MIL took a photo of my child with a stranger

YABU to be annoyed by the photo to the point it has still worried you a week later

YANBU to be upset that no one takes non planned photos of you and your child. Can totally relate to this.

I think you are being ridiculous. Please don’t blame your mother in-law for this. I think I would Look back and laugh at a picture like this and say ‘Oh remember when Jack was a toddler, he was a friendly little thing, remember when we went to Xxxxx park and he plonked himself on that random woman! Ha! Bless him!’

If you haven’t got any nice pictures of you and him, start taking some! It’s nice weather this weekend, wear something nice, feed the ducks, play on swings, get an ice cream, buy bubbles and get your DH to take hundreds and pick some nice ones. Frame them, send them to your MIL, upload them to SM, do whatever it is you feel you are missing out on.

@elizzza has said exactly what I was thinking, @Cookiemonster81 - if I were you, I'd be asking people to take some pictures of you with the baby.

I have one granddaughter, and my lovely DIL sends us lots of pictures of her playing on her own, or with her dad, ds1, but as @elizzza says, she is not in many pictures because she is the one taking them - so when we see them, I make a point of taking, and sharing, plenty of pictures of our granddaughter with her mum as well as with us or her dad.

I think it's quite common for mums not to have photos of themselves with their DC, simply because they are the ones normally taking the photos.
It's probably easier these days, but my kids just pre-dated the ubiquitous phone camera. I had a decent camera that I took around with us but DH rarely asked to use it, and if he did the results were usually of someone missing a head 😁
Now everyone permanently has a camera with them, there is no excuse. You need to ask whoever you are with to take photos of you with the children.

I don't think your MIL did anything wrong.

I get it. I mean you can't really say anything to her about it but it's sad that she wasn't 'inspired' to photograph your child and you, doing something nice, given you give attention and care to your child for much longer than a stranger.

My phone is full with photos of my dc and their dad + extended family having genuine fun but very little photos of me and dc even though I'm the primary carer.
You think of your child all grown up, years later, going through photos and all they have of you is a staged photo, where you had to ask for someone to capture it and then had to look at the camera and it needed your child to pose with you (which they don't normally like) - rather than everyday photos of spontaneous little joys and laughs, documented authentically.

You are your DS’s mother and he loves you more than anyone else in the whole world.
Going forward ask people to take photos of you and your little boy. My kids got to about 10 before I realised I’m not in any of the photos with them, so I then made it my mission to ask anyone who was around to take them of me and the kids.

You're clearly doing something right as a mum if your toddler was happy and confident enough to play with the other children and their mum.

See it as the compliment and success for you that it was! 😁

You sound so down about yourself. Why is that? Could you afford to book a sweet informal photoshoot at home or in a park with a professional photographer? Or of not ask the best photographer you know to take some pix in portrait mode. Get some photos you love and can keep forever. Re your MIL, I doubt she even registered this woman but was focused on her grandchild looking sweet.

OP, your mil was simply recording a cute moment. One where your son felt emboldened to climb up on a strangers lap to play with her phone.

Just ask your mil to take a few pics of you and your dc next time. I do this. If I didn't I would have hardly any photos of me and my dc.

Why didnt you stop your child sitting on a strangers lap if you are so upset about it afterwards?

What we say doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t bother me but it does bother you for whatever reason. I would try to see it from a different angle though. You’re raising a confident, sociable little boy and that’s a good thing. Obviously you’re doing a great job with him . Try to see the positives .

She probably thought it was quite sweet that your son was confident enough to interact with this woman and that it was not a regular occurrence so worth taking a snap.

It really isn't an attack on you and she isn't deliberately taunting you.

Are you getting any support (GP, counselling?) because your reaction seems way out of proportion?

Your MIL probably thought it was a photo of a funny moment - going up and sitting on a stranger’s lap is pretty adorable toddler behaviour and one day when they’ve grown out of it you’ll look back at this as a sweet memory. It’s not that she wanted a photo of a stranger, it’s that she wants to remember how happy and confident and open your child was at this age.

I don't have a single photo of me and my child that I like, yet here he looked so happy with this total stranger, it was a nice picture. If it was me and my child I would have been really happy. MIL has never sent a photo of me playing with my son.

This is the real problem. You wouldn’t have thought twice about this picture if you had loads of lovely pictures of you and your child. It’s common for mums to be the photo takers and never end up in pictures. Absolutely nothing wrong with saying to your partner and/or your MIL that you’d love some candid photos of you and DC having a good time, and could they try to take a few when you’re out? Certainly for me it goes against my instincts to ASK anyone to take my picture, but when I realised I had thousands of lovely photos of DH playing with the kids and none of me I said this to him, he immediately apologised and said he just thought I didn’t like being photographed so he didn’t want to make me uncomfortable! Now he takes photos a lot more.

No one likes photos of themselves, and the other mum probably thinks it’s an awful one of her.

someone told me recently I’m photogenic. I’m not, (overweight , post menopausal, middle aged) she obviously thought so.

I have to agree with you. Bloody hell some of these poor MILs can’t do anything right.

She took a photo of your child, she’s got to be some mastermind psychopath to think ‘I know, I’ll send this photo to DIL to make her jealous of a random woman siting with her DS’

Sorry you're feeling so low OP. Mil didn't do anything unreasonable here. It's just part of letting our kids go out into the world in a tiny way. Mil was there, baby was looked after. You should just tell Mil to take your photo with Babs next time she's with you!

I'm sorry but this would not bother me unless I had something going on inside my mind that was affecting my perspective.

Good on you for posting and sharing - I think this is what this website can help with. But my opinion is to not restrict your child's experiences because of how you feel. And if you know your self esteem is low, now's the time to start working on it.

Wishing you well xx

Could it be because you and your child is an everyday occurrence so it hasn’t crossed her mind whilst your toddler sitting on a strangers lap was quite amusing so she took a snap rather than ill intent?

Im a single mum and have probably less than a dozen photos with my now adult daughter because I had no one to take photos so I do get it.

Oh here we go another MIL bashing thread, not had one for about 10 minutes. I am not even a MIL and I feel sorry for anyone who is one after reading threads on here

She took a photo of your son. Your interpretation of that photo is your own issue, not hers

There's an opportunity here to say 'that's a lovely photo, if you see a nice shot of me and DS together please could you capture one, I get lots of photos of him with other people but few of us together'. Otherwise you end up 20 years down the line with selfies of you and the kids and nice photos of them with everyone else like I have! DH is lovely but useless at getting a nice photo without being instructed.

You say he looks really happy in the photo? I’d assume she’s shared it because it’s a great one of him!

It’s a shame it’s so upsetting to you but I’d try not to extrapolate blame from that and plonk it on your MIL.

It's not a non issue and your feelings are valid. However your MIL clearly thought she was being kind in sending you photos of DS, and it's lovely she wants to capture happy moments.

I would really suggest sharing with your MIL how you feel, thanking her for the photos and letting her know that you'd love some photos of you and DS when the situation allows. Communication can solve all, OP, and I'm sure she'd be mortified to know she'd upset you!