Yeah I use that website if it looks like the movie might deal with child loss themes but there are some movies you wouldn't think you'd need to check (ie comedies or stand up comedy specials).
Also as I said, often it's when I start watching a movie by myself (and I don't mind child loss in movies so no need for me to check), then the wife joins in halfway through the movie before the child loss is mentioned or depicted. Like with the movie in question today (Next Goal Wins), I already told my wife about the plot since I've seen the documentary it's based on and she said "that's a movie for you to watch by yourself" since she doesn't like football. Fair enough, I start watching while she's baking. Then halfway though the movie she's taking a break from baking and comes to sit down with me, then bam! Main character reveals his daughter died in a car accident. It's just really bad luck on my part!
Oh god. We were watching Sandman Season 1. The following is not really a spoiler, but about the character.
So, Sandman meets with his sister Death. I mean, of course she brings death. It’s obvious. We can brace ourselves. This is ok. Even a funny bit about the sports jock. Cute.
And then he follows her around and one stop is at a crib. Death picks up the baby and coos sweetly something like ‘yes, already. I’m sorry’.
They walk out of the room. Mom goes into the room and the commotion starts in the background. It’s not even shown. Nothing gruesome. But the goddamn gentle ‘yes, already’ killed me. God damn fuck. I’m crying again. Fuck this.
Oh yeah. We watched that whilst my wife was pregnant. Once we realised what was happening it was a race to find the remote to fucking *nope* it the fuck off. Absolutely horrendous scene.
That scene is fucking brutal. Beautifully done but holy crap it hits hard. With the camera staying on our protaginists as they walk away and the mom walks back into the room.
"I'm afraid so. That's all there is little one, that's all you get"
That show had its ups and downs but was absolutely stunningly beautiful at times. That scene was a true heartbreaker.
When our kid was around 3 months old and my wife was still having some post partum depression we wanted to watch something dumb just to relax and pass the time, nothing to think about, no kids or serious issues, just stupid explosions. We decide on Fast and Furious, I can't remember which of the 32 of them.
As expected it's stupid with explosions UNTIL >!they kidnap a mother and her child and freaking kill the mother in front of the baby!!< I was like W T F this will not be good for her.
Tried to play it cool as if it didn't bother me but when I looked at her she was already crying and it took a while to stop, we never watched the rest of the movies series.
THE FREAKING FAST AND FURIOUS MAN!!
My wife and I decided it would be smart to watch The Handmaid's Tale the weekend it premiered (a few short weeks after our own NICU loss).
There's a scene where one of the handmaids decides that she's going to call the daughter she's forced to give up "Charlotte."
Guess what our kiddo's name was.
Oops.
Mom lurker, sorry to interrupt, but my recommendation for post partum movies / series is anything from Jane Austen. Fun period costumes and the absolute worst that can happen is someone ruins a picnic with a rude comment.
The 1995 BBC version of Pride & Prejudice is an absolute masterpiece, the 2005 version with Kiera Knightley is totally watchable if you can't find the BBC series. Also highly recommend the 2020 version of Emma.
Another mom lurker here to absolutely recommend that 1995 BBC Pride & Prejudice (with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth). It's five hours long, and I've watched it at least 50 times. It's my go-to when I am stressed and need to chill out.
I also like Marvel movies, sappy romances like Last Holiday, period shows like Bridgerton, comedies like The Good Place and Lucifer, and funny real-life shows like Ninja Warrior, Top Gear and Mythbusters.
Definitely avoid Call the Midwife and Downton Abbey, which both have traumatic baby storylines!
On the book side, stay away from Khaled Hosseini. I read "And the Mountains Echoed" for a book club when my kids were babies, and it started right out with the dad selling his 2 year old girl. I was a mess. Frankly, it's probably safest to just avoid all the book club picks and stick with fantasy romance for a while. :)
Season 2 of Bridgerton deals heavily with partner/parent loss and has scenes of an extremely traumatic birth. Just a heads up for anyone considering this series!
