Title: Counterfeit Only Child
The reasons for 'covering' a sibling's death
Statement: I am working on the topic of how people socially and mentally deal with the death of a sibling because I want to find out why people choose to 'cover' this element in order to help my reader understand the life long difficulties that accompany such a tragedy.
I am curious to find out what information you find out. I have not personally lost a sibling, but I do know others who have. It is a very hard thing to deal with. I can't imagine what people go through mentally. I hope to gain a lot from your research.
ReplyDeleteI've read a few things about parents coping with the death of a child, but never anything about the siblings left behind. It's a brave subject to approach, and I imagine it will be an emotional challenge to research and write about it. Looking forward to reading more.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really great topic to cover since it's never addressed. Like I've mentioned before, try looking at the work from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist who developed a 5-step model of the grief stage. You could then include your/other people's experiences to make the paper more realistic for the reader, if you felt comfortable doing so. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI have no siblings so it would be hard to imagine what the experience of losing one would be like...
ReplyDeleteLoss, death that is a topic, as humans, we rarely want to deal with, often, we prefer to pretend as if death does not occur, as if we were vampires. Your topic is certainly interesting. I think it would be interesting to discover how the loss of a sibling could be used to better a sibling. What can be learned from losing someone so dear to you, a person with DNA that is so uniquely related to you? Genetically someone is certainly more related to their siblings than to their parents.
I'm an only child and know no matter who I meet that I could consider a sibling it will never compare to the experience of actually having one. The loss is quite unimaginable. Age of the child and sibling as well as the way they died and who they speak to can affect what personal information is disclosed. These are a lot of variables. Perhaps if a siblings death is controversial that may be something to examine and narrow. For example AIDS deaths in the 80's and 90's were taboo, now it's more accepted.
ReplyDeleteHow a family reacts to personal tragedy speaks a lot about the greater culture. This sounds like a great topic for ethnography, since anthropologists often observe rituals involving death or loss. Perhaps you can find an ethnography to help you.
ReplyDeleteWhen you use the word 'cover' I take it your referencing to the book "Covering" by Kenji Yoshino and you had to read it in Dr. Moffits class. If not, check it out!
Losing a family member has to be the hardest thing a person can go through. Even though I havent had to deal with such a tragedy, I am sure it is something that takes a lot of time to feel a little better, and is something that you can never fully get over. Seeing how people act and get through such a horrible situation is very important, but might also be very different depending on the person. Everyone deals with tough situations in their own way. Thinking about why people to what they do to get through a death is very interesting, and might be very helpful to people in the future.
ReplyDeleteI love the title of your paper. I think it's very effective. I commened you for writing about a topic so personal to you. It will be interesting to hear about loss of a family memeber from a siblings point of view. A lot of times your her about what it's like from a parent's point of view but a sibling is a different relatonship that I am curious to hear more about.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a terrific topic to write on because more people than we think have lost a brother or sister.
ReplyDeleteOne of my friends lost her brother about twelve years ago, making her the "only" child. When I first met her, I had no idea she had any siblings, until she mentioned her brother. I was at her house for a party a few months later and noticed that her brother was nowhere to be found. Later in an art class we took together, she did a project relating to the death of her brother and what she understands to be the reason for his death.
Maybe while looking at covering, you could consider coping skills used that may or may not indicate to other people the existence of a brother or sister.
This topic is especially important, a tragedy like losing a sibling is one that will inevitably change your life altogether. Looking at the intersectionality is a great idea because it widens the scope of how people deal with any tragedy as well as the other circumstances in their life. Good luck with this topic! I think topics like these are often avoided and I think it's very noble of you to research it.
ReplyDeleteVery creative title! There will probably some interesting psychology and sociology journals about coping with a family member's death. I have a half brother and half sister, though we did not really grow up together, so I find it somewhat difficult to grasp the feelings for a sibling. I think your paper will provide a lot of good insight into this.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a powerful topic to be working on, and it is definitely something that I am sure a lot of people deal with on a daily basis. It will be interesting to see what your research brings up because I feel like people deal with these types of situations very differently, but I could be wrong! Great work, keep it up.
ReplyDeleteThis topic hits close to home with me because my parents have both lost siblings when they were younger and still deal with it to this day. I know that it goes beyond the sadness of losing a loved one and I want to read more on what you find.
ReplyDelete