To tell child not to be in any photos without her sister

I'm interested in seeing what OP thinks after all these million pages.

As this is the second post about something similar in the last few weeks it's clearly on OP's mind/her DD's mind.

I feel like all this is coming up because it has touched on the deeper pain DD still has about her father's family. I think that's what OP needs to support her with rather than focusing on these GP. I think it's sort of a red herring and not what DD is REALLY upset about.

If anyone is excluding DD surely it is her dad and his parents who don't seem to bother with her at all?

So how would you explain why her eldest wasn’t invited to a family wedding when both the op, her husband (obviously) and the younger child were?

I talked about this upthread- the wedding was a cousin of DH’s. This cousin was probably aware of DH’s wife’s name and that they’d had a DD - but may well not have known that their cousin’s wife had an older child who lived with them all the time. People aren’t always completely in the loop with what every member of the family is doing, or how they lived. When they asked if the older child could come, she was invited. Again - just because she wasn’t initially included doesn’t automatically mean that she was deliberately excluded….

So how would you explain why her eldest wasn’t invited to a family wedding when both the op, her husband (obviously) and the younger child were?

Truly truly weird.

I’ve been in my stepdad’s life since I was 3. I’ve never met my biological father. I’m now 44. When my stepdad’s father died - his family tree was put together for the funeral. My three half brothers and my mum were on there and I wasn’t. Some families are weird.

Since when is anyone stuck with who they married.

I don’t think you should ask your little girl to do this, but I do think your in laws are missing out on what could be a very special relationship by excluding her. My niece was introduced to my parents when she was three, and was immediately included in the family as a granddaughter. She was never treated any differently, and now, in her forties, is a very much valued member of the family, despite her mum and my brother having been divorced when she was 16. My parents are both deceased now. She’s still my niece, still as special to me as her brother and sister are. And I have to say that if her mother had gone on to have other children after divorce, we as a family would not have left them out on family occasions either. Children notice unfair treatment and don’t understand the biological links that your in-laws obviously think are important.

Yes. I think some posters have read OP saying they have form for "excluding" eldest and reacted to that, but haven't paid too much attention to the examples OP actually gave. I don't think it sounds like they are excluding her. I think that DH is right and they are kind to her when she's around and that's a reasonable expectation. And I definitely think this is more about OP and DD's feelings about her paternal family.

Fwiw I don't think OP is wrong to be upset and want to find a way to support her daughter. I just think she's looking at it the wrong way by focusing on GP rather than dealing with feelings about having a different paternal family who have quite frankly let her daughter down massively.

When his cousin got married my eldest was not on invitation just you get who was a baby. He immediately rang his siblings to see if only babies were invited but when other nephews and nieces were he was on phone and cousin sent her an invitation.
I have not posted about this.
Photographs were taken of all the kids but then specific sets and DH’s nieces took youngest out of my eldest arms and they all asked her to step out. I did not know this until two days afterwards when she told me how it made her feel.

So at this point the now 5 year old was a baby, meaning the Stepchild was only 4 or 5. That's very young to be holding a baby, and potentially awkward looking in photos. Photographs have been taken of ALL the kids by this point and the older nieces asked for a photo of them holding their baby cousin. Especially as the now 5 year old was a lockdown baby, presumably this 2020 or 2021 wedding was one of few opportunities for photos with the new addition to the family.

I've got similar pictures at family events where I'm just holding one baby and the baby's whole sibset aren't in every shot. I have pictures of me as a baby without my other siblings at weddings etc being held by cousins, aunties etc. It's just a normal thing that happens at family events. Not every child is in every single picture. That's just life.

And it could have been easily explained to a then 4 or 5 year old without it being made into such a big thing about her sister being "taken out of her arms" and her being "forced to step out" etc that OP is still stewing over years later.

My Mum, our shared Grandparent and half-sibling have pictures together just the three of them on my half-sibling's wedding day. My Dad and I were asked to step aside for the photo, by my half-sibling. I was a child at the time as half-sibling was an adult when I was born. It's not traumatised me for life and, as young as I was, I understood why it was a nice picture for them to have.

