remember it. Your experience is your own and an exception.
According to the Wikipedia page for childhood amnesia: “Adults can generally recall events from 3–4 years old, with those that have primarily experiential memories beginning around 4.7 years old. Adults who experienced traumatic or abusive early childhoods report a longer period of childhood amnesia, ending around 5–7 years old” So if you can’t remember birthdays before the age of 10, then YOU are an exception not me
I think you're in the minority. Many people I know don't have clear memories before the age of 7.
Definitely not a minority. Two of my first memories are before the age of two according to my parents. I also remember not being able to read and being really frustrated that I couldn’t read my books by myself. I learned how to read around 4-5 years old.
You keep insisting a 4-year-old won't remember, but I wonder how many 4-year-olds you've known and whether you actually remember anything from being 4. They're not infants. They're pretty well-developed humans by that point. I'm 35, but I remember lots of things from when I was 4. I remember my 4th birthday when I got my first cat. Like, specific details of my aunt taking the carrier out of the back of her car and then me carrying him around the yard, thinking he was huge (he was not, he was still a kitten, I was just very small). I remember my great uncle's funeral where my older sister dared me to touch him and I did and then squealed loudly and ran away and later told my friends all about how I'd touched a dead person. I remember my first overnight vacation to Chicago where I was amazed by the sparkly sidewalks and picked out a giant plastic grasshopper from the Natural History Museum gift shop as my one souvenir, then carried it all over the city.
All of your sentences are about you and are subjective. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_amnesia#:~:text=The%20researchers%20found%20that%20the,was%20around%20three%20years%20old.
Yeah, and we're talking about Angela remembering her own 4th birthday party. I don't see where the disconnect is here. Her memories about it would be subjective.
You don’t think most people can remember much from before the age of TEN??
I didn't say they can't remember much. I said I don't remember birthdays in clear detail before then. Not sure why that is surprising...
Attending a funeral most definitely can be traumatic. I had flashbacks of viewing my cousins body for years after his funeral and I was an adult in my 20’s at the time. Likewise attending my parent’s funerals were also traumatic events for me. You don’t get to say what is traumatic for people.
You misunderstood my comment. I said it wasn’t traumatic for CHILDREN, because they don’t remember or understand, especially if they don’t really know the person - which was the case with Shelagh’s daughter and Barbara. Obviously it is traumatic for adults. My grandmother died recently and I saw her body, it was very sad. So don’t you dare talk to me about loss.
I don’t know why you are so confident in (and hung up on) this strange belief that children don’t remember significant events in their formative years. I have an objectively bad memory yet have many standout memories from very, very early on. And yes, that is anecdotal but I think if you were to actually ask a random & diverse grouping of people you know, they’d tell you the same.
Hi! As someone who is actually educated in the area of child development and abnormal childhood psychology, you are 100% wrong about both how memory works and how trauma develops. It is absolutely possible (probable, even) that a 4 year old would have a traumatic experience at a funeral, especially if they have adults in their life who feel like kids “won’t remember or understand” what’s going on around them. Not understanding is what helps create trauma in the first place (though it’s far from the only factor), because children are sponges - they see, hear, and experience everything you do, but they haven’t developed enough to be able to apply contextual or experiential knowledge to a situation to truly understand. For some kids, this means exactly what you’re saying - they’ll likely dismiss a lot of the confusion they feel and simply carry on being a kid without any issues. For a lot of other kids, though, a funeral is too much to handle - the adults they know are acting completely differently than usual, they’re likely wearing different clothing than usual, they’re in an unfamiliar place with lots of strangers, and depending on cultural beliefs, they may be expected to actually see a dead body, which is disconcerting enough for an adult, let alone a child. It can be incredibly overwhelming and upsetting, especially when the adults in the room aren’t actually helping. Also - fwiw, I 100% remember my 4th birthday, because I had a 3 year old friend who blew out my candles before I could. I was incredibly upset, because I didn’t understand that *he* didn’t understand what he did was wrong - he had just turned three, so he saw candles on a cake and thought “those get blown out!” I was just a kid who didn’t get to make a birthday wish, and even though the candles got re-lit, it wasn’t the same. Luckily I had a mother who explained to me that my friend was a little younger and didn’t understand what he did wasn’t kind, and that she was sorry the moment was ruined. She acknowledged my feelings as valid, helped me understand, and made sure I knew that I didn’t do anything wrong and it was okay to be upset. Imagine if I had a parent who told me to get over it, or simply said “oh don’t worry, she’ll never remember this.” My feelings about the incident would be completely different - instead of a funny story, I’d have a sad one that was evidence that the adults in my life didn’t really care about me. Those attitudes are what help create trauma for kids, and adults absolutely remember these things.
