What services does Mommy's Light provide for children/teens?
How do Mommy's Light's services benefit young people?
How does Mommy's Light benefit the surviving dad or guardian?
Who is eligible for Mommy's Light's direct services?
How does a child/teen get started?
Who chooses the tradition or simple pleasure?
What type of traditions or simple pleasures can a child/teen choose?
How often does Mommy's Light provide its services to a child/teen?
How much does it cost?
Can a child/teen change the selected tradition or simple pleasure?
Why does Mommy's Light primarily serve children and teens whose mothers are terminally ill or have died?
How can I get involved as a Volunteer for Mommy's Light?
What services does Mommy's Light provide for children/teens?
The purpose of Mommy's Light is to bring joy and comfort to children and teens by helping them keep alive traditions and simple pleasures they shared with their mothers. To support young people in adapting to their mothers' deaths, Mommy's Light's key services include:
1. Free direct services to children and teens whose mothers are terminally ill or deceased, and
2. Education materials targeting grieving children and the adults who live or come into contact with them.
Our direct services legitimize a child's natural need to maintain a connection to her mother who is in a life-threatening situation or has died. Mommy's Light works with the child/teen to identify a tradition or simple pleasure that was shared with the mother and that the child wants to continue. Then Mommy's Light arranges and pays for the selected activity once a year until the child/teen is 18. For example, Max and Madi want to continue planting flowers each spring as they did with their mom. Mommy's Light asks them what type and colors of flowers they would like to plant and then purchases and delivers the flowers and other gardening surprises to Max and Madi each May.
The goal of Mommy's Light's education materials is to normalize the relatively common experience of childhood bereavement. Mommy's Light's bereavement education materials for grieving young people and their loved ones are available by clicking here for Children, Teens, Families. While these and other Mommy's Light materials focus on maternally bereaved children, much of the information is applicable to all bereaved children. Our materials (1) explain the range of emotions and other responses that a grieving child might be experiencing, (2) offer helpful suggestions as to whom a child can turn to with related questions and issues, (3) offer ways in which children can remember their mothers, and (4) describe bereavement so those in a child's life can understand and provide support.
Back to top
How do Mommy's Light's services benefit young people?
It took one dying mother, Mary Murphy - Mommy's Light's founder, to understand the importance of a mechanism that would enable maternally bereaved children to maintain healthy emotional connections to their mothers. Mary intuitively knew that continuing traditions was a vehicle that would positively support these children in their lifelong grieving processes. Unbeknownst to Mary, her vision was also supported by clinical research.
Researchers have shown that bereaved children are at two to three times greater risk for psychological problems than non-bereaved children and a mother's death may be associated with more emotional and behavioral problems than the death of any other family member. Furthermore, children and teens whose mothers have died are three times more likely than the general population to gravitate to either end of the social spectrum. That means they are three times more likely either to spend time in juvenile delinquent institutions or jails, or become great contributors to society.
For years, many professionals have espoused that the right way to mourn fully is to move on. Children's grief is assumed to be even shorter-lived because they are assumed to be too young to understand or experience the impact of death. These beliefs are simply not true, but persist despite the fact that bereavement researchers, counselors and the bereaved themselves consistently tell us that rituals to honor the connection with a deceased loved one are a helpful and natural part of mourning. Specifically, researchers have concluded that bereaved children function better if, among other factors, they (1) maintain a strong emotional connection to the person who died and (2) are part of families who actively cope with the illness and death, and provide order, predictability and routine.
Back to the Top
Role of Traditions - Hope Edelman
It is important to know that children do not disengage, do not separate and do not end their connections with their deceased mothers, nor are they supposed to do so. The mother continues to be an important psychological resource in the child's growth process.
Back to the Top
Mom as Emotional Champion - Hope Edelman
Each year in the United States, 125,000 new young people experience the deaths of their mothers and, at any given point in time, there are more than 626,000 maternally grieving children in our country. This tsunami washes through families regardless of their race, gender, religion or socio-economic status. And, in its wake is grief.
The unique and terrifying thing about grief is that in order to be healthy it must be painful. This pain, however, does not have to be coupled with the pain and challenge of breaking through the walls of silence many well-meaning adults erect around grieving children. Mommy's Light's Tradition Fulfillment Services and bereavement materials help to (1) break down these walls of silence and (2) tip the scales toward a more positive outcome for maternally bereaved children.
Back to top
How does Mommy's Light benefit the surviving dad or guardian?
The functioning level of the child's father is a key indicator of the child's level of risk following his mother's death. Because these fathers are also grieving husbands, it may be especially difficult for them to provide emotional support for their children. Providing emotional support is new for many fathers, and being challenged to do so in the context of their own grief can be confounding. They are asked to step into the void left by a mother's death, to become the lynchpin of their child's life.