Likewise, I understood why my Dad and I weren't at the top-table, even though half-sibling never knew their father and my Dad was very good to them and looked after them from childhood so was the closest thing they had to a father. It was because they didn't want the awkwardness of me being on the top table and perhaps needing more attention from our Mum on a day that they needed her more. We were a blended family and this sort of thing is all just par for the course. Sometimes we did things together, sometimes separately. There was no insistence that everything be equal 100% of the time and that both of us had to be in pictures in all three sets of grandparents houses for example (given our age gap, my half-sibling never actually met my paternal grandparents and I never met theirs, obviously). Luckily, my parents explained things clearly from a young age so I didn't take everything personally. It's really important for parents to manage not just their own expectations but their kids too.

I was fine hearing..."Tom is Ashley's cousin but not yours, so they get Ashley a Christmas present. But Ashley doesn't get one from Sara, because Sara is your cousin, not Ashley's" for example. It's easy enough to explain that "your sister and you have different grandparents" to an almost 10 year old. She doesn't call her stepfather Dad so she already must know on some level that these are not her grandparents.

And there is nothing wrong with the other children in the family referring to themselves as half-siblings. That's how they see themselves and it's not up to the OP to police and express her unhappiness at how other people refer to their own family relationships.

It would be much better for her to focus her energies on building a connection with her oldest child's father's side of the family, particularly her paternal grandmother who was previously involved.

The thing that leaps out at me (from the other thread as well) is that the DH clearly doesn’t think his parents are being unreasonable. And - understandably - everything here is coming from the OP’s viewpoint. From the other thread, she talks about being pretty shocked and horrified to see the other cousins there having a “party lunch” from which her DD had deliberately been excluded, but she says her DH saw them when he dropped off the younger DD and just saw it as some of the other kids being around for the day. She complains here that other kids treat her older DD “like someone they have to be polite to” - but couldn’t one equally say they all treat her with courtesy? I get the feeling of people walking on eggshells here. OP says that all she wants is for them to be kind to her older DD, but I don’t see any evidence that they aren’t: there’s a Christmas gift, an Easter egg if they’re there. The OP’s beef is that they don’t treat her like a grandchild. But she knows that they don’t see her as a grandchild (as her DH’s sister has confirmed) and that’s not unreasonable because she isn’t their grandchild…..

I’ve said this upthread - but biology is one of those things that is hugely important to some people and not at all to others. But it clearly is to the OP’s in laws. By the sound of it, if the BIL has two sets of children, this isn’t their first rodeo with blended families and in laws with step children; maybe as a result of that, the idea of having events and photos with “all their grandchildren” is really special because that’s the only way they’ve seen those kids all together and been able to facilitate the relationships between them? And - if so - when the OP’s younger DD came along as their youngest grandchild, they wanted to slot her in to that set up.

The other thing I think is true here (as in life generally) is that just because someone isn’t included in something doesn’t mean that they’ve been deliberately excluded. “We don’t often get younger DD on her own so it would be really nice to get her together with her cousins” doesn’t equal “Greaf - older DD is out of the way, so let’s have a party.” “We’d like to have a photo with our grandchildren” doesn’t mean that they deliberately refuse to take a photo that she’s in. If they don’t send her a birthday gift, it’s more likely that they haven’t remembered than they’ve “refused to acknowledge” the date. They aren’t very interested? Probably not. But that’s a different thing from actively snubbing her. I really think that the best thing for everyone would be for the OP to pull back a bit from these “family events”. Let her DH take the younger one and do something lovely with her own DD from time to time. You can’t control other people’s feelings and actions and whether one thinks that the in laws are reasonable or not, it’s odds on that their feelings won’t change. So better to accept that and be further away from the situation rather than simmer with resentment and hurt feelings.

