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AIBU?

Caused double upset with birthday photos

101 replies

Rae36 · 01/08/2020 15:14

Dmil has dementia. She regularly gets my sons muddled up, they look quite similar at the best of times and since I could only do one style of lockdown haircut they look even more similar than usual right now. Not being able to remember their names really upsets her.

I printed out some recent photos to give her, just printed them out on plain a4 paper on our home printer and cut them up. I was saying to ds14 that we should write on the back who each person is and he suggested sticking them on to a piece of paper and writing underneath so she can see the photo and the name at the same time.

We looked in some drawers and dug out an unused scrapbook, sellotaped each photo on to a page and wrote a caption underneath. Gave the book to mil who was delighted.

This past week I've had messages from dh's older daughter who is 23 saying that she's upset about being in only one photo in the book. There are maybe 20 photos in the book in total, just a random selection of photos. We've only seen dsd once since lockdown and took a photo on that day which is in the book, she doesn't live near us and she works in a busy job so it's hard to meet up. We don't usually see her that often anyway. Dh's older son is not in the book at all, even though we see him quite often, and he's not bothered.

Dh's sister then also contacted us to say that she is upset that we produced a photo book for mil and her kids are not included. Her kids are older teens, we haven't seen them at all since Christmas. She has seen the book, she knows it's home printed photos stuck in an old kids scrapbook with Mickey Mouse on the front, but she is still upset. Said that she feels that we want mil to remember our kids names but not hers.

If I had produced an expensive online photo book deliberately aimed at helping her remember and recognise each family member then I can see that not including everyone would not have been good. I wouldn't have done that. But was IBU in spending 20 minutes making a quick scrapbook and writing names on it?

I thought I was doing something nice and now I wish I hadn't bothered.

Did I do the wrong thing?

(Bearing in mind that in the past sil has given mil calendars for Christmas with photos of just her kids on them, and one year dsd gave a set of 4 cushions with 4 different photos of her riding her horse printed on them. No attempt to include all grandchildren equally, no complaints from me)

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OldQueen1969 · 01/08/2020 16:01

Another here to say YADNBU - lovely idea and good to strike while the irons's hot - sadly dementia can step change very fast and it's so daunting when these things become obsolete further down the line as has happened with my MIL now in residential care..... she no longer recognises my DP or me at all :( .......

But the joy it brought her before then looking through albums and talking about the memories that were triggered is something we treasure.

Why on earth should you have to be the curator and historian of the entire family - what you have done is addressed a specific need in your immediate family for your DMIL in the moment when it will be most appreciated and useful. Let them do their own albums / prompts if they also recognise the need. Also it strikes me possibly the homemade feel would make it feel less like a reminder of her dementia and more like a source of happy memories - my MIL was very aware of her diagnosis and despite being very mild mannered and polite, anything that made her feel as though she was being "treated like an idiot" as she used to say triggered massive distress.

So I don't think you've done anything wrong at all