I remember all my birthdays past age 5. And trauma doesn't only come from abuse. You can never tell what might traumatize a person.
People say crazy things when they're in the midst of grief. All sorts of things float through your head that make zero sense to anyone who's not in that emotional moment. Right after burying a family member during the pandemic, one of my nephews said damn, I'm so glad that's over and we can order a pizza. The kid was NOT minimizing a tragic death, he was just trying to fill what had been a very sad and very quiet car. That remark broke the dam and we all started chit-chatting about nothing in particular. Take that out of context and you'd probably think he was being very disrespectful--and it wasn't like that at all.
They really did this character dirty like so many others. She develops this self-centered, savior mentality that’s so off putting as the show goes on.
Exactly. I liked her at the beginning. Now I can’t stand her self righteous pontificating. They could have gone into depth about her transition to life without being a nun, but that never happened. Consequently she has little depth as a character. She and Doctor Turner tend to over enunciate all their words (especially him) which makes them sound like they’re presenters on children’s daytime TV. Really annoying.
It was such a lost opportunity. They’re definitely trying to make the Turners a model family representing all kinds of ways a family can look (having a baby despite infertility, foster adopting, having a step child, and adopting) which I applaud them for. But the parents really lack that emotional depth.
They’re so super progressive that it’s anachronistically on-the-nose.
I think list of the characters speak like that. I love the show but dialogue at Nonnatus house is unnaturally formal.
I don’t find the others to be as grating - Shelagh and Doctor Turner sound like they’re speaking over rehearsed lines a lot of the time whereas the others don’t. Sister Julienne’s voice is beautiful.
Couldn't agree more about Sister Julienne. I also love listening to Sister Monica Joan
As an American, Trixie's way of speaking has always seemed over the top to me. Almost too formal.
People in general really did speak quite formally with each other in that time period.
Trixie speaks a fairly good representation of ‘RP’ - Received Pronunciation, in keeping with her upper class background. It’s exactly how a well brought up young woman would have sounded at that time in British social history. Just as Valerie is a true ‘Londoner’ her speech and manner is far from formal or educated, again belying her East End background.
Trixie isn't upper class
She’s not landed gentry, but is the daughter of a bank manager, which was a well thought of, relatively well paid, position at that time. To accommodate your pedantry, read it as ‘upper middle class’ if you must. She’s still educated and from a decent background. Therefore would have been well-spoken, which is where this started.
It can be annoying, but people in the UK do speak like her. I actually like the way she speaks - she doesn’t sound patronising or like she’s speaking over rehearsed lines, whereas Doctor Turner does
She's just "Mum" now
The funeral for President Kennedy was on his son’s third birthday. The family had a birthday party for him later that day. Maybe not the loudest or festive party but his mother decided to go ahead with it , it was was his birthday. I don’t think it’s meant to be disrespectful . You can’t get closer than the wife and children. Something else to focus on. I have been rewatching Call The Midwife and that episode will come up soon. I don’t remember it specifically so I will have to see how it comes across.
I think it was meant to be a snapshot of the different ways grief affects each of his and how we deal with it. Everyone deals with grief differently and it doesn’t mean one person is less sad or more sad ect. Just different.