As widower Rick Sandy described it, "As we were doing our best to prepare for my wife's death, I was discovering the devastating reality of life without her. As it was overwhelming to me, I found the effect on our children impossible to comprehend. When the time drew near and the situation became desperate, I discovered Mommy's Light. My wife was still with us and the thought of preserving the children's favorite family event gave us all something to be excited about and, most importantly, grateful for. At this time, we could find little in this world to smile about and the Mommy's Light people made us smile. Two years later, my children and I realize how much easier it is to continue our tradition with Mommy's Light taking care of most of the logistics. Mommy's Light's services help the child/teen and family to continue the selected activity by making all of the arrangements so that the participants can just jump into the event without having to do one more thing.
Bereavement education materials for fathers can be found on this web site. Click Fathers and Guardians for more information. This information includes a list of red and yellow flag behaviors that indicate that a child might need additional help.
Back to top
Who is eligible for Mommy's Light's direct services?
The criteria for young people to be eligible for Mommy's Light's direct services include:
1. Children who are at least 3 and no more than 18 years old.
2. Their mothers have life threatening conditions or are deceased.
3. They live in the Mommy's Light's direct services area, which encompasses the greater Delaware Valley, including parts of New Jersey and Delaware, or are members of a family living outside of the Delaware Valley that has been accepted into Mommy's Light's national expansion pilot program. To find out more about Mommy's Light's pilot program contact us at info@mommyslight.org.
4. Their family must directly request Mommy's Light's support.
Back to top
How does a child/teen get started?
The child/teen's parent or guardian must fill out a Request for Services Form. Mail the completed form to Mommy's Light, P.O. Box 494, Lionville, PA 19353.
If the child/teen is eligible, Mommy's Light will assign trained volunteers to arrange a meeting with the family. The meeting can take place in the family's home or any place they feel comfortable, and lasts between an hour and an hour and a half. The child/teen must be present during the portion of the meeting that focuses on the his or her request.
Back to top
Who chooses the tradition or simple pleasure?
Each eligible young person in a family may choose a tradition or simple pleasure. Because Mommy's Light is a child-focused organization, it is important that the request comes from the young person. If there is more than one eligible sibling in a family, each sibling may select his or her own tradition or the siblings may choose to share the same one.
Back to top
What type of traditions or simple pleasures can a child/teen choose?
The young people we currently serve have chosen activities like going to the zoo, amusement parks, roller skating, dinner and movies, baking cookies, muffins and cakes, shopping at the mall, and planting flowers. Each of these examples was an activity that the mother and child regularly engaged in together. Mommy's Light's services do not include once-in-a -ifetime events or activities solely designed for the purpose of acquiring property. Certain other restrictions apply.
Back to top
Who participates in the requested tradition or simple pleasure?
Mommy's Light will make the logistical and financial arrangements for the young person and immediate family members to participate in the requested tradition or simple pleasure. Immediate family members include parents/guardians and any siblings who are under age 18 and live with the requesting young person. Certain exceptions apply. Other family members/friends may participate at their own expense. Mommy's Light volunteers do not actively participate in the activity.
Back to top
How often does Mommy's Light provide its services to a child/teen?
Once a year until the child/teen reaches age 18 (age 18 is not included).
Back to top
How much does it cost?
Mommy's Light's services are free.
Back to top
Can a child/teen change the selected tradition or simple pleasure?
The selected activity generally remains the same each year. Some of the details may change. For example, the first year Max wanted to plant only blue flowers but the next year he wanted red and yellow flowers.
Back to top
Why does Mommy's Light primarily serve children and teens whose mothers are terminally ill or have died?
Mommy's Light was founded by Mary Murphy, a mother who knew she was dying. Mary knew that her son's physical needs would be provided for and that he would receive counseling. She was concerned that special traditions they shared would get lost or tucked away in a box. So she asked her son which of their traditions he wanted to make sure would be continued after her death. In that moment, Mommy's Light was born.
Back to top
How can I get involved as a Volunteer for Mommy's Light?
More information about becoming a volunteer for Mommy's Light can be found here Volunteers, or contact Tracey Oberholtzer at (610)-458-1690. On the Volunteers page you will also find the most recent edition of our Volunteer Newsletter, Highlights, in which you will find the latest information about what is going on at Mommy's Light and how to sign up for volunteer opportunities.
Back to top
Worden, William J. Children and Grief: When a Parent Dies. New York: Guilford Press, 1996.
Marvin Eisenstadt, Andre Haynal, Pierre Rentchnick, and Pierre de Senarclens. Parental Loss and Achievement. Madison, Conn.: International Universities Press, 1989, 201-25.
Ibid.
Granot, Tamar. Without You. Jessica Kingsley Publishers: 2005.
