Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be annoyed at family members printing my pics?

247 replies

DemelzaPoldark · 09/06/2019 11:34

This has been annoying me for a while. Am I right to be annoyed?

My DM is over invested in, almost obsessed with my two DC. This is irritating as she frequently oversteps boundaries but DM and DC have good relationship.

Last year family holiday (me, DH and DC) I took lots of pics which I shared on social media to a limited audience of close family. I did this so that DM didn't have to worry or constantly phone to check up, could see kids were happy etc.

On return from holiday DM asked for printed copies of the photos. I said I might get round to it at some point. She kept asking and I kept putting her off. I felt she was being intrusive- my kids, my holiday, my photos. I didn't actually say no, but it was clear she wasn't getting the photos.
Fast forward to Christmas, Dsis presents DM with an album of my holiday, and other, photos which she had lifted from FB. She also presented me with one of my photos, blown up to 8x10 size in a frame (not a photo I really like). She hadn't asked permission. Obviously DM had been complaining that I wasn't providing what she wanted so Dsis decided to remedy the situation.

I do realise that by posting photos on social media you are leaving yourself open to this, but I had been careful to only share with trusted family members. Kids are teens who are firmly against their images being generally shared.

I have now made all my photos private to only me and have blocked DM and Dsis from FB. AIBI?

OP posts:
crazyasafox · 09/06/2019 21:48

Anyone know where the OP has gone??? Confused

Where ARE you @DemelzaPoldark ???????????????

MorondelaFrontera · 09/06/2019 21:51

I am guessing the OP is busy deleting all her photos and social media after realising that FB is not really a private place after all Grin

crazyasafox · 09/06/2019 21:54

LOL Morondela! Grin

hellodarkness · 09/06/2019 22:37

"Oh my god 😂😂😂 embarrassed that she has better things to do/a busy life?

How has her sister shown her up? By being an absolute invasive creep?"

I can't imagine how busy you'd have to be to not find the time to print off a couple of photos for your mum over a six month period.

She's shown her up by finding a few spare minutes to do a kind, thoughtful thing for their mum.

LetsGoFlyAKiteee · 09/06/2019 22:41

Don't get how it's creepy. It's not like she's printed off photos of random people. Bit sad that it's seen as creepy...

enjoyingscience · 09/06/2019 22:46

My in laws do this - we will share pictures through a shared album (so not on social media at all), and when we see them, which is very infrequently due to distance, it’s lovely to see the pictures lined up on their mantle piece.

Printing out pictures of treasured family members is 100% normal. Giving a gift of pictures to a family member to demonstrably likes pictures is normal and nice. No one has been invaded if you shared the images in the first place. I feel really sorry for both of them.

LetsGoFlyAKiteee · 09/06/2019 22:48

Also this all happened at Christmas?! Have you really been annoyed about it that long?

WeeWeed · 09/06/2019 23:52

Is this a reverse?

One of the weirdest threads I've read for a while.

Justhavingacry · 10/06/2019 01:08

Hi OP - i just wanted to let you know that in my opinion, sometimes its OK to be unreasonable.

My in-laws (deliberately) drive me to the point of losing my bananas over the smallest things and it sounds like that has happened to you.

I think its fair to say that if your DM wanted photos your children there would be plenty of occasions where you are all present that photos could be taken.

Your DM didn't need copies of photos of your children from a holiday she wasn't involved in.
You and your children chose to share those photos with her because you knew she would like to see them - you didn't chose to print them and plaster them across her walls/leave them on her coffee table to be shared around with everyone she knows.

I suggest looking into a new way of sharing photos, perhaps something with some sort of security layer (if it exists), so it can be viewed but not downloaded/re-shared/re-printed?

MiniMum97 · 10/06/2019 01:31

You are being very weird and controlling. It's perfectly normal to share photos with family members. If your Mum was capable she could have printed them off Facebook herself. Why do you care if she sees a digital copy or puts one on the mantelpiece. She obviously loves you and your kids which is why she wants pics up. Stop being so controlling and not very nice to your mum.

kidsmakesomuchwashing · 10/06/2019 01:43

Why did you put them on FB then?
My mum and dad like photos (of all of us not jus grand kids) I was always at boots printing pics off for them - until I bought them an iPad and set up a shared photo album (don't do FB) and suddenly no more requests for printed photos - they just sorted it all out themselves.
Bit mean of you to not want your mum to have some pics!

expat101 · 10/06/2019 02:03

I do not think its correct etiquette for your Sister to be making an album of your photos without your permission, that sounds tacky.

Imagine the situation if you were planning on doing that as a gift for your Mum from your family!

