Talking to kids about tough stuff is always a tightrope walk, but the usual suspects are often reassuringly predictable. Maybe it’s time for the birds and the bees, or perhaps a friend group pushing boundaries calls for a serious chat about drugs or alcohol. But death? Bringing up the ultimate unmentionable can feel heavier than anything Dr. Phil ever tackled. Especially in the Western world, adults often find themselves more tripped up by mortality than the children they’re trying to guide. Yet, as Caitlin Doughty’s insightful new book, Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death, brilliantly shows, kids aren’t just curious about death – they’re brimming with questions.
Caitlin Doughty, a mortician and funeral director by trade, has made it her mission to normalize death conversations across various platforms. Her popular YouTube channel, Ask A Mortician, dives into historical death rituals, funeral industry secrets, and all things macabre. She co-hosts the podcast Death in the Afternoon, further exploring death-related topics with colleagues from the Order of the Good Death, an organization she founded to encourage open and healthy dialogues about mortality. She’s also penned two previous books: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, a memoir detailing her early experiences in the death industry and the genesis of her fascination with darker subjects, and From Here to Eternity, a travelogue and cultural study where Doughty explores diverse death rituals worldwide.
Doughty’s previous works aimed to highlight the Western world’s skewed perspective on death, arguing that our modern aversion is a step backward. Death was once an everyday reality, making it easier to discuss and accept. While healthcare advancements have dramatically extended lifespans, our increased distance from death has turned it into a cultural taboo. This has empowered the funeral industry, allowing it to capitalize on our fear and push us further away from acknowledging death. Despite our discomfort, death remains an inevitable part of the human experience. Doughty advocates for open discussion and understanding as the best way to reconcile with this truth. In her latest book, Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, Doughty seems to be laying the foundation for a death-accepting culture by employing a strategy familiar to every cereal marketing team: start early!
Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? adopts a question-and-answer format. The questions are inspired by real inquiries Doughty has encountered, primarily from children. These questions range from the whimsical (what if you ate popcorn before cremation?), to the outlandish (can you be preserved in amber?), to the perfectly logical (what happens if you die on a plane?). Doughty’s answers draw upon her personal experiences with death, historical events, and scientific facts, often debunking common myths. While committed to factual accuracy, she doesn’t shy away from humor. Her tone remains light and infused with the dry wit her readers have come to appreciate:
“Back in the Middle Ages, people used to be buried right outside (and even inside) churches – lots and lots of people. The human remains were supposed to have been moved away from one particular thirteenth-century English church back in the 1970s. But it turns out they weren’t all moved. We discovered this because badgers invaded and started digging dens and networks of tunnels down through the ancient bones, sending pelvises and femurs flying to the surface. Someone should stop those badgers! Whoops, they can’t. In England it’s illegal to kill those furry creatures, or even move their dens. Thanks to the Protection of Badgers Act (yes, that’s real!), we’re looking at six months in prison and huge fines even for attempted badger assault. Workers at the church have to pick up the bones, say a prayer, and bury them back in the ground. The lesson here is that even if you make it almost a thousand years in the grave, you never know when you’ll be uprooted by a lawless badger.”
This willingness to embrace a child’s playful perspective is what makes the book so effective. While some might find her tone irreverent, perhaps adults need to rediscover the fascination with the “icky” and allow death to become a normal topic of conversation, as common as it is in life. Children are the ideal starting point for Doughty’s death-positive message. Western culture hasn’t yet stifled their natural curiosity about death, making them more likely to ask seemingly strange questions that, upon reflection, reveal genuine and rational curiosities. These are the kinds of unanswered questions that can linger in the back of one’s mind. Do decaying bodies underground affect groundwater taste? Read the book, and you’ll be eager to find out.
