HW 48 - Family Perspectives on the Care of the Dead

When i think about care of the dead in my family, i automatically think about religion. This is because my mom grew up in a jewish family while my dad grew up in a christian one. I know they both experienced multiple deaths in the families growing up, so for my interviews i decided to ask two important questions. 1-How were the dead taken care of from a religious view in your family? & 2-When you pass away, how would you want to be taken care of from a religious view?

For the first question my mom told me that traditionally the Jewish are taken immediately to a funeral home and buried within 24 hours of death. She told me that Jewish funerals are always closed casket and are performed in a synagogue (which is a Jewish house of prayer). For the second question, my mom told me she would like to have a jewish funeral just like her past relatives in her family. Although she isn't an orthodox jew (this means she isn't very religious), she enjoys the cultural aspects of her religion.

When i interviewed my father, he told me that the funerals weren't celebrated very much from a religious standpoint because his parents didn't practice the religion in his family very much. He told me that they more or less claimed to be christian, without ever really paying attention to it. Although his dad had a memorial which is when a bunch of people that knew the deceased or were related go up to talk about the person. When my dad passes he would like to have a regular, closed casket funeral just like his past relatives. He doesn't care much for funerals, but he definitely wants to be remembered in some way.

After interviewing my parents, i realized that care of the dead from a religious view isn't exactly unimportant to them but they don't seem to care very much about the subject. The typical funerals in America (that we see on tv and in movies) are always in some cemetery in a suburban setting, it's fair to believe this is the most widely accepted belief of being taken care of when a relative/loved one passes. As a dominant social practice, we never look to really see what other options there are. We usually let religion decide how we are taken care of when we die, but i want to know other practices. There cant just be one decision to the remembering of your existence.

HW 46 - Initial Thoughts on the Care of the Dead

I haven't been to many funerals, just one actually and it was my grandmas funeral back in the beginning of tenth grade. I believe this is because i haven't been alive for a long enough time to experience more funerals. Just from my basic knowledge of how our society today treats the dead and the one funeral i've been to, i've noticed that we have very efficient ways of "getting rid of the dead"

What i mean by this is we either cremate the dead or put them in a casket underground, so why are these our only options? Depending on your religion the care for the dead might be different but generally Americans tend to choose one or the other. This lead to me to question why, why as Americans are we so disgusted by a body once it is no longer functional? Can't their be other options?

- How does religion play a role in care of the dead?

- How many options can one have in terms of caring for a deceased loved one?

- What is the most popular option in America in caring for the dead?

HW 45 - Reply to Other Peoples' Comments

alexf said...

Harry,
In your project you asked questions about things that we haven't learned about so your really making this your own project which is part of the reason I was so interested. You used a source that was close to you to find out about something that not many people know about which is adopting over seas. The only thing I knew was about celebrities that have done that. Something that particularly interested me was that one of the main reasons of adopting was that there was a lawyer involved. With out that connection do you think they still would have your friend? I also never knew how hard adopting may be, you would think that with so many kids who dont have parents it would be an easy process. This matters to me because I've met many people over the years who have been adopted and I never really asked about it to much.

Alex,

The main points of your comments were that the project was interesting because it is on a topic you don't know much about and it interested you because of that, you didn't know before reading my project that lawyers were involved in overseas adoptions and how you now understand how complicated the process is. To respond to your question: "With out that connection do you think they still would have your friend?" I don't think so. The process seems complicated enough with the lawyer, but without that connection my friend's parents would have to be very lucky.

HW 44 - Comments on Other People's Projects

Alex

In your letter you basically described the industrial atrocities of hospital births in the united states and why and how we can change the current situation america is in. I really liked your idea for change with commercials since they are practically what we see all the time. This project matters to me because it's straight to the point and i agree with it entirely.

Great Post

Max

For this project you looked at 3 aspects of being an OB/GYN and basically came to the conclusion that OB/GYN work diligently, are paid in decently large amounts and gain more of a benefit if they are women. The aspect that really mattered to me the most though was the pay rate. I had a good sense that doctors made a good amount of money but i was still shocked when i saw the chart you posted. This project matters to me because it gave me a deeper insight in to a profession i didn't know very well.