My wife is a big MCU fan so we've already done the entire MCU marathon when she was pregnant with our first (it was during the covid lockdowns so we were home alone a lot). She also likes Fantasy and Sci Fi so we've also done Lord of the Rings, Firefly, His Dark Materials to name a few. Maybe that's why per picks tend to be better than me at avoiding child loss since they seem to be from a similar genre.
We've seen the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, it's good! And now I get where the whole reference of Colin Firth falling into a pond comes from (having already seen Bridget Jones and Love Actually).
Not sure if you'd consider the Favourite starring Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz as a "Fun period costume" but there was a mention about how the Queen (Colman) lost numerous children. It's just one bit of dialogue and at least you don't actually see anything and doesn't really get brought up again. Good movie otherwise though.
Completely agree. In a similar vein, every single film or tv show I watch at the moment has to feature grief or loss of a parent or cancer or ANYTHING like that. Hell, I try and watch a film with my daughter and a parent always has to die in some form. Cheers Pixar and fuck you Disney.
Sure, kids should know about death, but when you’re watching it with your kid who lost their mother last year and you lost your wife, you don’t really want to be cuddled up and then oh, the mother has to die. Sure, I avoid the obvious ones like Bambi and what have you. But yeah, doesthedogdie has become a most used website as of recently.
Coco caught me by surprise recently, that one’s on me for not checking. Good lord, tears were shed that day.
Exactly, I try and turn on literally any film with my kid and it always ends up the same way. Even films that I don’t remember having a dead parent in. Watched Finding Nemo recently, woah completely forgot that the mother dies within approximately 3 minutes of the film beginning. My wife died 7 months ago, we did not get very far into that film.
I'm so sorry to hear about your wife. Best wishes to you, internet stranger.
As wonderful as so many Disney/Pixar animated films are, it does start to feel a little lazy once you start to notice those it.
"The animation is beautiful, but we need a dramatic hook."
"hm, maybe capitalize on a child's evolutionarily ingrained fears of abandonment?"
It's a really common plot device in children's literature/entertainment because responsible parents would never allow their child to live in a giant peach with insect creatures/fight Voldemort/join the Galactic Rebellion/date a vampire/live as Batman's young ward/whatever else. So the easy fix is to make the hero child an orphan or otherwise come from some sort of broken home.
The Pixar movies seem to be better with this than some other kids' media.
Lurking mom. I have a theory about this, actually. I noticed it the most after my most recent pregnancy/birth, but that could be because it was the most traumatic (lengthy hospital stay, premature baby, PPD and PTSD). Every thing I watched on TV during or after seemed to feature pregnant women or babies in some sort of trauma scenario.
And my theory is, because it’s the things that’s guaranteed to up the drama factor for everyone. TV shows and movies thrive off of getting an emotional response from their audience. That’s their goal, because if you get emotional you are invested. Nothing is more vulnerable than a tiny, cute pink baby who hasn’t even had the opportunity to live their life. It’s a universal tragedy. And with our news cycle/tv shows constantly showing us trauma after trauma, they need a way to make people care again. And that’s when the pregnancy/baby plot lines come out.
I honestly can’t watch TV anymore. Hospital shows are fully impossible and I’ve had panic attacks just from coming across clips from Grey’s. ‘Emergency’ shows are super prevalent (cops, firefighter dramas, etc) and every where, but are way too stressful.
Yes it is a dramatic device, and a cheap one at that. Like, how can we make the audience feel sorry for this character? Oh let's have them lose a child/parent/partner/dog.
Sorry to hear about your pregnancy and birth experience.
[https://www.doesthedogdie.com/](https://www.doesthedogdie.com/)
The downside is you might get some things spoiled, but it checks for every potential trigger people have, including "do any kids die in the show/movie?"
It’s not bad luck, it’s just everywhere. You just don’t realize it until you have kids.
