Before Their Time: Adult Children's Experiences of Parental Suicide

by Mary Stimming (Editor), Maureen Stimming (Editor)

Before Their Time presents adult children survivors' (defined as 18 or above at the time of the parent's death) accounts of their loss, grief and resolution following a parent's suicide. In one section, the book offers the perspectives of sons and daughters on the deaths of mothers; in another, the perspectives of sons and daughters on the deaths of fathers. In a third section, four siblings reflect on the shared loss of their mother.

227 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 14, 1998

Reviews

[Corvus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up shortly after my Dad died by suicide. There are few books out there for adult children of parents who die this way. It did not do much for me though I don't know exactly what I expected. The editors acknowledge that their sample is limited- all white people, etc- but not how very specific a demographic these writings represent. Almost all of them are by white straight upper middle to owning class Christians with stable immediate family structures, who had really loving relationships with their parents, and who don't have much personal experience with mental health struggles or disability themselves. Their writings do not represent many of the financial, class, race, cultural, sexuality, disability, and other struggles that are large parts of post- suicide grieving and family dynamics for many other people. If I had to pick demographics of people I thought I was least likely to relate to, it would be most of the people in this book. I read all of the essays anyways. This is not to say that their stories aren't valid or useful for anyone. On the contrary, I think many people will get something out of them.

There was one quote that did stick out as helpful and perhaps it was not a coincidence that it came from the only gay contributor, Paul J: "I am not burdened with the common survivor obsession, 'Could I have prevented his suicide?' The thought that I could have stopped my father makes me into a hero and deprives him of choice." This was very necessary and beneficial for me to read and perhaps made reading the whole book worth it.

I've got one other book to try that hopefully has a wider range of voices and experiences. I think the editors did what they could with who they could recruit using the methods they did.