But I can understand your Mum wanting lots of photos of the grandbabies.

fargo123 · 10/06/2019 02:04

YABU
This is one of the most ridiculous and bizarre things I've read on here for a while, and that's saying something.

aurynne · 10/06/2019 02:07

Photographs were ALWAYS printed (that's the "graph" part of the word, you know) since cameras were invented. When the internet started, we were extremely careful with whom we sent scanned copies of photographs because it suddenly became creepy to know that anyone, anywhere, could seee photos of you and your family, and that the moment you sent it to someone else, you completely relinquished control of what happened with them.

I am absolutely flabbergasted that sharing photos online has now become as routine that people now think that sharing a photo in a private-owned platform (a.k.a. Facebook), by which you automatically lose all claim to privacy and effectively allow a massive, unstoppable, private company to hold and do with your private photographs whatever the hell they want, is "normal" and "safe", while printing one of these previously shared a photo onto a piece of papwer and keeping it at home is... creepy?

It is actually hilarious when you think of it.

Durgasarrow · 10/06/2019 02:12

I thought you were going to be annoyed at having pictures put on Facebook. I was astonished that you were annoyed at having prints made of photos that were already on Facebook. YABU.

RiversDisguise · 10/06/2019 02:39

I'm amazed no one can see how invasive and downright stalkery this is of the in-laws Confused

I get it, OP Flowers

She's almost certainly printing off OP's photo and using it in voodoo rituals, too. Sad

That's why OP has disappeared.

AlphaBlocks · 10/06/2019 02:42

Yabu don't put them on FB.

CJsGoldfish · 10/06/2019 02:48

Back when I had a camera with film, I'd take my film in for processing and always, always, get the double prints. One set of pics for me, one set for my mum and dad. It was all about the children back then with rolls and rolls of kid pics. They got them all, even the shit ones Grin
Of course, now I just send them digitally but cannot ever imagine refusing them pics.

Justhavingacry · 10/06/2019 04:50

I don't understand why people think sharing something through Facebook with a controlled limited audience (i.e. not her entire friends list) is the same as putting it on a billboard?

She used Facebook as a medium to show selected photos to selected people.
Showing her mother the photo does not make it her mothers photo.
(showing you my XYZ, does not make it your XYZ) - you could replace 'XYZ' with almost anything and it would stand.

She wanted her mother to see the photos, she didn't want them in a coffee table book for Gladys from 4 blocks down to flit through with the lawnmower man over a cup of tea.

These were OP's photos, that OP took on OP's device, while OP was on a holiday with OP's family that OP paid for.
I think OP and the subjects of the photos get to be controlling and 'control' their photos.
If not them, then who?

Decormad38 · 10/06/2019 05:35

The op has left the scene I think. Underlying issues I feel that were not expressed in the thread. Perhaps post the real issue next time op.

TwinMummy1510 · 10/06/2019 05:36

@DemelzaPoldark - I hope you're OK. You've had a bit of a bashing on here, unfairly in my opinion.

I agree with @Justhavingacry and @RiversDisguise - there's a very big difference between showing someone a picture and them grabbing it to take a copy themselves. The teens are sensitive about photos - they said they were happy for them to be posted on Facebook to a very limited audience - perhaps they aren't happy to have that photo sat on their grandparent's mantelpiece? Or for the photo album to be seen by any of their grandparents' friends?

Or maybe there's a big backstory here about DM overstepping boundaries and OP feeling invaded. Sometimes what can seem like a small thing to someone else can be the straw that broke the camel's back.

My DB doesn't speak to my mum really now - long story - and vehemently doesn't want her to meet his DM or DW, my DSIL. My mum has found my DSIL on Facebook - and she has a profile pic of her daughter. My DM wants a pic of her DGD - even though my DB says she is never going to meet her. Therefore, my DM has downloaded and printed a photo of my DN, her DGD, without my DB's or DSIL's permission. I don't care if that's a public photo, morally that's not an OK thing to do. I don't think anyone should be printing off someone else's photos, unless you check with them first.

Even if you don't agree, maybe just consider if there's more going here than face value. OP doesn't deserve all the names she's been called.

TwinMummy1510 · 10/06/2019 05:38

vehemently doesn't want her to meet his DM or DW, my DSIL

FFS! This is supposed to read vehemently doesn't want her to meet his DD or DW, my DSIL.

IHeartArya · 10/06/2019 05:55

That’s a completely different scenario Twin

Rivers it’s her own DM & Dsis not her in laws. Even if it was it’s still not stalking- Printing off shared photos is not stalking.

Her sister did a nice thing because the op is lazy/bonkers whatever. Then she blocks them.

I remember these days too Cjs

greenrockstar · 10/06/2019 06:25

@TwinMummy1510 I also think this mane have a back story but I think OP could be the problem and not DGM & DSIL.

NorthernKnickers · 10/06/2019 06:32

You are, quite frankly, very odd...your poor mum, being made to feel like some sort of pest, simply for wanting photographs of her grandchildren. I'm so very glad my own daughter is not this precious!

Swipe left for the next trending thread