How death is discussed before the proverbial final course is served is an area Dr. Andrea Lambert South researches. As a family communication scholar, her research focuses on learning and telling the stories of families and family dynamics, and how communication plays a role in who we are and how we interact with each other.
So what has she, and her students in the College of Informatics Department of Communication, uncovered by observing families as they discuss death over dinner? Join host Mike Nitardy and Dr. South for this fascinating dive into what for many is the ultimate taboo topic.
Learn more about the Communication Studies program at NKU.
How death is discussed before the proverbial final course is served is an area Dr. Andrea Lambert South researches. As a family communication scholar, her research focuses on learning and telling the stories of families and family dynamics, and how communication plays a role in who we are and how we interact with each other.
So what has she, and her students in the College of Informatics Department of Communication, uncovered by observing families as they discuss death over dinner? Join host Mike Nitardy and Dr. South for this fascinating dive into what for many is the ultimate taboo topic.
Learn more about the Communication Studies program at NKU.
The topic of death is one that people want to avoid.
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah.
Mike Nitardy:Period.
Andrea Lambert South:Yes.
Mike Nitardy:We don't like to talk about death. But it's a reality.
Andrea Lambert South:Yes.
Mike Nitardy:It's a fact of life.
Andrea Lambert South:Yep.
Mike Nitardy:And so these dinners are to get the conversation going and to potentially change that way of looking. It can't be avoided. It's something that we must talk about. And we must address.
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah, and we don't have to do it in ways that are so dark and serious. You know, by the way, this is what I want, right? I want to be a tree, right? Or, when people are like "Just throw me in the dumpster..."
Mike Nitardy:Welcome back to the Informatics Café. I'm Mike Nitardy, your host. And today in the cafe with me, I'm pleased and proud to have Andrea Lambert South. She has both her law degree and her PhD. And she's a professor of communication here at NKU. But that's not all. She is also the chair of NKU's Institutional Review Board. She's also a member of mediator on the NKU ADR Center. And she's also the Communication Studies Program Director, as well as the Health Communication Program director. Andrea, welcome. It's great to have you here.
Andrea Lambert South:Absolutely. I'm so happy to be here.
Mike Nitardy:I can't believe that you have the time to be here, given the list of things that we just went through. I'm so excited to get to speak to you at something that our producer Chris Brewer, talked to me about last year was about this, this Death Over Dinner person that might be speaking to us. And I'm so happy to have you here today to talk about that. So I know that we're gonna be talking about Death Over Dinner. But why don't you give our listeners a little bit of a background about yourself before we get started?
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a family communication scholar. And really, that is learning and telling the stories of families and family dynamics, and really how communication plays a role in who we are and how we interact with each other. So I study, divorce, step families, kind of juvenile issues, death, and anything that's like dark and seems really negative is what I really kind of go to because I like to bring the light to the dark in a lot of ways.
Mike Nitardy:Very cool.
Andrea Lambert South:And talk about like how those things are not things that we shy away from, but we can learn so much from each other from.
Mike Nitardy:Well, I tell you what, there's got to be a story in how you get involved in something like that. Would you mind sharing about how you got interested in all this stuff? Ah, gosh, I don't know. Maybe I was born dark.[laughter]
Andrea Lambert South:I just I find so much more nuance in those things that we don't talk about. And I like to uncover those layers of, of what is happening communicatively. We used to say like an interpersonal communication. And a lot of it was Pollyanna ish, right? So what are the things that we can do to be more happy or to have better relationships? And that wasn't interesting to me. So...
Mike Nitardy:Wow, that is something else, because it seems like everything that you just mentioned, really are topics that people don't like to talk about.
Andrea Lambert South:Right!
Mike Nitardy:Or things that are taboo. And what we're going to be talking about today is called death over dinner, which seems like a really weird way to put it. Can you explain what that is?
