Workplace Grief

Introduction

Rationale of the Study

Since the objectives outlined have the same dependent variable (a working parent experiencing the death of a child) one rationale will be presented for them.

Child death is not uncommon in the United States. Each year, 400,000 young people under the age of twenty- five die from accidents, diseases, murder or suicide, with the greatest percentage of deaths in children (45%) resulting from accidents (National Academy Press, 1984, p. 75).

Recently, an interest in the processes of grief and bereavement has significantly increased. Despite the fact that parental bereavement is particularly severe, there is comparatively little devoted to this topic and as mentioned earlier, studies specifically addressing the employed bereaved parent and complications of working while grieving are not available.

This study is intended to delineate the unique psychological and sociological factors that conspire to make parental bereavement such an overwhelming assault on the individual. A better understanding of the effects of working while grieving will help corporations to set more effective leave policies relating to grief. Organizations will be examined to see if there may be a significant interdependence between the philosophy of the organization and the compounding of grief for the parent.

People hope for an orderliness to life and death and a sense of "fair play" (Feifel, 1977). In the "natural" and "expected" order of life and death we assume we will outlive our parents as our children will outlive us. Dr. Elliot Luby once said, "When your parent dies you have lost your past. When your child dies you have lost your future" (Luby, cited in Schiff, 1977, p. 23). Our children represent our future. When they die, our future is at risk.

As stated in Schiff's book, The Bereaved Parent (1977):

Bereaved parents come in all ages. It does not appear to make a difference whether one's child is 3, 13, or 30 if he dies. The emotion in each of us is the same. How could it be that a parent outlives a child? (p. 4)

The unnaturalness of outliving one's child may become a major focus of the bereaved parent compounding the loss. Rando in her book,Parental Loss of a Child (1986), addresses this unnaturalness.

The unnaturalness is not determined by the age of the child, but by the fact that the child dies out of turn with the parent. The strangeness of the event becomes a major stumbling block for the bereaved parents, who cannot comprehend why it happened and can take no solace in the idea that the loss was inevitable. Survival guilt appears to be fostered by the uncommon nature of this loss. Because this is an age where infant and child mortality are at the lowest rates ever, parents are more unprepared to deal with the loss of their children than they were in centuries past. At a time when babies begin life in test tubes, it seems inconceivable that a child's death cannot be prevented by medical intervention. (p. 112)

Survival guilt, guilt associated with outliving the deceased, may run rampant. This occurs not only because the parent outlives the child but also because the parent may feel responsible for the child's death. The role of a parent is to nurture and protect one's children. Therefore, regardless of how one's child dies, it is not uncommon for the parent to take the blame for failure to carry out this most basic role of parenthood. It is better to blame someone, even oneself, than to accept the idea that life is uncertain (Parkes, 1982).

Further observations on the particularly devastating nature of child loss as compared to other losses can be found in Jackson (1977):

Physiologically, psychologically, and socially, the relationship that exists between parents and the children may well be the most intense that life can generate. Obviously, then, vulnerability to loss through death is most acute when one's child dies. Not only is the death of a child inappropriate in the context of living, but its tragic and untimely nature is a basic threat to the function of parenthood to preserve some dimension of the self, the family, and the social group. (p. 187)

Since children represent society's hopes, dreams and promises for the future, the death of a child is always difficult to accept. Society, significantly threatened by such a loss, may impose unrealistic expectations on bereaved parents. For this reason, the bereaved parent may receive little support. Bereaved parents may feel rejected by others who are threatened by the realization that this could also happen to their own children. It is not uncommon for bereaved parents to express feelings of frustration and helplessness as well as abandonment during their time of need.