Woman Refuses To Go To A Family Funeral Because She Doesn't Want To Miss A Day Of Work
Her time is hers, but she'll have to deal with what her family thinks.
Pavel Danilyuk / Pexels There’s no one right way to deal with the death of a loved one. Everyone grieves in their own way, and sometimes, that includes not grieving, at all.
A woman refused to go to a family funeral because she didn't want to take time off work.
She wrote to the subreddit r/AITA, wondering if she was wrong for not wanting to disrupt her schedule for her great-aunt’s funeral, a woman who “insisted we call her grandma as she did not have her own children.”
The woman wasn’t particularly close to her great-aunt, noting, “I apparently saw her a lot when I was very young but I don’t remember it.”
“Truthfully, I never liked her or her husband that much,” she revealed. “When her husband passed away, some less flattering secrets of theirs came out, which resulted in the entire family and their friends losing all respect for them.”
Photo: Pavel Danilyuk / Pexels
“As horrible as it sounds, I don’t really care much that she’s passed,” she continued, listing off her reasons for not wanting to attend the funeral. She explained that her mom is in charge of organizing the funeral, making sure to note that she “also doesn’t seem too distraught over her death.”
The woman revealed that she started a new job two weeks prior and doesn’t want to ask for time off for ‘the funeral of a woman I don’t care for.’
She expressed concern that if she didn’t go, her mom would paint her as “the villain,” and wondered if she was wrong for not wanting to go.
The comments that the woman received fell on both ends of the spectrum, with some understanding her perspective and others believing that she should put on her big-girl pants and support her family. One person thought she should go to the funeral, if only because she should “get used to asking for time off work when you need it, because it's a big part of your work/home/life balance.”
Someone else noted that companies should have a bereavement leave policy in place, and it doesn’t actually matter how long she’s been in the job for, she should have access to that time off, if she wants it.
Others gently declared her to be in the wrong. One person noted, “The funeral really isn't about her, it's about family getting together. Going is being there for your mother more than anything else.”
Photo: Pavel Danilyuk / Pexels
“Funerals aren't held for the dead, they're to aid the grieving living, and your mother wants you to be there,” said someone else.
The question remains as to whether she's socially obligated to attend a funeral for someone she doesn’t care for.
The reality is that her time is her time, and she gets to decide how she wants to use it.
Yet by not going, she’ll need to navigate her mom’s disappointment. She’s not wrong for setting a boundary on how she wants to live, yet she can’t control other people’s reactions to her decisions, which is part of setting boundaries, to begin with.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.