A Serious Undertaking

Why waste $$$$$$ on pimped out metal coffins with liners and gold trims when the dead wouldn't know, nevermind feel the difference?!? Oh, and embalming? What a joke and a waste! The dead is going to rot anyway. Just stuff me in a pine box, hurl me into the ground and I'm good to go!

Why waste $$$$$$ on pimped out metal coffins with liners and gold trims when the dead wouldn't know, nevermind feel the difference?!? Oh, and embalming? A waste! The dead is going to rot anyway. Just stuff me in a pine box, hurl me into the ground and I'm good to go.

omg this is what I have hopeing would happen as it cam close to my time to die. I have all ways kinda wanted to be eat by wolves and *** over a cliff and push up real flowers. I hated the idea of greed fallowing me all the way to my grave... thank you the Widow

omg this is what I have hopeing would happen as it cam close to my time to die. I have all ways kinda wanted to be eat by wolves and *** over a cliff and push up real flowers. I hated the idea of greed fallowing me all the way to my grave... thank you the Widow

mnewco - please tell me you're joking!! How can a person remain alive after being embalmed???

I worked for 15 year as a minister in Switzerland conducting hundreds of funerals and working closely with a funeral director whose mission statement was "Give death back to the family". Here simple wooden caskets are common, embalming and vaults are outlawed. The funeral industry stateside is a big business which has taken death and a whole lot of money away from grieving families.

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I worked for 15 years as a minister in Switzerland working very closely with undertakers who mission statement was "Give death back to the family". in Switzerland there is no embalming, vaults are illegal, caskets and urns are wooden and simple. The U.S. funeral system and it's players play on a culture of denial and take advantage of people at a vulnerable moment in their lives and funelled money into lobbying efforts which have produced ordinances and laws which are shameful, disgusting, ecologically damaging as well as morally questionable. The goodness people are starting to think and question and report on this abuse.

I am a teacher at career college. One of the classes that I teach is an elective one on death and dying. Most of the students have never dealt with any one that was dying much less having to deal with end of life decisions for a loved one who has passed away. I take my class to a mortuary and the funeral directors do a fantastic job of not only allowing the class to learn about the end of life decisions, but also to see a compassionate business who provides a service that not many people are willing to be associated with. The class is allowed to ask pricing questions, burial questions, observe a cremation in process, and if there is an embalming with permission from the family they are even allowed to observe that. This is all done with compassion, respect, and honesty for the deceased and the family. My students come away with the knowledge that the end of life is not always what we want, but if we prepare, it can be what is affordable for our family that is left. Burial, cremation, cryogenics, or donation are all very personal decisions concerning the end of our life here on earth. Although we do have some very dishonest people in the funeral business, we have some very good, decent honest people who are just trying to make a living doing what most people do not have any idea on how to handle the details of the most devasting event of their lives. All facets of our lives have dishonest providers. We need to be savy consumers, and prepare for that final decision before it happens. Doing so makes those few days after the passing so much easier for those left behind.

I have been a funeral director in several states and have authored a book for families helping them with their funeral cost. Eventually all funeral directors will be cooperating with folks on home funerals and green burials. Just as in any profession there are good and bad. The FCA and articles like this do everyone a great service. It will happen just like cremation happened.

As a former funeral service professional, I want to thank you for encouraging this debate. In a rapidly changing world such as ours, tradition, ritual, and meaning are evolving as quickly as the means available to communicate those changes. Secondly, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize Mr. Slocum for his long-standing dedication to providing sound, thoughtful, and fair information to the funeral consumer, and the industry. He has performed a great service in his career. I would also like to point out that the death care industry has it's good and bad characters, just as any business or profession does. For the most part, family owned funeral homes have a fine, and enviable reputation in the communities they serve. Funeral directors are neighbors, civic leaders, and volunteers in every town and city in the nation, and they have a long history of giving to their communities. The recent conglomeration of the industry by several major international corporations seems to has somewhat sullied that fine reputation, likely due to the conglomerate's first responsibility to their shareholders, rather than their customers and neighbors. Every funeral director I have ever known has been willing to forego profit when the family could not afford the most basic service, and infants, civil servants killed in the line of duty are most frequently buried at cost, or at no charge whatsoever. Lastly, when Jessica Mitford wrote her so called expose of the industry in the 1960's, the average funeral was about $1,000.00. Today, it is true, that cost has risen to nearly $5,000.00. But, a large portion of this rise is due to the Federal Funeral Rule, which requires funeral directors to itemize every service and every item available for purchase in their establishment. No other business is dictated to by the Federal Trade Commission at the level the funeral industry is. What other business must provide you with a price list even before you step foot in the sales room? Just to compare, when funeral were a thousand bucks, automobiles were between two and three thousand, a hamburger was fifteen cents, and a new top of the line color television was about two hundred dollars-go figure!