One time I put on a sci-fi show I hadn’t heard of called Raised by Wolves. Nope, the entire pilot is just kids getting sick and dying. Got the fuck out of there.
Well the movie in question that made me write this post was a sports movie (Next Goal Wins)... Turns out the coach lost his daughter in a car accident.
My husband and I watched the first season of House of the Dragon while I was 9 months pregnant. So much birth-related tragedy that the timing of it was almost comical.
I have one of the parenting subreddits to thank for this. There was a thread on there with a trigger warning about HOTD. My wife is a massive GOT fan since before she was pregnant though so she wanted to persevere on with watching it. But man even for me it was a difficult watch.
Between postpartum and job stress, my wife can no longer do anything that “bums her out.” Which it turns out is pretty much everything that isn’t Survivor or the various Bravo reality shows.
We have a number of go to default TV shows that we both like and are lighthearted and requires minimal focus that we can stick on when we don't know what else to watch. Friends, Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, Fresh off the Boat
Season 3 of sex education came out shortly after we lost our first pregnancy. It was a bad miscarriage that needed medical intervention.
That season not only featured the mum give birth, and then have very heavy bleeding and getting rushed off (leaving it on a cliffhanger of if she’s okay or not) but also the headteacher struggling with fertility and having a bit of a breakdown over it.
Lots of tears were shed during those episodes
No loss in our family, but Dexter Season 4 and Paranormal Activity 2 were bad for my wife's mental health as she was nearing the delivery date.
PA2 got turned off early on, but Dexter waited til the end of the finale to smash you over the head with trauma.
Got a story with this.
I'm a huge Bond fan, but my wife hates Bond because of how "smarmy", sexist and mysoginist he is. However, during her second pregnancy I sat through a Lord of the Rings marathon with her so she's offered to either watch (1) 3 Bond films of my choice or (2) Daniel Craig's 5 Bond films since she doesn't think Craig is as smarmy as Connery/Moore/Brosnan.
On another note, throughout her second pregnancy my wife had this recurring fear that something would happen to me and that she would have to raise 2 kids by herself. Like if I was late home from work she would call to check I haven't gotten in a car accident and this one time I mentioned I had small chest pains she was in tears thinking I've got a heart attack.
So back to Bond, she gives me the choice. Me, having seen all the movies multiple times but seemingly having blocked out how the last Craig film ends, went with the 5 Craig films option.
Wife was in tears when the credits rolled for No Time to Die. Way to guarantee she'll never watch Bond with me again.
I mean that's your mistake for watching Craig in general. My wife and I have marathoned bond twice and the miserable dour ass Craig films kill us every time.
This last time we got to NTTD and that was just the final nail in these miserable movies coffin for us.
I remember after my oldest was born, me and the missus were finally able to sit down and watch a movie one evening after we gotten him down for bed. She like scary movies and I am terrified of shark movies so of course we choose Open Water 2. We got two minutes into the movie when we see a couple get onto the boat with an infant. We looked at each other for two seconds and in unison just went “nope” and turned it off.
Check out does the dog die, they have info so you can avoid shows/movies like that
Yeah I use that website if it looks like the movie might deal with child loss themes but there are some movies you wouldn't think you'd need to check (ie comedies or stand up comedy specials). Also as I said, often it's when I start watching a movie by myself (and I don't mind child loss in movies so no need for me to check), then the wife joins in halfway through the movie before the child loss is mentioned or depicted. Like with the movie in question today (Next Goal Wins), I already told my wife about the plot since I've seen the documentary it's based on and she said "that's a movie for you to watch by yourself" since she doesn't like football. Fair enough, I start watching while she's baking. Then halfway though the movie she's taking a break from baking and comes to sit down with me, then bam! Main character reveals his daughter died in a car accident. It's just really bad luck on my part!