Great post

Christian

In your project you basically summarized the problem with the growing "fads" in america regarding pregnancy and birth. I really liked your comparison of how women are treated similarly horrible in the 21st century compared to the 19th. Although you didn't go in to detail, it made me think about it and if there had been any doubt in my mind of how horribly woman have been treated over time (in hospitals) that statement cleared it for me. This project matters to me because it goes in depth and reveals actual facts of how horrible of a system we have regarding pregnancy and birth.

Great post

HW 42 - Pregnancy & birth culminating project

Choice 1: Organize a personal experience around this topic and write a narrative of your experience

What if i was adopted? This is a question i ask myself frequently, but because i wasn't i don't know what'd i do for sure. I'd most likely try to find my real parents, but be grateful for having parents that took care of me as if they were my own. Adoption itself is one thing, but an overseas adoption is another topic. For this project, i decided to compare and contrast answers to three essential questions through an interview of my friend's father and three other sources.

The first question is: why an overseas adoption? My friend was adopted from Columbia, and when i asked his dad this question he told me that there were two reasons: 1. Because him and his wife had a lawyer contract in columbia, and 2. Because he (the dad) is Puerto Rican and he thought that adopting a child from South America would give the child a sense of cultural identity. In the article The Benefits of International Adoption, the author states: "most parents choose international adoption only after being repeatedly stymied by U.S. adoption protocols—from birth parents that change their minds at the last minute, to stringent and sometimes arbitrary requirements on the part of domestic adoption agencies". Not including the recent fact that celebrities have influenced Americans to adopt internationally, it makes sense that based on my research, the reason for overseas adoptions are 1. Cultural diversity 2. Connections and 3. Adoption agencies in U.S can be more difficult.

The second question i sought to answer was: How difficult is the process of adopting a child overseas? My friend's dad told me that the process was ultimately an agony and that the adoption in Columbia was the easy part, but once back in the U.S it took him and his wife years to get their new son's citizenship. The article: Unwrapping Red Tape to Find the Gift of Family, tells the story of Rebecca Compton and Jeremy Meyer who were trying to adopt a child in Kazakhstan but dealt with complications with the adoption agency after a recent controversy over a previous overseas adoption. The process of the adoption seriously stressed the mother especially: "On many nights in recent months, she has retreated to her hotel room and not known whether to scream or cry or bang her head against the wall in frustration. She said she once dreamed that she was hugging Noah, but then he disappeared, though she could still feel his touch. Then she located him nearby, 'looking up at me with his dark searching eyes,' she recalled, but he vanished again." Based on my research, i can come to the conclusion that the process of adopting a child overseas is not only difficult, but can be mentally stressful and can drive the adoptees to the brink of insanity

The third and final question i tried to answer was: Do children that were adopted overseas try to learn more about their origin later in life? My friend's dad told me that his son hasn't ever tried to find out more about his biological family. "As far as my son is concerned, he's American" he told me, "anything he knows about his cultural heritage is from me". In the article Adopted From Korea and in Search of Identity the author discusses a trend in children that were adopted from Korea in to the U.S (in the past fifty to sixty years) in that most Koreans didn't consider themselves to be Korean until later in their lives. According to a study put out at around the time the article was published, based on the first generation of Koreans that were adopted to the U.S: "as adults, nearly 61 percent said they had traveled to Korea both to learn more about the culture and to find their birth parents." Not only is it tough for these Korean adoptees to accept their cultural heritage once they seek it, but some even face disapproval from the families that adopted them: " 'A lot of adoptees have problems talking about these issues with their adoptive families,' she said. 'They take it as some kind of rejection of them when we’re just trying to figure out who we are.' " Based on this research i can come to the conclusion that most children that were adopted overseas seek cultural identity when adults (or just at a later point in life), but it is not an easy process to say the least.

In conclusion, adopting a child internationally is a huge process . Through my research, i have learned why people do it, how difficult the process is and if the children that were adopted seek any cultural identity. Although adopting internationally is difficult, in the end most children are happy to live with their adopted families and should be as long as their parents took good care of them (as most do).