Alternative Funerals-A Serious Undertaking
Alternative Burials…
Here comes another one of my pet peeves, Baby Boomers…the Funeral Business…now I have a friend who says they are a business that we all face one time or another…I say HOG WASH! And I am here to uncover some dirt and get those skeletons out of the closet! I am going underground on this one…
Here is just one of the reasons why…
PIC:This is a Biodegradable Casket.
Americans spend between $11 billion and $15 billion on funerals each year (think of the people we could feed) and four major corporations account for 11 percent of the 20,000 funeral homes in the United States, tending to cluster in individual communities. Did you get that Baby Boomers, 11 to 15 Billion a year, buried in the ground!
For more information of this huge serious undertaking here is a site for you to read more information
The FCA members from across the country gathered in Seattle in last June to attend seminars on home funerals; “green burial,” including caskets made from recycled paper; and, most important, educating the public on how to navigate what many members consider a corrupt and ossified industry. They will meet again this year.
“The funeral corporations use “predatory sales tactics and aggressive marketing” to get people, who are in shock, to spend more than they can afford on services they don’t want or need,” says Joshua Slocum, executive director of the FCA.
The lobbyists for the death care industry, Slocum claims, have pernicious influence over state legislatures. In 2006, he got a call from a Native American couple whose 3 year old died in a hospital while they were visiting Salt Lake City. The parents wanted to take the body home to Idaho for a traditional funeral. Hospital staff refused, telling the parents that according to a Utah law passed that year, the death certificate could only be signed by a licensed funeral director, which would have meant that the body would likely have had to be given temporarily into the custody of a funeral home. Luckily, with the help of an alternative burial group, the couple was able to take custody of their child’s body, but the case indicates the power the traditional funeral industry can have.
In some states, the body belongs to the mortuary by state law. And once a funeral director has got a body in the door, it’s over. They’ll charge you from $1,200 to $4,000 for their ‘basic services’ fee. They’ve got possession of your dead and your wallet with the blessing of the state.”
I couldn’t care less what they do with this lump of minerals when I am done with it. I know that it is going to wear out on me one day. And when it does, I couldn’t care less if I am buried in a piano box, a body bag or given to the fishes. I prefer the later.
In the early seventies basic cremation was 250 dollars. Now it starts at 2500. I don’t think that is just. Do the math!
When you get your loved ones ashes back from a cremation, you are probably getting someone else’s ashes back or someone else’s ashes as well. Do you think they cremate one person at a time? Have you ever tired to clean your fire place and get all the ashes…well at the crematoriums it is worse. And where do you think all of those gold and silver teeth fillings go when you are gone??? What a business this is.
Do you remember the recent scandal about the Funeral businesses?
Now my Father had a unique way to buried. He wanted to be buried standing up. Have one of those giant pole diggers and then just place him in it. Yes, Baby Boomers he was different. He gave his body to science and is probably a skeleton hanging in the University of Florida, since he was one of the few, who never had a broken bone. At least that is where I like to think of him, being useful some where. Hanging out with the college students.
So Baby Boomers, for those of you who do not want or have the money to bury someone thru the blood sucking, funeral establishments…there are alternative ways. I saw once where someone knew they were going to day and the whole family made the casket and added something to the relative for his journey. They painted it and colored it, wrote messages on it put his favorite items in and on it. Picked out the material to line it with. Even the children helped with it. This person was home with hospice at the time.
This is a growing serious undertaking and if you would like more information here is a web page for you. Tell them the Baby Boomer Queen sent you…
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well, you certainly have an opinion on the matter!
as a funeral professional that supports green burial and home directed funerals, I would like to add that every “body” is different and each will require certain kind of care that most people will not be able to tolerate.
Not all funeral establishments are blood suckers, people need to do their “shopping” and research. Ask questions, set up funeral arrangements, find out the local laws and ask for quotes. That’s a good thing about Baby Boomers, they are not afraid to speak up. The funeral industry needs consumers like you to speak their mind not bash their jobs.
Hello Kellie.
Thank you for commenting and bringing your opinions to the table. But you still did not say anything that changed my mind about your chosen profession.
Are you telling me that you are charging reasonable prices or your services, for your coffins, for your cremations?
What is your average charge for such an affair. What is your highest price?
What is the charge of a cremation…tell us do you get all of the remains out? Do you burn more than one person at a time?
Do you sit there like car salesmen waiting for the next sales pitch to be your turn?
Waiting for the next victim…
Do you use that hushed voice in everyday life that you use on your prospective client.
There is a need for your service. I for one just do not need it or want it. PLUS, I feel that your profession robs the public for your services. Prays upon the bereaved and the government assists you in doing so.
Kellie the profession that you have chosen has made me indurate because of it’s business practices for the last thousands and thousands of centuries. This is not a new thing. You business goes way back in time. Not much has changed. The prices just keep going up and up.
And what about all of the recent funeral homes that have been caught rubbing the dead of their gold, burying the wrong persons in the wrong cemetery plots and even the wrong casket. or even worse just dumping their bodies anywhere. granted those instances are far and few between but it show you the caliber of some of your funeral directors…the ones who get/got caught.
What a nifty name Funeral “Home.” Now there is some great advertising for you.
Who ever thought that one up was a great advertiser…what is HOME about it? The dead do not live there. The director might…but that word in it’s self is indicative of what I am talking about. HOME…that truly cracks me up! Perhaps you should call it “Funeral Hotel” or “Funeral Inn” since they are only staying there for the night or a few days.
No Kellie, I have no positive feelings for the funeral HOME “businesses,” the insurance “businesses,” the “legal businesses, ‘ the pharmaceutical “business,” and some of the medical “businesses as well. They have given very little hope for human decency.
I am more than welcome to listen to what you have to say. Please change my mind. Give me something positive to go on. Give me some decency that I can grab a hold on. I welcome your rebuttal.
~The Baby Boomer Queen~