Six children, of various racial backgrounds, ages 7-10, explain in their own words the experience of having a parent with cancer. Each interview was shot in the child's home, and is intercut with footage of him or her interacting with parents as the child narrates. They discuss their complex emotions and questions: guilt ("Did I give my mom cancer by being bad?"), anger ("Why are you leaving me?"), fear ("What if mom dies?"), and alienation ("Is that really dad's body in that hospital bed?"). Seeing the kids and their parents on their own turf, rather than a studio setting, humanizes the situations--these are real families, and real children. There's also a segment shot at a support group meeting for young kids who have terminally ill parents, in which the subjects discuss their feelings and how they deal with them. This video could have been a sappy sympathy piece, but the realistic and straightforward manner in which these kids' love for their moms and dads is translated on to the screen makes it rise above that. Recommended. A companion volume, Kids Tell Kids What It's Like When Their Brother or Sister Has Cancer, is also available. Aud: P. (E. Gieschen)
Kids Tell Kids What It's Like When Their Mother or Father Has Cancer
(1999) 15 min. $39.95. Cancervive. PPR. Vol. 14, Issue 5
Kids Tell Kids What It's Like When Their Mother or Father Has Cancer
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