If you’re reading this page it’s probably because you’ve heard about Flat Daddy™ and the wonderful way it’s being used to help children stay connected to a deployed parent. He’s also filling the "blank space" in family occasion photos, event and trips. Just look at the pictures to see all the places he’s been! It’s exciting.
--from http://www.imalreadyhome.com/flatdaddy.htm
This is so horrifying to me! Is it really comforting? I guess it must be.... so many people are doing it... but it just makes me want to cry.
It turned up in a link in the sidebar on a letter from my Mom (those google ads are sometimes so bizarre!)... anyway...
In case it's not clear from what I quoted above, people with family members deployed in the armed forces create life-size cutouts of them! To help the children feel like Daddy or Mommy is here with them!
They put them in special occasion photos so it's like the person was really at the wedding or at Disneyworld or whatever!
Apparently this is comforting to them but it is just.... I can't see how that wouldn't just be depressing as hell. "Daddy's not here to kiss you goodnight but you can kiss the cardboard cutout."
I guess it's already depressing as hell to have your family member deployed, possibly in danger. Probably so depressing that it couldn't get any more depressing...
But isn't it creepy to have the flat version sitting around? I mean... what if they were already dead and you didn't know it?
OK, I'm trying to express my feelings about this and be sensitive to the feelings of others at the same time, which is maybe a doomed proposition to begin with. But still. Wow.
1 comment:
Those kids are gonna grow up and loathe the parent who DIDN'T go away for making them kiss that fucking cardboard cutout. I mean, come on. It's not comforting, it's a fad.
*shudder*
Totally doomed proposition, hon. Just because you don't have a loved one currently deployed doesn't mean you can't have an opinion.
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