I was wondering if you would find it believable for a teenager, after their parents tragic death, wouldn't want to attend the funeral? So much so that they run away from their temporary guardians house to avoid it?
It would tell me that the parents were probably very abusive; caused real harm on the teenager when he/she was growing up. Must've been horrific, if the teen is actually going to run away from it all like that.
See, I have the complete opposite perception of this - I would assume that they were so distraught that they couldn't face it because it would be too painful. I can certainly identify with that. Some people just don't deal with grief well, and instead of facing it they try to hide from it. I think it would be really poignant if a teen was too grief stricken to attend their parents' funeral, but the saddest thing is that in time they would probably regret not having had the chance to say goodbye. I actually find that quite tragic.
Okay that's what I was going for. It's going to be something the MC is going have to mature into. Would you still say this even if it was made clear that the MC didn't handle emotions well?
@ MissRis: Well, now that I know why, then no, I can't say its because the parents were bad. It's because the teen has trouble dealing with his/her emotions. Sorry that I didn't think of the other one when I made the previous post.
Sure - why not? Teenagers are a broth of rampant hormones and messed up ideas - you can come up with any number of plausible reasons. I would not find it 'weird' at all.
A teenager, or an adult, might well be turned off by the hypocrisy and cattiness that can dominate a funeral. People who despised, or were despised by, the deceased in life, acting like the deceased was their bestest friend and valued their advice. Others standing around and gossiping and making tasteless jokes. Or, as Makhti said, the teen could simply be too distraught, and feel the need to be alone.
There could be countless reasons for child not to attend a parent's funeral. The only question is, can you write it in a way the reader understands?
I did not attend either funeral of my parents. I never cared very much what society thinks, and that includes this point. I had my reasons, my parents knew how I felt.
Well actually this is also one of the reasons the MC runs away. Doesn't want to feel the pity of strangers. Okay, as long as other people find it believable I'm going to stick with my intention.
One of my friends didn't turn up to his parents' funeral - he was fourteen, and there was a lot of love in that family. It's very possible, and believable.
Sometimes you just get sick of the drama. My parents were snippy, micro-managing nags. They weren't happy walking into a room unless they could rip somebody down. And frankly, I got sick of being a beast of burden, both in doing an endless array of chores simply designed to break your will to revolt and cater to my mom's agoraphobia by proxy. It was not a question of jumping out of a lifeboat, but a question of jumping out of a burning lifeboat. I think when we say "parents" we assume that we mean a couple of admittedly flawed people doing their best to provide a loving environment for the children they brought into the world. You can be in prison even in the cushiest of neighborhoods. Money and power did nothing good for my parents. As soon as I got keys to transportation I left, no regrets. Deliberately not going to a funerral is a statement all by itself. It means that finding a pair of clean underwear to face the world is more of a problem than a brief social interaction.
Possible? Of course it is possible. Even though I was not a teenager, I refused to attend my mother's funeral and refuse until today to visit her grave. The reason doesn't have anything to do with the parent being abusive or not. Sometimes a shock like that is too much to handle, we don't want to face it, see it happening around us. we don't want to see people crying and hugging us, showing sympathy when we ourselves wish to forget the event ever happened. Teenagers can show even worst reactions to tragic events. It is even possible for them to get violent, aggressive or defensive. Just as all people are different, their reactions are different. So, it's quiet possible, just make sure you write it in a way that shows it's possible.
Well, my parents ashes are in an urn in my home. Hey, decorum is probably a nice idea. And I do hope to make peace with them in the next life, if only to get the angry spiders out of my mental registry. If I splatter myself all over a Kenworth, I hope my wife isn't faced with upsetting herself or looking like a good citizen. I don't even care if there is a funeral or the proper disposal of the remains. My doctor asked me about my beliefs on DNR. I told him, "If you cannot save the hamburger, don't try saving the bun." And I believe that. We make too much out of the bodies, and we attach meanings far beyond what's really happening. I, too, respect the 911 victims and the soldiers who died keeping me free. But let's face it, at the end of the day the WTC area is not a shrine, it's a crime scene. But I cannot keep that straight even in my own mind everytime I see the Alamo chapel. My parents were flawed, my mom drank, my dad was an enabler and I left home to keep my self sane. More rightly "saner." They were my parents, and I regret we could not work it out. Those facts will not be changed by some rudimentary service of conventional habit.
They could just hate their parents for doing something completley dispicable, although that might be a bit melodramatic if it isn't written well. Or they could love and depend on them so much that they can't admit that they've died. Maybe they disagree with funerals? I'm not sure, but I think it would be totally believable as long as there was a good reason attached to it.