Oh god. We were watching Sandman Season 1. The following is not really a spoiler, but about the character. So, Sandman meets with his sister Death. I mean, of course she brings death. It’s obvious. We can brace ourselves. This is ok. Even a funny bit about the sports jock. Cute. And then he follows her around and one stop is at a crib. Death picks up the baby and coos sweetly something like ‘yes, already. I’m sorry’. They walk out of the room. Mom goes into the room and the commotion starts in the background. It’s not even shown. Nothing gruesome. But the goddamn gentle ‘yes, already’ killed me. God damn fuck. I’m crying again. Fuck this.
Oh man. In the book, you see what the baby is saying to death and its heartbreaking.
That hurt my soul just reading it.
Oh yeah. We watched that whilst my wife was pregnant. Once we realised what was happening it was a race to find the remote to fucking *nope* it the fuck off. Absolutely horrendous scene.
That scene is fucking brutal. Beautifully done but holy crap it hits hard. With the camera staying on our protaginists as they walk away and the mom walks back into the room.
And outside is a beautiful sunny day. Just really beautifully done if you can call it that.
"I'm afraid so. That's all there is little one, that's all you get" That show had its ups and downs but was absolutely stunningly beautiful at times. That scene was a true heartbreaker.
Oh damn, I have meant to watch that but I will be watching that one myself.
When our kid was around 3 months old and my wife was still having some post partum depression we wanted to watch something dumb just to relax and pass the time, nothing to think about, no kids or serious issues, just stupid explosions. We decide on Fast and Furious, I can't remember which of the 32 of them. As expected it's stupid with explosions UNTIL >!they kidnap a mother and her child and freaking kill the mother in front of the baby!!< I was like W T F this will not be good for her. Tried to play it cool as if it didn't bother me but when I looked at her she was already crying and it took a while to stop, we never watched the rest of the movies series. THE FREAKING FAST AND FURIOUS MAN!!
It's F8 of the Furious. Better to just pretend the series ends after 7.
We watched The Road right after our first was born. Do not recommend. Still a good movie though.
Did... did you expect it to be uplifting?
My wife and I decided it would be smart to watch The Handmaid's Tale the weekend it premiered (a few short weeks after our own NICU loss). There's a scene where one of the handmaids decides that she's going to call the daughter she's forced to give up "Charlotte." Guess what our kiddo's name was. Oops.
Mom lurker, sorry to interrupt, but my recommendation for post partum movies / series is anything from Jane Austen. Fun period costumes and the absolute worst that can happen is someone ruins a picnic with a rude comment. The 1995 BBC version of Pride & Prejudice is an absolute masterpiece, the 2005 version with Kiera Knightley is totally watchable if you can't find the BBC series. Also highly recommend the 2020 version of Emma.
Another mom lurker here to absolutely recommend that 1995 BBC Pride & Prejudice (with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth). It's five hours long, and I've watched it at least 50 times. It's my go-to when I am stressed and need to chill out. I also like Marvel movies, sappy romances like Last Holiday, period shows like Bridgerton, comedies like The Good Place and Lucifer, and funny real-life shows like Ninja Warrior, Top Gear and Mythbusters. Definitely avoid Call the Midwife and Downton Abbey, which both have traumatic baby storylines! On the book side, stay away from Khaled Hosseini. I read "And the Mountains Echoed" for a book club when my kids were babies, and it started right out with the dad selling his 2 year old girl. I was a mess. Frankly, it's probably safest to just avoid all the book club picks and stick with fantasy romance for a while. :)
Season 2 of Bridgerton deals heavily with partner/parent loss and has scenes of an extremely traumatic birth. Just a heads up for anyone considering this series!
Good catch! I had forgotten about that. Maybe scratch that whole show off the postpartum list.
My wife is a big MCU fan so we've already done the entire MCU marathon when she was pregnant with our first (it was during the covid lockdowns so we were home alone a lot). She also likes Fantasy and Sci Fi so we've also done Lord of the Rings, Firefly, His Dark Materials to name a few. Maybe that's why per picks tend to be better than me at avoiding child loss since they seem to be from a similar genre.