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah. So it's actually, it's not a project that I started, I read about it in The New York Times. So I was kind of fascinated by it. And I was like, you know what, no one is empirically studying. Like, it seems on the face of it that these are really positive experiences and these are good things. But no one's empirically studying how effective they are. Or if people go and do the things that they say they're going to do after the dinner. So go get an advanced directive or go get their will done or whatever. So my colleagues and I got together and kind of planned out this research and, you know, planned out what we're going to do with the Death Over Dinner, who we're going to recruit, and then we did follow ups...
Mike Nitardy:Okay.
Andrea Lambert South:...as well afterwards. So...
Mike Nitardy:What's the structure?
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah, so we had and this is where I incorporated students because I wanted them to know the research process. We had the be facilitators, so they were trained, they were IRB trained, you know, we made sure all of that and then they would get groups together. We always start the dinner by you know, people usually they're groups of people who know each other. Everybody would go around and you know, say three sentences about someone who had died and like we raise it, you know, glass to them,
Mike Nitardy:Okay.
Andrea Lambert South:toast to them. And then we just have people talk about kind of what are your wishes? What do you want? What do you not want? What are your fears like. And the friend groups tended to be more candid in a lot of ways than when we had family groups because some families... It's usually not the parents or the older people in the group that don't want to express their wishes. It's usually their adult children who don't want to hear it.
Mike Nitardy:Okay, from their parents?
Andrea Lambert South:From their... They don't want it.
Mike Nitardy:They don't talk about the topic?
Andrea Lambert South:They don't. Mom, don't talk about you know, don't talk about that. Don't talk about dying or whatever. And, and so what we know from from families of people who are dying, the people around them won't let them talk about dying.
Mike Nitardy:No kidding.
Andrea Lambert South:They'll be like "Don't Mom, it's going to be okay."
Mike Nitardy:Right.
Andrea Lambert South:As mom is in hospice, and she wants to say"This sucks!"
Mike Nitardy:Right, right, right.
Andrea Lambert South:But they won't let, you know they're like, "No no, no mom, it's going to be fine, it's going to be fine." So we don't allow people to express the things...
Mike Nitardy:Right, right.
Andrea Lambert South:...that they want to, you know. The second article that came out of this was all the humor mechanisms that people do in these conversations. And overwhelmingly, everybody who participated in these death of our dinners, felt better at the end felt more supported, in knowing that people were going to honor their wishes. So it's a conversation that people avoid at all costs that we know is important. But when people do have these conversations, they are so satisfied and happy and feel closer to the people around them that they've shared this with. So, you know, trying to break down that taboo, because there's so much that you can get about how to begin conversations. I did one with, with colleagues and I and I have a colleague that that, you know, is in the College of Informatics, and she said that she's deathly afraid of like, being put in the ground and like worms eating her whatever. I'm like, whatever! Like, it's not, it's not her at all. I was like, what's wrong with you? You know, what I mean? Like just these things that that, that you would never guess about, about other people and their fears. And sharing those things make you feel closer to people as well.
Mike Nitardy:Sure. So would you recommend that anybody go through one of these dinners?
Andrea Lambert South:Depending on the family system, there's some families that maybe it would be too difficult for perhaps, but usually, those are the families that need it the most. But I recommend anybody not necessarily having a Death Over Dinner, but I recommend anybody, you know, saying to your adult children or saying to your children, you know, by the way, this is, this is what I want, right? I want to be a tree, right?
Mike Nitardy:Yeah.
Andrea Lambert South:Or, you know, with the humor ones, some people are like "Just throw me in the dumpster," like, obviously, we're not gonna do that. But express to people like what your wants and needs are, because what we know, especially the law aspect later, is that if those things aren't expressed, that's when people do really silly, ridiculous things like maintaining life when people did not want life maintained, or fighting with siblings and like"you're willing to let mom go and and I want to keep her alive because I'm..." You know, these roles that we have, as children and rivalries, play out later, in really awkward, weird ways.
Mike Nitardy:Definitely. Definitely.
