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your right Magdalene, things have changed... but it doesn't happen often enough for there to be a word for it.. and i doubt one will be coined.
You might be surprised at how often children die even today. The reason you hardly ever hear about it is that there is a strong social pressure against discussing the death of a child. Because the death of a child is less expected and because the bereaved parents are often discouraged from mentioning their experience, losing a child may be an even more traumatic experience today than it was a hundred years ago when it was expected and okay to talk about.
I think that there is some potential for a neologism. It would most likely come from a group of people like "Compassionate Friends" and then spread through the media to the general population. Whether a word actually is coined or not depends mostly, I'd suppose, on the needs and wishes of the bereaved parents themselves.
The question arose in my mind after reading a news story by reporter Lindy Washburn in which the author said, "Women who have lost their husbands are called widows. Women who have lost children should have their own special term, so defining is the ordeal." It struck me that there really should be a word for that and how surprising that there isn't.
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enthusiast
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No special term was felt to be needed to describe the condition that was so common for most of the period of development of the English language.
Huh?
What was "so common" throughout the history of the English language that explains why there is no word in english to describe parents who have survived their offspring.
Was it more likely a hundred or two hundred years ago that children would predecease their parents? And, if it was more likely, why would that be a reason not to have an english word describing the parents who survive their child?
If it is more likely today that a child will predecease their parents than in the past, why would that be a reason not to have an english word describing the parents who survive their child? New words appear in the language every day to describe things that previously went unnoticed or, at least, unnamed. [Tornadoes have been around forever, but how long has "tornadic" been around, I wonder?]
I just don't get it, Faldage. Can you make any sense out of what you have just written?
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Perhaps one of the constraints against coining such a word has to do with the inadequacy of the English languge to express in a single word the status of the surviving parents. It is clear that "orphan" defines a person who has lost both parents; and it is clear that "widow/widower" defines a woman/man who has lost her/his husband/wife. But how would one define parents who have lost a child but who may (or may not)have other surviving children?
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stranger
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If one can define them with the phrase "bereaved parent" why couldn't one define them with a single word?
How do you define a parent who had one or more children that all died? Are they still a parent? A childless parent? Do they "have any children"? How would they answer the question? "none living?" "No" "yes, but they're dead"?
I don't think a term to describe a bereaved parent ould really need to specify whether there were other children or not. A widow can have a husband - if she re-marries she's a "re-married widow" but still a widow. An orphan can have parents - they can be an adopted orphan. And a parent who's lost a child can still have other children but be bereaved all the same.
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how would one define parents who have lost a child but who may (or may not) have other surviving children?
I follow your logic, Hawaii. A very plausible explanation.
Do you follow the explanation Faldage has offered? I'm not sure if his theory is plausible or not because, try as I might, I can't detect any theory in his postulation.
Is it possible to postulate something without actually postulating a theory?
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There actually is a term that describes a mother who has lost a child, but it's unique as to circumstance: Gold Star Mother.
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
In Indonesian there are two words for someone who has lost a parent: yatim for someone who has lost their father..."
Interestingly, in Urdu, 'yateem' (or 'yatim') means an orphan too... though it isn't specific to a child who has lost his/her father.
Orphan in Indonesian is yatim piatu, i.e., fatherless motherless.
One thing I have noticed is that if you ask an Indonesian how many brothers and sisters they have, the answer will include any deceased siblings. So they might say "5 but 2 died", or they might say 5 and not bother to tell you that 2 of them died. I haven't asked many parents how many children they have, so I'm not sure if the same holds for parents.
Bingley
Bingley
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In reply to:
his family was very religious jews, but unlike a normal 7 day period of morning, there was only a short time for sitting shivis.
the period of morning for the death of child is short, by law and custom. if he had been married, his wife would have been "the chief morner", not his parents. and he would have died as father or husband.. but since he was unmarried, he was considered a child still...
Coincidentally enough, I was reading Plutarch's biography of Numa Pompilius (king of Rome, traditional dates 715-673 BC), who was revered as a great law-giver and establisher of religious rituals, and came across this passage:
Numa also prescribed rules for regulating the days of mourning, according to certain times and ages. As, for example, a child of three years was not to be mourned for at all; one older, up to ten years, for as many months as it was years old; and the longest time of mourning for any person whatsoever was not to exceed the term of ten months; which was the time appointed for women that lost their husbands to continue in widowhood. If any married again before that time, by the laws of Numa she was to sacrifice a cow big with calf.
A complete translation (it's the same translation as I'm reading)is at:http://makeashorterlink.com/?K1AD21294
Bingley
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"how doyou spell anyorism?"
aneurysm
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No special term was felt to be needed to describe the condition that was so common for most of the period of development of the English language.
Can anyone please help me out here?
I don't get it.
What was "so common" which would explain why there was no word to describe a parent who had lost a child?
If this doesn't make any more sense to anyone else than it does to me, why do we pretend it makes sense by ignoring it?
I think Faldage is deserving of more respect than that.
If no-one else can explain what Faldage means, maybe we should give Faldage a chance to do it for himself.
It seems only fair.
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