It’s a tricky situation and sad that DD1 is feeling excluded.
The last posts have just crystallised something I was wondering; how much of this is actually coming directly from DH. If he does not see himself as a father figure no wonder the wider family are following his stance.
It now seems to me the OP is the one not managing this situation. She has no contact with the child’s father and has ‘lost contact’ with his parents which surely hugely impacts DD1.
It further seems telling a 5 year old is supposed to enforce her, and DD1’s, wishes.
OP if you chose not to have DH in a ‘daddy’ role it was 100% on you to ensure your daughter kept in contact with her other grandparents and maybe even with her own father or just to manage everything better.
I can see it would be hard, and I’ve a feeling your DH really would not like it, but if you collectively have decided he is not her father figure you owe it to her to try to forge connections on that side, eventually even spending some of these weekends visiting them instead of just DH’s side.
As another side, where are your parents and siblings in all of this? Do you spend much time with them?
Could I kindly suggest, instead of trying to force things, actually discreetly speak to DH’s parents about maybe having one photo up that includes DD1 ‘because it would mean so much to you all’.
I also agree that you are not currently helping your daughter to realistically manage and process her feelings. It’s a great idea to have some special mum and daughter days instead of in law visits each time.
I hope you can find a way to improve how DD1 feels.

This is what it boils down to.

A lot of the posts have been about whether people think MIL and PIL are in the right. But this doesn't matter in the slightest. This family have well established attitudes, that look to apply across the board given the way BILs kids talk about themselves as half siblings. Depending on the age of his second lot of DC, those attitudes may even have been present already when OP chose to marry in. She is stuck with them.

The question therefore is OP manages this situation going forward. And in fairness to her, that's pretty much what the thread is about, albeit the photos plan is obviously a terrible one.

Absolutely - @SpanishFork has been rather disingenuous on this thread, probably because it suits her narrative.

Have you read the thread?

As someone who grew up in blended families on both sides YABU. It’s fine for your ILs to not see your DD as their GC. Because she’s not. Absolutely no consideration or sensitivities went into step-GP dynamics when I grew up and it was absolutely fine. I had my own grandparents to enjoy I didn’t need someone else’s. I don’t know why children must be told they’re super special and loved by absolutely everybody. Not to mention if you and your DH split up they’d likely never clap eyes on your DD again

Leaving your eldest daughter out of every photo would be very unkind.

But I totally understand that grandparents would mostly want photographs of their own grandchildren. If the marriage ever broke up, there's a good chance they'd never see your eldest daughter again, so it'd be a shame for them if there weren't any photos with just their grandchild.

Ah, from this post it gave the impression he treated her as his own

It's like there are higher expectations on these grandparents than the OPs own DH who was the one that had a choice in entering this family set up.

Crikey, firmly held at arms length away. Well, it isn't surprising his family are hugely confused in that case.

@DurinsBane

From @SpanishForks other post about her in laws:

“My daughter does not call DH Daddy. He isn’t her father. Some posters think I am trying to erase the past but I am not.”

She has met a paternal grandmother, what's best is likely to be for that grandparent to be engaged again... and it isn't clear why she wasn't contacted if there were hospital questions, or if the girl was upset afterwards. The other child's grandparents need to be told she's noticed the photos, birthday gifts or whatever and please involve her more closely as she doesn’t have involvement from the other side, but being kind is not the same as demanding that they financially level up at the expense of other grandchildren, and people ought to comprehend why that isn't fair.

I’m pretty sure from the other thread she doesn’t even call him Dad, so not sure where you’re getting your information from.

PP’s point still stands regardless - even if he sees himself as her dad, it’s not automatic that others have to see her the same way.

She is in all but biology.

Already been mentioned by the OP that the eldest child doesn’t see the GP on her biological dads side

It doesn’t matter if he has adopted her or not to whether he treats her like his!
And maybe he wants to adopt her, but the biological father won’t agree to it?
Yes some men do dump their kids, and I know on MN it seems to be loads, but actually the vast majority don’t.