If you are one of the countless parents who have either had this conversation or are facing it in the future, then my heart goes out to you! I remember when my partner and I had it. I wasnât any where near as polite as Meryl Streep is in the clip from the 1998 film âFirst Do No Harmâ.
I warn you before seeing it that it is upsetting because a childâs mortality is the hardest thing a parent can ever have to face period.
There are a few important things to try and remember if you can because having a child that unwell is also one of the greatest strains a marriage can face.
Firstly try to keep it in mind that men and women deal with emotions in very different ways. Men tend to get angry but internalize it or blank it. Either that or they take it out on inanimate objects (yes that scene where the hero hits a door or the wall in movies is accurate.)
Women externalize and verbalize their emotions. If itâs in our heads itâs in our mouths.
Try not to accuse each other of handling the situation in the wrong way or being an inadequate parent however much you may want to because although those things are said in the heat of the moment, they canât be taken back afterwards.
Lastly but most importantly (and itâs the only major problem I have with this clip) is donât have the conversation in front of your child.
As a psychiatric worker I often have to deal with people who are under heavy sedation and many of them have told me that they were aware on some level of what was going on around them to the extent of repeating snippets of conversation that nurses and doctors had at their bedside inappropriately.
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