Mom's Biggest Fear Comes True When Kids Get Lice. When One Is Sad About Killing the Bugs, They Decide to Host a Funeral (Exclusive)
Mom's Biggest Fear Comes True When Kids Get Lice. When One Is Sad About Killing the Bugs, They Decide to Host a Funeral (Exclusive)
Hannah SacksWed, February 25, 2026 at 8:41 PM UTC
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Laney Morello's family having a funeral for lice.Credit: laney morello/Tiktok -
Laney Morello's kids came home from school one day with lice
The mom of four says one of her daughters was upset about killing the lice, so they agreed to have a funeral in their yard for the lice
Now, she tells PEOPLE what happened at the funeral, and why she agreed to host one
When Laney Morello's kids came home from school with lice, she saw one of her biggest fears actualized.
The Virginia-based mom of four, 31, tells PEOPLE that when three of her daughters came home from school with lice, it was their family's first experience battling the tiny critters. She says that it was "one of my biggest fears" and had to explain to her girls what they'd need to do to get the bugs out of their hair.
"My 5-year-old calls herself a 'bug keeper,' " Morello says of her daughter Frankie. "She cares a lot about little critters and was so sad when she found out that by evicting the lice we'd also be killing them. Her older sisters came up with the idea of a funeral so she'd let us treat her head!"
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Morello shared a video on her TikTok of the funeral she threw. In the clip, her three older kids could be seen making headstones for the lice and gathering around outside to say their final goodbyes. The stones read, "RIP. Here lie the lice."
"Filing 'lice funeral' under: things I never would have done before becoming a parent," Morello wrote over the video.
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Now, Morello shares a bit more about what her family of five did while attending their lice funeral.
"We all dressed in our funeral bests, played [Taylor Swift's song] My Tears Ricochet, and each said a few words," she explains. "This kind of thing is pretty on brand for my kids. Their dad and I decided before having kids that we wanted them to have the most fun, love-filled and memorable childhood, so we're usually pretty happy to act on their funny ideas."
A photo from the Morello's lice funeral.Credit: laney morello/Tiktok
Morello says that since posting the video online, she's actually received a lot of advice from other families who've gone through something like this.
"We actually got so much great advice about how to make sure the lice were gone for good!" she says. "It was so helpful! Lots of other parents [were] commiserating and sharing stories of funerals their kids had insisted on as well."
"The funeral was a fun way to make something fun and silly out of a nuisance of a situation. So many people mentioned that they were traumatized by their lice experience as kids, and we didn't want that for our kids," explains Morello. "We didn't want that for our kids so we dressed up and went along with their whimsy. Now it's a good memory!"
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
