[House] Explaining cryo.

[Robin Lee Powell]

Warning: emotional shit.





RJ brought up today that some delicate shit comes up if I die and
you have to explain cryo to the girls, if they are very young.

My preference: don't.  At least, don't explain it until they're old
enough that you would try to explain, say, what an interest rate is
on a loan, or what "honor" means, or something.  Explain death as
usual, and if you want also explain that instead of being buried I
got frozen.

My reasons are twofold:

It seems to me that a possible outcome of explaining cryo to a very
young child is:

1.  The child thinks I'm actually coming back in a near-term,
concrete, tangible sort of way.  That strikes me as setting up the
child for a disappointment of absolutely soul-shattering magnitude.
If you don't explain cryo and I come back, it's a happy surprise.
If you do explain it and what the child hears is "daddy's not dead"
and I don't come back, it's an *extremely* unhappy surprise.

2.  The child tries to explain it to their peers.  Especially in the
form of emotionally charged fights about how "daddy's not dead".
The catastrophic effects on their peer relationships would be vast.

So.  Let's just not.  Explain it when they're older.

-Robin