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

Uggggg just read all the updates. It’s so depressing reading these threads all the time and how they go.

OP you can see how this situation is hurting your daughter (and you ) and then you just start defending their behaviour ?? Why do people blend families if they cant behave? 😪

Is it really fair to ask your daughter to grow up like is? In a “family” where she is always made to feel like she doesn’t really belong; where she will never be accepted, where she will come to analyse every situation from taking a photo, to attending a wedding, to receiving a Christmas present, from the lens of how she isnt really wanted? Please don’t do this to her.

Yeah I agree with this don’t be making DD1 use family names like nanny etc to them make it clear to her that’s Tina or whatever her name is, then it’s not like her nan is excluding her.

You absolutely cannot do this. It’s a ridiculous notion.

If they are pictures of the two children together, why not?

This

She isn’t his daughter, though

I completely agree. To leave the ‘non-bio’ child out of family pictures is nasty.

@SpanishForkyou need to have strong words with your H. You are a blended family, for his parents to exclude your eldest from photos is petty and hurtful. Do they ignore her birthday? Not get her something at Christmas?

Does your eldest child’s grandparents have pictures up of your 5 year old?

Men dump their biological children just look at the girls actual father.

Also the dh hasn’t adopted her so he treats her as a step child not his child.

Ordering a child to step out of a photo is unkind whichever way you look at it. Ditto refusing to give them a gift on their birthday.

Your job as a mum is to protect your child from unnecessary distress, and that's best achieved by keeping her away from people who don't want her around. Husband can take charge of maintaining relationships between his side and DD5, but I wouldn't be attending any more of his family events. They're not your blood relatives, so by their own logic you owe them nothing.

@SpanishFork - I’m really shocked by all these people saying your eldest daughter isn’t your PILs’ grandchild as if the only thing that counts is a blood connection. She is their step-grandchild - that should be enough. My mum remarried when I was 31. I acquired a stepdad and a stepbrother. In time, grandchildren were born on both sides. No-one distinguished between step-grandchildren and bio-grandchildren. I think your PILs sound quite callous.

I suspect you’d be surprised.

Because you don’t want it to be true. As if there haven’t been plenty of threads on here started by posters upset that their youngest children don’t in fact share the same ‘exactly the same’ opinion that they think they should hold.

I doubt she’ll struggle to grasp that her sister has a different father and paternal family to her, if she isn’t already aware of it and accepts it. It isn’t something a child will automatically consider weird, especially when the normality of this is reinforced by her large paternal family, complete with other half and step siblings.

I doubt that very much. Children and teenagers don’t think like adults. They can also ask awkward questions.

Probably, but also probably not so when that step parent has taking the child on as their own, and not just as a step child.

They know how she feels, and they’ve made it clear they’re not going to change to suit her.

Conversely, the youngest may very well feel fine about it, and consider her mother’s unrealistic expectations to be the problem.

She can’t change the GPs but she can make her feelings count. Also there could be unintended consequences for the GPs further down the line. As the biological GD gets older she will notice her sister being excluded. She may not feel good about that for all sorts of reasons.

Okay? Well, feel free to do you if ever the situation arises, I guess.

OP isn’t going to get what she wants. Her in laws aren’t going to treat her eldest as if she’s their grandchild, and her husband isn’t going to attempt to strong arm them into doing so. Nor is he going to deny his child a relationship with them. This is OP’s reality, and it’s one she’d be best served coming to terms with.

it’s not a sustainable situation. The older child is already upset about feeling excluded and the mother, their son’s wife, is upset. It’s not a passing relationship, this child is established in the family fulltime. Yes you are right, if my son married someone with a child I wouldn’t dream of behaving in such a petty and spiteful way and cutting them out of a photograph.

Biology determines she’s not their grandchild, so quite a lot. It may be unimportant to you, but that it’s disingenuous to consider this in any way unusual or surprising. Who knows how they would consider an adopted child? Not really relevant as that isn’t the situation.

The son doesn’t expect his parents to consider OP’s eldest their grandchild, and takes no issue with them not doing so.

Are you serious? You can't be. A 5 year old is not able to deal with such things. Why would they want pictures of someone not biologically related to them in family pics? I'm not sure why you're taking this so personally as this is something your husband should be addressing.

I remember the first post. The family have known the stepchild for years now and it is their own son’s choice to take her on as family. She is also a biological sister to their grandchild. I’m sorry but I find the GPs behaviour appalling, deliberately not showing photographs which she is in. What has biology even got to do with it? What if their son had non-biological adopted children? Would they treat them as inferiors too? Personally I would have the difficult conversation with the in laws.

I believe that statistically the majority of stepparents cease to have contact with stepchildren when a relationship has ended.

Why would that be terrible?? If it bothers them they could just take newer pictures showing the family as it is at that point.

My mum has a wooden family tree sculpture thingy she got years ago with all our names on and my brothers ex wifes name is on it. Just cos they're no longer together doesn't mean she needs to be expunged from history.

Equally a few years back my brother's then girlfriend and her daughter spent Christmas with us. They were in the group xmas photos. They're no longer together. If we look back at these photos later on, we'll just go, 'oh yes, I remember them', or 'oh what was her name?' But either way it's fine. It's a record of a time.

Right now OPs dd is part of that family and should be included in family photos.

My sibling is getting ready remarried to someone with kids. My parents will is changing to remove the grandkids, so the inheritance just goes to me and my siblings, so then we can decide on what to give to their grandkids. That way there is no issue of the step grandkids being included or not. I think this is a good way to stop any potential hurt in the future.