>> By the time I was 16, I had been to five or six funerals.
> Is it just me or does this actually seem kind of low?
Not for someone who's young and mostly disconnected from their grandparents' generation. In my case, my family lived far away from pretty much all my relatives, which meant I'm not very close to any of them and going to a funeral meant lots of short-notice plane tickets.
I think I've only gone to two funerals in my life: one grandparent who died geographically close to use when I was a kid, and the father (who I never met) of a friend of mine.
I think it would have been better if it had been different, and I had gone to more funerals, because now my lack of exposure adds a whole extra layer of awkwardness onto dealing with death.
Even if I was close to my grandparents' generation, I only have four of them and that number doesn't increase over time. I don't think I know 16 * 2 = 32 people of my grandparents' generation, especially not now, way past my teenage years.
> Even if I was close to my grandparents' generation, I only have four of them and that number doesn't increase over time.
The scenario I was thinking of to get to more than "five or six" funerals by age 16, was to have "always go to the funeral" parents who took you to the funerals of grandparents and great aunts/uncles living nearby.
> Is it just me or does this actually seem kind of low?
Not for someone who's young and mostly disconnected from their grandparents' generation. In my case, my family lived far away from pretty much all my relatives, which meant I'm not very close to any of them and going to a funeral meant lots of short-notice plane tickets.
I think I've only gone to two funerals in my life: one grandparent who died geographically close to use when I was a kid, and the father (who I never met) of a friend of mine.
I think it would have been better if it had been different, and I had gone to more funerals, because now my lack of exposure adds a whole extra layer of awkwardness onto dealing with death.