Andrea Lambert South:So creating a situation where that stuff doesn't have to happen, I think is one of the kindest things you can do for your kids or the people around you. Giving them solace that this is what you wanted is, is that a really kind gift? So it sounds to me like a large part of what takes place is people talking about their desires for into life decisions. Is that fair to say? Yeah, absolutely. end of life decisions and kind of what they want for, you know, The memorial or something like that. Yeah, funerals or memorials. And my sister-in-law is a as a funeral director, and my husband worked for a funeral company for a long time. So I've been around a lot of this, and giving people the ability to say like, you know, "this is what mom wanted," right?
Mike Nitardy:No, I think that that is brilliant, because I'm just sitting here thinking personally, that my mom, you know, every once in a while to the family will say in passing a couple of things about how she wants her memorial to be. But we've never kind of like really said, you
Andrea Lambert South:Yup. know, is this what you want? You know, to which I could see in the future? You know, someone's saying, "well, remember, mom used to say X, Y, and Z." But then someone else was like, "no, that's so inappropriate. We're not going to do that." And so what you're talking about is a way to kind of make it official. Yeah. And to say "no, remember, we had this Death Over Dinner, and mom
Mike Nitardy:Right. said..." Yeah, we had this conversation and we were all here. That's
Andrea Lambert South:If we say this then you know step on a what she said. And, and giving again, it goes back to giving people the space to kind of express those things. So those little moments that your mom was doing that, like a lot of people crack break my mother's back or something like that. will just like take that moment and just change the subject but interrogating the people around us — interrogating in a positive way — like oh, you know, "what else do you want mom?" Or my grandmother is 93 or 95... She won't... we don't really know her age 95, 120, we don't know. But you know when she she'll talk about this will probably be the last time I do this or something like that. And everybody else around her will you know change the subject or whatever, but I make sure to ask because, like that sucks, man. You know "what, what do you what do you think about this?" "How does that feel this being the end?" And I don't think we are comfortable that. Because it goes back to why people don't talk about death because I think people are superstitious. They feel like talking about death brings it into being. That doesn't happen. So if we say it that it, then it, we're, we're...
Mike Nitardy:People like to avoid uncomfortable topics, and we don't want to speak them into being, like you were saying...
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah.
Mike Nitardy:...is that we don't want to somehow be a self fulfilling prophecy.
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah.
Mike Nitardy:Because we're talking about death we're inviting it.
Andrea Lambert South:Right.
Mike Nitardy:Somehow.
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah.
Mike Nitardy:So it seems to me, then what we're, what we're talking about here is, is that the benefit of the Death Over Dinner is not just the end-of-life directives, or, you know, fleshing that out. And everybody being there to hear that. But also, like you were saying is, is actually getting people to approach their feelings and to confront their feelings.
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah.
Mike Nitardy:And so it seems to me that these dinners can can be emotional, but you also said that there's some humor involved?
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah, I know, I would say very few of them have been that I've witnessed have been kind of, emotional. There'll be moments of something. But usually, it's a lot of humor, you know, there's gallows humor, which we know of, there's a lot of... One of my favorite ones was, you know, it was a young woman, and they're going around, you know, raising a toast. And a lot of the people that were participants are college students who hadn't thought about their own death or anything like that. And she hadn't really lost anybody. And she's like, this is to my step grandpa, because he's really the only one that, you know, that I've lost, but honestly, he was a really [bleep] person.
Mike Nitardy:Oh my goodness.[laughter] No doubt. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about
Andrea Lambert South:Or, they'll like, you know, gallows humor of, you know, they witness you know, something on a body or, or something like that. But, you know, we do that to cope. But there's self-deprecating humor. And my favorite is when the research around it that you do. there's couples or a husband and wife in it, because they will quip back and forth of like,"hope that a life insurance policy is you know, paid up." And, you know, "can't wait to get my new girlfriend" and just little stuff like that. But I would say humor is probably overwhelmingly the most common thing that happens in these conversations. Because that's, that's how we cope. And that's also kind of another line of research of like humor in lots of different situations. Because that's, again, that's that's me wanting to bring light to the dark. And I think humor is one of those things that does that. Yeah.
