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On Photography in Birth and Death
Today celebrity Chrissy Teigen and her husband John Legend announced the death of their baby, stillborn at about 18 weeks gestation after issues with Teigen’s placenta led to premature delivery. She announced the news on Instagram and on Twitter along with photos of their experience in the delivery room.
There has been an outpouring of sympathy, but also a significant amount of blowback about the decision to capture and then share the photos.
First, I’d like to say some things that should be obvious: everyone grieves differently and despite being celebrities, these parents are deep in grief today, and for the rest of their lives. Perhaps Teigen and Legend marked this moment in a different way than you may have, but it takes no effort to just extend sympathy and keep opinions to yourself.
But I’d like to explain why someone may take and share photos as Teigen has, as a way of explanation because many people seem utterly flummoxed that someone may choose to do so.
I’m a big believer in photographing big life events: weddings, parties, sure. But not just those, I also wanted photographs of my births (because of how things worked out I’ve only had one birth actually photographed, I wish more had been). When a close friend’s husband died, I recommended she hire a photographer for the funeral.
Half a lifetime ago, my mother died. It’s strange to say, but I wish I had photographs of the week she spent in the hospital; not because it was a time I want to celebrate, but because it was a deeply holy time that I carry with me, and I wish we had a way to remember it more clearly. She was close to God, and I felt close to God with her. They were precious moments, and as time moves on, they are fading away in my memory.
In a recent post about the death of her husband, one woman wrote, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers,” we quote. Yes, October tells me that life continues, and that there is beauty even in dying.”
This is a truth I wish we accepted more as a society and Teigen’s, in my opinion, brave decision to post these raw photos make us face that reality. But more than that, because of his age, Teigen’s decision to post the photos of her son’s birth and the image of holding him in death lend this tiny baby, too small to survive in our world, visualizes the humanity he is deserved. What happened wasn’t “just” a miscarriage, which women suffer in silence and seclusion, this was the death of a person with a beating heart just yesterday, and we owe it to him and every baby lost too soon to acknowledge that.
My prayers are with Teigen and Legend and any other parent who has faced this kind of unimaginable loss.
Published in General
Why are they upset? It was just “a clump of cells” at 18 weeks.
I would never do that as these events are not all about me. There are other people involved. Photographing people in their grief at a funeral or my mother in her extremus requires their permission and she could not give it. My memory of these events is what it needs to be and in my mind’s eye, my mother is healthy and laughing, not contorted with illness and death.
Nevertheless, I agree that we all grieve in our own way and it is not for me to judge this couple’s decision.
We lost our first in a similar fashion. it is a very hard, hard thing.
Rush University Medical Center in Chicago had a program that included professional photography as a way to help parents whose babies were in the NICU. I also know of other hospitals that have had photographers memorialize children who died. It is potentially very therapeutic, as the families want to have at least something to remember either their experience (as in the NICU) or their child.
Whether or not putting these photos out on the internet was self-serving or not, they capture a couple in deep pain.
I’m so very sorry for your loss.
Some of these ideas are compelling but taking pictures to remember with is personal, sharing those pictures with loved ones is interpersonal. Sharing those pictures online on a service that provides you money for ‘hits’ and keeps your brand firmly in the public eye is at least somewhat opportunistic.
Thank you for your kind thoughts, Bethany. I should have mentioned that in our case, it happened many years ago and we have had five children since, but while time healed the wound, the memory is not lost. I can empathize with what this couple must be going through.
A baby dying of natural causes like that is very sad. Yet somehow we are told that if the same baby was killed intentionally at an abortion clinic it is no longer a tragedy but just “healthcare”?
I thought that was going to be some of the blowback that Bethany talked about. Maybe there was some of that but Bethany was focused on a different topic and didn’t mention it.
“Wantedness” is the defining characteristic, apparently.
Which is the ultimate arrogance-that the worth of a human being is defined only in terms of another’s wishes.
They are very public people, it came naturally to them to share. Doubtful that many of us regular citizens would though. I think it is because of the relative youth of the technology of digital photography and it hasn’t yet replaced traditional modes of grieving. Traditionally, grief was a good deal more expressive in it’s display, with grandma lying in her bed ( in my case) or Uncle Zach in a box on sawhorses in the drawing room for all to see, stand over and weep , and be the centerpiece of a social gathering. Chrissy is a product of her business and her life is there for all to see, enriching her as it has brought her fame. Most funerals occurring today in America are online due to the lockdowns and the remaining wall of privacy of the family is just about as strong as the family still is. Pity that , but I do miss black borders around my calling cards for the year and a black armband for months.
Now Bethany, why wasn’t someone there in the parking lot with an iPhone when you gave birth ?
I believe that was my point. I didn’t think it was necessary to connect those particular dots but it might be for some.
In all likelihood, the celebrity individuals who are the subjects of the OP would agree with the “clump of cells” characterization in another context. It’s not their hypocrisy per se that I find offensive; rather their pernicious effect on others and society at large.
This brings to mind, yet again, Theodore Dalrymple’s (Anthony Daniels) observation:
This is not really a comment. I just wanted to make everyone aware that there is an organization called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep (https://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/) which provides remembrance portraits for parents experiencing the death of a baby. In many cases, it will be the only pictures the parents ever have a child.
I am unconvinced and still utterly flummoxed. Maybe because I have no idea who these people are.
I remember her husband making some racist remarks a few years ago and she’s said vile things in the past. He’s supposed to be a singer and I don’t know about her.
This is a horrible thing for people to go through.