Teen's Reason for Saying Stepbrother's Death Wasn't 'Personal Loss' Backed
A teen who sparked a family fight after admitting "he didn't feel like he had lost anyone" after the death of his stepbrother years earlier has won support online for his honest stance.
The loss of a sibling can have a profound effect during a child's formative years. A long-term study published in the Journal of Adolescent Research found that surviving siblings consistently reported experiencing feelings of isolation and social withdrawal both at home and among peers in the years following a bereavement.
However, the reaction differed significantly for one step-sibling, as a post shared by a Reddit user claiming to be his uncle explained. Writing under the handle u/FrostyLock1774, the uncle said that his nephew initially lived as part of a blended family alongside his dad, his stepmom Emma, and his stepbrother Logan.
The complexity of blended family dynamics can occasionally lead to conflict and that was certainly the case here. "Logan and my nephew had a very oil and water relationship and were not close at all," the uncle explained.
Around three years after they started living together, Logan sadly passed away.
"Emma fell apart," the uncle wrote. "My nephew confided in me a few times that he felt like everyone expected him to be feeling and reacting differently than he did. He told me he wasn't glad Logan was dead and it was sad. But he didn't feel like he lost anyone."
According to the post, the nephew was concerned Emma was starting to notice his reaction as he "wasn't crying and didn't really have much trouble continuing with life as normal."
The nephew was 9 when Logan died. According to the uncle, in the years that followed Emma was often "quizzing" her stepson about his feelings towards Logan. However, things only came to a head around the time he turned 17.
Just before Christmas, Emma overheard her stepson consoling a friend who had lost his dad and sister in a car crash and heard him say he "hadn't ever experienced a personal loss before."
Emma "went nuts" after hearing the comment, while the teen's dad was similarly angry when he found out about the remarks, telling his son he should "be ashamed of himself for being so dismissive of his brother's death."
As a result, the teen has now moved in with his uncle while the dad remains stunned at his "awful" response to the loss of his stepbrother. But some felt it was perfectly understandable.
Juli Henderson is an advocate and writer for In Our Arms, a blog chronicling her experience caring for her son Robert, who died at the age of 18 after living his life with a rare mitochondrial disease.
Henderson told Newsweek: "The mom must have felt the loss the most so, because of her own grief, would be unable to comprehend why other family members didn't feel the same. For a parent, that response or lack thereof can be offensive beyond understanding! It can happen with family and friends, and it takes time to give grace to others."
Despite this, she defended the teen's right to be "honest" about Logan's death.
"He was stating his own experience," Henderson said. "His stepmom may not have been able to receive that shocking secret because the relationships that each of them had with the person who passed away were completely different. Each may have been grieving, but not like the other."
Others on social media were critical of Emma's reaction to hearing what her stepson said. "If the boys only lived together for a few years and weren't friends, then it's not surprising the nephew isn't grief stricken," one Redditor commented.
"He was expressing his feelings," another commenter wrote. "If his wife had respected his child's privacy and minded her business, she wouldn't have heard it in the first place."
"Emma is being extremely unfair to the kid for not developing that connection in 3 years, when I highly doubt she's made a connection between herself and her stepson in a longer span of time," one Reddit user said.
Despite the current situation, Henderson encouraged all involved to find a way to forgive one another. "In the end, they are all dealing with death and that loss is final for one, and ongoing for everyone else involved for a lifetime," she said.
Newsweek reached out to u/FrostyLock1774 for comment. We could not verify the details of the case.
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