Mike Nitardy:So obviously, there's some utility in the dinners themselves. They're, they're good. They bring good to people and help them talk about the issue. So what kind of research do you do around that?
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah, so like I said, we do kind of empirically do follow up of kind of satisfaction after the dinner three months out, six months out. And then we also, because people make lots of promises during these these dinners, right, of like, "Oh, I'm going to do this, I'm going to contact my lawyer, I'm going to kind of get this advanced directive" and whatever, and research around how, how much people do that. And it's, it's not 100%, of course, right? Because that's just who we are as people, but we're surprised by the follow-up of people. And it's good, too. Because when you talk about these things in a group, then you have other people who are going to encourage you like,"Hey, Mom, you said, you're gonna go contact a lawyer, we've done it yet," right? So "Oh, yeah, I'll go do that," you know, whatever. So that's the empirical stuff we do behind it, besides doing kind of, we'll transcribe all the dinners.
Mike Nitardy:Oh really? Wow!
Andrea Lambert South:Then we'll do like each utterance is, is coded. And we look for particular themes of the code, and then kind of go back and forth and do these iterations of what we call grounded theory, to come up with kind of what communicatively is happening in these situations. So we really kind of break those down and and look at what we call narrative chaining. In a group when people chain off of each other and where conversations go, and what happened within a group.
Mike Nitardy:That's fascinating. That's fascinating.
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah.
Mike Nitardy:So I was actually going to ask, the next thing was going to be how this ties into some of your other work?
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah, well, I think any of it because our relationships and kind of what we do in interpersonal and family common, whatever is how our roles in a in a family are not just our roles. Our roles are enacted. So everything is enacted in and through our communication with each other, right? So I can't play the role of Professor if everybody else in the room isn't participating in that role, you know, that or, you know, supporting that role.
Mike Nitardy:Right.
Andrea Lambert South:I tell my students all the time, I was like, What stops you from walking out of here? They're like, well, you know, I my grade or whatever. I was like, but if you all decide that you don't respect my role, and you all leave, if it's all of you, then I'm the one who gets in trouble. Right? It's not them because all of my students have walked out. You know, what did they think my chair is going to say? So, but in all of these relationships or family relationships, it's it's how we communicate roles, how we enact those roles, how we play those roles, and most family scholars, including myself, are systems theorists. So anything that's happening in a family system, you can never point to one person and scapegoat them and say that, you know, they're the problem, right? Because the whole system is participating in that. And going back to the dark of when someone does get scapegoated, like, what are the positive things that are happening for the other people who are doing it? They create these little triads, they have these other relationships, it feels good to scape go and all of that. So this is just another lens, I think, to see family dynamics and kind of going to the lawyer stuff to or when I meet with, with families, when it comes to their wills, and what they want done. And whatever. It's fascinating to me. And I don't always interrogate it. But when people leave a child out of a will, or whatever, and like, the researcher in me wants to, like sit down and like talk about like, what'd they do?
Mike Nitardy:[laughter]. Right, exactly.
Andrea Lambert South:Wow! Or, I want to be like? Do you think about what what legacy that creates? That's their last moment of thinking of you is leaving you out, you know, etc. And...
Mike Nitardy:Wow.
Andrea Lambert South:...but...
Mike Nitardy:Wow.
Andrea Lambert South:...how all those things work and impact people's lives and decisions people make when it comes to family relations are fascinating to me. And I think all of my work, no matter what the topic is, is trying to understand those things.
Mike Nitardy:Right. Right. You mentioned, obviously, your lawyer, and you mentioned the the practice there just a little bit. And it's a very messy area of the law, family law. Yeah. I have a good friend, young lawyer. And he's a great lawyer, and he has declared he's getting out of the family business, and just says you can't take it anymore.
Andrea Lambert South:Yep.
Mike Nitardy:Because of the messiness of it. You know, Can you can you speak a little bit about that? And about it because of is the it's obviously a lot of the emotions that go into it?