That was an incredibley unfair article. Althought it certainly doesn't surprise me of Newsweek, considering how liberal and one sided Newsweek has gotten of late.
By and large, by a very great percentage, the funeral business is honest and supportive of whatever the consumer wants to do. The funeral business provides cremation, green caskets and any kind of alternative service the consumer wants. It's annoying to have every funeral home tarred for one or two bad apples, which there are in every industry. The funeral business provides it's own licensing watchdogs to look for just such instances of dishonesty. Misbehavior is dealt with very effectively to keep just this kind of thing under control and regulated, and this system works very well.
I have been a licensed funeal director for more than 25 years. Over the years I have seen the funeral business change itself to provide for the changing desires of their customers. The one major desire of almost every single funeral director that devotes his or her life to this business is that the the consumer be happy and that their loved one gets whatever kind of service that the family wants. It's not up to us to decide what they choose. We provide whatever the cunsumer wants.
One more thing. The article provided an example of the dishonest funeal business by pointing out the actions of an uneducated hospital staff. That isn't the blame of the funeral home. Most states allow the family of a deceased person to handle the dispositon themselves and funeral homes are well aware of this fact. It's not the funeral business's fault that it came into exsistance, and continues today, because by and large most people absolutley do not want to do this for themselves. The funeal business provides what the customer wants, and when that changes the funeral business changes too. This assertion of rampant dishonesty is unfair and untrue. The real truth is that funeral homes are by and large honest and funeral directors efforts on behalf of grieving families are received gratefully. The extremely rare instance when the family desires to take a larger role in the disposition of the deceased is supported and assisted.

Please see http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/side/5709726.html
for another aspect of green burials.

??? If there is no risk involved, why does my husband need hepatitis shots? Why does he need to wear protective clothing????

REPLY FROM JOSH SLOCUM: You are confusing occupational risks with at-home, family practices. Your husband is dealing with numerous bodies of unknown provenance. Just like hospital workers, he has no idea what sort of germs the person had, and often doesn???t even know the cause of death. In addition, he is opening up the body, puncturing the viscera, and exposing himself to large amounts of internal body fluids - things home funeral families don???t do. That???s why it???s wise for him to wear protective clothing and get vaccinated. Would you like me to graphically describe for everyone here how invasive embalming really is?

But families, on the other hand, are *already in physical contact with people they know, and whom they may be caring for as they die.* Grandma lying in her hospice bed is not a stranger with an unknown disease. Like many families, you yourself have probably cared for an aging relative, including changing his or her diapers and bedding. If you were to do so for your husband in his dying days, do you mean to tell me you???d suddenly put on protective clothing and demand hepatitis shots because you thought his dead body might suddenly become infectious? That makes no medical sense. For your information, the CDC and the World Health Organization have consistently confirmed that the dead are almost always a negligible health risk. It???s the living that make us sick.

???Do you all want to deal with maggots on your loved one????

REPLY FROM JOSH SLOCUM: Now you???re just getting hysterical. That kind of fearmongering is uncalled for. Most dead bodies are not crawling with maggots. That happens when a corpse is found many days after death with no preservation. This is certainly not the case with most home funeral families, who have attended to the person while he was dying, and who keep the body cool or on dry ice at home.

What bothers me the most is that, given your husband???s job, you darned well knew that, but you were still willing to scare the dickens out of readers here with misleading and horrific claims. Remember this the next time you wonder why organizations like FCA criticize the funeral industry for telling fibs.

If you want the truth about home funeral care, and good explanations of how to properly care for a body (and no, it???s not the decomposition horror show Victoria would like you to believe), please see these helpful sites:

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2004/afamilyundertaking/resources_03.html

http://homefuneraldirectory.com/

???victoriakitty??? offered some comments I???d like respond to:


???Do all you people really want to bury your dead? It is possible in many states. Not all funeral homes try to squeeze money out of people. My husband is in the business and he finds it a rewarding job to help people get through such a difficult time. Not all deaths are pretty; most people would not be able to handle it. My husband makes $27k a year; I don???t have benefits, so who is making all this money????


REPLY FROM JOSH SLOCUM: It???s certainly true that not all funeral directors are getting rich. Specifically, I know that many embalmers and mid-level employees of large funeral homes and those owned by chains complain rightly about their low wages compared to what the company and its executives are making.

However, this does not change the fact that funerals are, by any free market standard, vastly overpriced in most cases. To see what I mean, take a look at our chart comparing the number of funeral homes by state to the number that would be ???needed??? if each funeral home did a reasonable number of services annually:

http://www.funerals.org/consumer-protection/national-issues/an-oversaturated-market/41-nationalissues/122-an-oversaturated-market

???I am offended by the one sided nature of this article. I know many wonderful and caring people in this industry and this is just not a fair representation of things.???

REPLY FROM JOSH SLOCUM: Yes, there are many wonderful people in the business. That does not change the fact that the the industry as a whole has major problems that conspire to get consumers to pay more, and that cloud their decision-making with marketing and deceptive practices.

???Why shouldn???t a funeral home be paid? Maybe the doctor won???t charge me???

REPLY FROM JOSH SLOCUM: No one ever said funeral directors shouldn???t get paid. Our position that consumers should be able to pick and choose what they want at a price they can afford is hardly a radical proposal.

Having worked for many years for a family owned funeral home and being married to a funeral director, I take offense to Mr. Slocum's comments. I have never seen a family pressured to buy beyond their means. We ask them to stay within their means. They go into the selection room without a funeral director so they can make their choice freely without feeling pressured. We also offer preneeds so a family can make those decisions before they find themselves in a state of grief. As to the family cleaning and preparing their loved one's body- have you ever seen someone after they have been in a horrible accident or may have taken their own life? Even funeral directors often struggle with some situations. Most funeral directors even call upon another funeral director to prepare the body of their loved ones. Embalming protects the living. Some viruses and bacteria does not die at the death of the person. People can still be infected. Embalming kills these virsues and bacteria. Oure state requires that a doctor and the funeral director sign the death certificate. However, this does not delay the burial of the body. I am sure some funeral directors are not professional, but I believe they are not the majority. I am proud to say my husband is a funeral director. He takes care of the living and the dead.