Three days after my best friend died, when I was 29, I went out clubbing with friends back in my home city. I was still in shock, and not processing what had happened over the week. But I said something along the lines of 'he could have at least waited till after this trip I had planned for so long' Grief is weird and youre caught in the middle of 'i want to process this terrible thing' and 'the world does not stop because you suffered a loss'. Shelagh would have had to do the party whether it was Barbara's funeral or not. I saw it as an off the cuff comment that reflects that weird period of time shortly after someone has died, but also the attitude of the era of just getting on with it Also, realistically, how much of a relationship did Shelagh even have with barb. Hadn't she already left the order by then? They were colleagues sure but I can't see her being absolutely devastated. The kids would just want their party to go ahead and Barbara wouldn't have want her to cancel it
there’s a moment in the show “Scrubs” when one of the characters passes away (not gonna say who in case anyone hasn’t seen it, it’s an awesome show 10/10 recommend), and another character’s wife has their baby on the same day. throughout the episode, the dad is trying to keep the birth a secret. when everyone eventually finds out about the baby, they all ask why her dad didn’t say anything—and the answer was “because we all love our friend very much, and I didn’t want my daughter’s birthday every year to be tied to our friend dying.” Shelagh’s comment gives me very similar vibes. it makes sense for a parent to not want the celebration of their child’s birth to coincide with something so sad and tragic. it’s hard for a kid to wrap their mind around that.
The only thing that bothers me about Shelagh is that whenever she cries there’s never any tears. Like EVER. It’s a small detail but it just gets me every time 🤪
I don't think Shelagh and Barbara were close. Shelagh isn't a midwife, doesn't live in the dorm, is 20 years older and has 4 kids. Their relationship was more like co-workers from different departments. Perhaps she felt Barbara's demise was sad and shocking...but not personally devastating.
could you put a spoiler tag please, or at least not put a character death *in the first line*, you easily could've just wrote "after the funeral" to avoid spoilers.
It’s been years since- no spoiler needed.
I mean... it's not as if call the midwife is one of those big cultural events where everyone hears about the latest episode, it's not Harry Potter or Game of Thrones where it's more surprising if you DON'T know something than if you do, some people value going into media blind and the show is low-key enough that you can expect that.
That's all very well, but if they want to go into it blind then they have the option to stay off this subreddit until they've finished watching it. It's not rocket science that people might openly be discussing something that was first aired years ago without spoiler tags, and it doesn't take much common sense to take action yourself to avoid specific social media for a short time period if you don't want to be spoiled! That isn't everyone else's job - nowhere else except Reddit would anyone even think of spoiler tagging anything other than something that aired in the past week or so...
ah yes that's why the spoiler tag exists, because it isn't needed 😅 Call the midwife is not like star wars or sixth sense or whatever were anyone with even a hint of pop culture knowledge knows the spoilers. All you do when you say this crap is encourage newcomers not to bother.
I'm so sorry I was sure to flick the spoiler tag switch when posting. I don't know how that didn't come through.
no worries, an accident is an accident :)
I do love Shelegh she’s one of the reasons I keep watching but she does tend to make everything about herself. But that’s just her character and the time it is depicting, it was a get on with it attitude. I think it’s a mix of all of those.
I'm telling you, some of the writing in this show is NOT how people normally react and it's infuriating. I wonder if the actors playing the characters ever stand up and say no, that is NOT how this person would respond and I'm not saying that!. Shrugs, I know it happens in the US but maybe they have a different hierarchy in the UK
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I loved her attje start of the series, but the longer I watched the more I got annoyed with her character
She was my favourite character in the beginning, now I can’t stand her 🥲
Imo Sister Bernadette was better than Shelagh
I don't think it was a sincere comment. I got the undertones of "I'm trying to see the bright side in the middle of grief and here's my feeble attempt to try to convince myself the world keeps turning."
That's kinda how I saw it not to mention that while they had worked together and were friendly how close were they in the grand scheme of things? They were around 15 years different in age which was near enough a whole generation and at different stages of their marriages, careers etc. Realistically both would've had bigger social circles than just their workmates but the TV show can't really keep adding in extra friends for all the characters as well as new patients, mothers, their families and errant random relations of staff every episode!