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah, I think so. And, you know, to be honest, so I started a mediation business. And, you know, mediate divorces, and a variety of other disputes. And then, you know, being a lawyer is new and kind of deciding cases that I will take. And I'll probably like, for now, in the near future, because of what I want to do, as far as I think that families can come together in other ways that are more positive. So mediation, so I will only do uncontested divorces, like I'm not, I'm not going to do the crazy stuff. And you know, to be honest, and you know, apologies to any, any lawyer who's offended, our process as it is creates more of that drama of, you know, I could get more or you're not going to see the kids and whatever. So you have two parties paying retainers to two different lawyers. And, you know, you use up the retainer, so we'll fight and then then maybe we'll go to mediation or something. So I think I think the industry is to blame for a lot of that. But family stuff is ...
Mike Nitardy:It's messy.
Andrea Lambert South:...is messy.
Mike Nitardy:Messy.
Andrea Lambert South:It's really, really messy, and it's so draining on, and so many people. And I think the reason why I enjoy it, and, you know, I did my mediation training when I first got to NKU, 16 years ago, and there was a lawyer at Chase, who also attended the training, and he was left for the family mediation training. He's like,"no way that I will ever do I'm, like, fascinated by it. So but I think the only thing that this." keeps me like, it's the people, of course, but I'm looking for more and more layers, right, right, understanding, tying things together. And I think that helps me to endure. And also eventually want people to see that, yeah, these things are tough, and, and whatever. But we can make this better. And I think for all of communication, and inside of the College of Informatics, really all of us and all of my colleagues are doing what we do to make our interactions better with other people.
Mike Nitardy:That makes sense. You know, looking forward, you know, for our listeners, what would you say to them about about how to get involved in a Death Over Dinner? Or whether they should or just about the topic in general.
Andrea Lambert South:Yeah, well definitely, you can just you can just Google Death Over Dinner, and they on the website, they That makes a lot of sense. So for students at NKU, what would have lots of kind of toolkits and whatever you can create your own, and it gives you sample kind of things to send out to you say to them about how to get involved or what they could do your family members to get them prepared or simple ways to start having the conversation or, or whatever, or it could be just as around the topic? Yeah, that's why I love this to have we didn't, you know, start casual as you want. So, you know, say to your family, listen, you know what, on this night, we're gonna, we're gonna have some wine, we're going to talk about what we want, right? And it's going to be okay, and it's going to be a good time and we need to let each other know kind of what we want and this is out in planning to study college students and friend groups and the like people who sell insurance, like, that's how they sell it right? Like, you want to, this is the gift you can give to your family, if something happens to you. This is you caring for them. You sharing with your family members, your wants and needs at the end is caring for them and giving them a delightful gift of solace later. and, you know, just happened because I was involving in my Research Methods students in this process to understand research. A lot of them had never thought about death, right? And, you know, didn't want to talk about with their parents or with each other. And I think if they're not ready to think about their own, I think what they could do, even if it's not, you know, formal, ask your mom or dad or grandma, like what do you want? Like, what do you what do you want it to look like at the end? How do you like that was the other thing that was in kind of our write ups of like, how do you want to die? How do you not want to die? Like, obviously, it's not your choice in a lot of ways. But there's a lot of stuff around that of like, I want to die in my sleep. I want to you know, I you know, I just want to, you know, a variety of other things. So kind of what are those wishes but ask Mom what she wants at the end, or Dad or grandma. And I think it's a simple thing that it will start the conversation and it also starts that from you know, this, it's not a taboo topic because I'm bringing it up.
Mike Nitardy:Exactly. Andrea, I want to thank you so much for joining us today in the cafe for what has been truly a very interesting and an eye-opening topic and experience. And best of luck with with all your work.
Andrea Lambert South:Yes. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Chris Brewer:Informatics Café is presented by Informatics+ the outreach arm of Northern Kentucky University's College of Informatics. Hosted by Mike Nitardy. Produced and edited by Chris Brewer. Music and recording by Aaron Zlatkin. Recorded at the Informatics Audio Studio in Griffin Hall.