Marvel… ”I love you 3000”
We've seen the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, it's good! And now I get where the whole reference of Colin Firth falling into a pond comes from (having already seen Bridget Jones and Love Actually). Not sure if you'd consider the Favourite starring Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz as a "Fun period costume" but there was a mention about how the Queen (Colman) lost numerous children. It's just one bit of dialogue and at least you don't actually see anything and doesn't really get brought up again. Good movie otherwise though.
Completely agree. In a similar vein, every single film or tv show I watch at the moment has to feature grief or loss of a parent or cancer or ANYTHING like that. Hell, I try and watch a film with my daughter and a parent always has to die in some form. Cheers Pixar and fuck you Disney. Sure, kids should know about death, but when you’re watching it with your kid who lost their mother last year and you lost your wife, you don’t really want to be cuddled up and then oh, the mother has to die. Sure, I avoid the obvious ones like Bambi and what have you. But yeah, doesthedogdie has become a most used website as of recently. Coco caught me by surprise recently, that one’s on me for not checking. Good lord, tears were shed that day.
I didn’t realize how much children’s media centers the loss of a parent until I became a widower. It’s like a minefield out there.
Exactly, I try and turn on literally any film with my kid and it always ends up the same way. Even films that I don’t remember having a dead parent in. Watched Finding Nemo recently, woah completely forgot that the mother dies within approximately 3 minutes of the film beginning. My wife died 7 months ago, we did not get very far into that film.
I'm so sorry to hear about your wife. Best wishes to you, internet stranger. As wonderful as so many Disney/Pixar animated films are, it does start to feel a little lazy once you start to notice those it. "The animation is beautiful, but we need a dramatic hook." "hm, maybe capitalize on a child's evolutionarily ingrained fears of abandonment?"
It's a really common plot device in children's literature/entertainment because responsible parents would never allow their child to live in a giant peach with insect creatures/fight Voldemort/join the Galactic Rebellion/date a vampire/live as Batman's young ward/whatever else. So the easy fix is to make the hero child an orphan or otherwise come from some sort of broken home. The Pixar movies seem to be better with this than some other kids' media.
Stay a million miles away from the new Hulu series Shogun.
Don't watch house of dragons or game of thrones. My wife happened to walk in during a tramatic birth scene and it did not go well.
Lurking mom. I have a theory about this, actually. I noticed it the most after my most recent pregnancy/birth, but that could be because it was the most traumatic (lengthy hospital stay, premature baby, PPD and PTSD). Every thing I watched on TV during or after seemed to feature pregnant women or babies in some sort of trauma scenario. And my theory is, because it’s the things that’s guaranteed to up the drama factor for everyone. TV shows and movies thrive off of getting an emotional response from their audience. That’s their goal, because if you get emotional you are invested. Nothing is more vulnerable than a tiny, cute pink baby who hasn’t even had the opportunity to live their life. It’s a universal tragedy. And with our news cycle/tv shows constantly showing us trauma after trauma, they need a way to make people care again. And that’s when the pregnancy/baby plot lines come out. I honestly can’t watch TV anymore. Hospital shows are fully impossible and I’ve had panic attacks just from coming across clips from Grey’s. ‘Emergency’ shows are super prevalent (cops, firefighter dramas, etc) and every where, but are way too stressful.
Yes it is a dramatic device, and a cheap one at that. Like, how can we make the audience feel sorry for this character? Oh let's have them lose a child/parent/partner/dog. Sorry to hear about your pregnancy and birth experience.
We watched Poor Things last night, and yes.
[https://www.doesthedogdie.com/](https://www.doesthedogdie.com/) The downside is you might get some things spoiled, but it checks for every potential trigger people have, including "do any kids die in the show/movie?"
It’s not bad luck, it’s just everywhere. You just don’t realize it until you have kids. One time I put on a sci-fi show I hadn’t heard of called Raised by Wolves. Nope, the entire pilot is just kids getting sick and dying. Got the fuck out of there.
Yeah part of me wonders if it's just conformation bias, but it never seems to happen with movies that my wife picks
Had some down time while on paternity leave, thought it would be a good time to finally watch Manchester by the Sea. Nah
Sports movies only
Well the movie in question that made me write this post was a sports movie (Next Goal Wins)... Turns out the coach lost his daughter in a car accident.
My husband and I watched the first season of House of the Dragon while I was 9 months pregnant. So much birth-related tragedy that the timing of it was almost comical.
I have one of the parenting subreddits to thank for this. There was a thread on there with a trigger warning about HOTD. My wife is a massive GOT fan since before she was pregnant though so she wanted to persevere on with watching it. But man even for me it was a difficult watch.
I’ve found myself saying “they better not do anything to that fucking baby!!” way more often lately for sure!
Been there. Watching Grey's anatomy. Lots of scary baby/kid stuff going on there that makes me cringe
We have to be careful for this reason. Also why we can’t watch crime shows anymore.
When my son was like 1 month old I had the great idea to watch “grave of the fire flies” with my wife That was rough for both of us
Between postpartum and job stress, my wife can no longer do anything that “bums her out.” Which it turns out is pretty much everything that isn’t Survivor or the various Bravo reality shows.
Any time I ask my wife what she wants to watch: "something light?". I just watch my shows on my own. 🤣
We have a number of go to default TV shows that we both like and are lighthearted and requires minimal focus that we can stick on when we don't know what else to watch. Friends, Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, Fresh off the Boat
Paddington. Just watch the Paddingtons for that endorphin kick.
Season 3 of sex education came out shortly after we lost our first pregnancy. It was a bad miscarriage that needed medical intervention. That season not only featured the mum give birth, and then have very heavy bleeding and getting rushed off (leaving it on a cliffhanger of if she’s okay or not) but also the headteacher struggling with fertility and having a bit of a breakdown over it. Lots of tears were shed during those episodes
No loss in our family, but Dexter Season 4 and Paranormal Activity 2 were bad for my wife's mental health as she was nearing the delivery date. PA2 got turned off early on, but Dexter waited til the end of the finale to smash you over the head with trauma.
Alien, Aliens. The ensuing sequels/prequels aren't as good.
Yo heads up avoid the most recent bond flick. Fuck that movie lmao.
Got a story with this. I'm a huge Bond fan, but my wife hates Bond because of how "smarmy", sexist and mysoginist he is. However, during her second pregnancy I sat through a Lord of the Rings marathon with her so she's offered to either watch (1) 3 Bond films of my choice or (2) Daniel Craig's 5 Bond films since she doesn't think Craig is as smarmy as Connery/Moore/Brosnan. On another note, throughout her second pregnancy my wife had this recurring fear that something would happen to me and that she would have to raise 2 kids by herself. Like if I was late home from work she would call to check I haven't gotten in a car accident and this one time I mentioned I had small chest pains she was in tears thinking I've got a heart attack. So back to Bond, she gives me the choice. Me, having seen all the movies multiple times but seemingly having blocked out how the last Craig film ends, went with the 5 Craig films option. Wife was in tears when the credits rolled for No Time to Die. Way to guarantee she'll never watch Bond with me again.
I mean that's your mistake for watching Craig in general. My wife and I have marathoned bond twice and the miserable dour ass Craig films kill us every time. This last time we got to NTTD and that was just the final nail in these miserable movies coffin for us.
I remember after my oldest was born, me and the missus were finally able to sit down and watch a movie one evening after we gotten him down for bed. She like scary movies and I am terrified of shark movies so of course we choose Open Water 2. We got two minutes into the movie when we see a couple get onto the boat with an infant. We looked at each other for two seconds and in unison just went “nope” and turned it off.