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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU that you don't post this on even a private group in Facebook?

159 replies

NatashaBedwouldbenice · 09/02/2022 07:37

DP is a member of a Facebook group for people trying to find biological family via DNA (usually birth parents and usually via hobby DNA sites such as Ancestry or 23andMe).

One woman has had a terrible time. She traced her dad a couple of years. They arranged to meet but he never turned up and his wife messaged her to drop it. She only lives six blocks away. This is horribly unfair and unkind, but unfortunately very common.

Yesterday she said that she'd finally been able to meet him. He was in hospital, unconscious and dying from Covid. She has posted a selfie with his head in the background and all sorts of tubes and things on his face. In the photo he is either dying or dead.

AIBU that as tragic as this is for her, she is horribly misguided in posting such a photo on social media?
It is a private group but has about 180 000 members.

OP posts:
SomePosters · 09/02/2022 13:00

It wasn’t you that said about people posting pics of their kids in hospital, that was to another poster but the quote got lost

AlternativePerspective · 09/02/2022 13:02

But for all anyone knows she might well have posted it all over her own social media as well. Clearly she has no boundaries if she’s posting it to a group full of strangers, any one of who could also have been related to the man for all we know. So it’s not a huge leap to think that she might have posted it on her own profile as well.

Pamlar · 09/02/2022 13:19

Social media has completely skewed the way people interact. The attention seeking and over sharing is hideous.
Here was a woman looking for a father, rejected and devastated -it doesn't take much to work out why she needed all the attention and validation. It's hideous and distasteful. I feel sorry for all involved

lunar1 · 09/02/2022 13:22

Nobody is owed a picture with someone who is dying and can't consent.

Yes what happened to this woman is awful, but that grief doesn't come with entitlement.

I'm owed an awful lot by my biological dad, he's a hideous human being and I wish nothing but paper cuts and cold sores on him and the thing he married for the rest of their natural lives.

But they don't owe me the opportunity to photograph them dying and publishing the images for people to see.

Sadly in life we don't always get what we deserve, we aren't always treated kindly and with empathy and understanding. It doesn't give us the right to behave however we please out of grief.

HoliHormonalTigerlilly · 09/02/2022 14:29

@NatashaBedwouldbenice

Could you gently suggest that she might like to keep the photos private?

Someone did and got lambasted. It's not there now anyway.

(Not sure how she could have got into a covid ward...) He was dying/dead of covid-related complications apparently.

You'r think the admin's of the group would take it down.
saraclara · 09/02/2022 15:35

DNA proof that it would be their sister, not just a claim so maybe theyd also be angry with you that youd try to prevent the reunion and them meeting their sister before he was actually dying?

I was talking about ME, @branleuse. Not this man who rejected the daughter. I wouldn't have done so, but given the same timeline of this person meeting me, my DD's would still be essentially dealing with a stranger of a half sister that they'd only just met, and who put a selfie of her with me, dying or dead, on Facebook. It would be absolutely traumatic for them.

Sportslady44 · 09/02/2022 15:49

downside of camera phones today.

Anything can be photographed and put online.

Just because you can though, dosent mean you should.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 09/02/2022 15:52

People on MN seem horrified at the very idea of ‘judgement’. Judgement doesn’t have to be a negative thing. How does anyone ever understand that their behaviour is wrong if no one ever judges them for it?

Accurately put, though TBF it can depend on what someone wants to do with that judgement. Within the law none of us get to tell others what they must do, but then neither do we get to expect no comment on what we choose to make public

And that can be a problem when folk want validation from social media; all the hunning is very welcome, but ask some if they're making the best possible choice and they go berserk

Branleuse · 09/02/2022 16:21

@saraclara

DNA proof that it would be their sister, not just a claim so maybe theyd also be angry with you that youd try to prevent the reunion and them meeting their sister before he was actually dying?

I was talking about ME, @branleuse. Not this man who rejected the daughter. I wouldn't have done so, but given the same timeline of this person meeting me, my DD's would still be essentially dealing with a stranger of a half sister that they'd only just met, and who put a selfie of her with me, dying or dead, on Facebook. It would be absolutely traumatic for them.

yes I understood that, but if it was you and your family then there would be no reason for you to be in the same private group and you and they wouldnt even know that someone had a picture with him. If it was my children, I think we would likely feel much more kindly towards the woman, especially on discovering that she had been prevented from meeting us all until then. I think the trauma of losing their father would be enormous, and the fact that they also had a half sister who they had been prevented from meeting, would be quite a headfuck, but the fact that theyd taken a photo of him and her would be a non issue.
notanothertakeaway · 09/02/2022 16:59

I'm not keen on photos of dying people being shared. I think their dignity should be respected

I recently stumbled on "honour walks" on YouTube by chance. I think it's a lovely thing to do (hospital staff line the corridor to show respect as someone's hospital bed is wheeled to wherever their organs will be removed for transplant) and I can see how it might comfort the family, but I don't think it should be on YouTube for strangers to watch

AllOfUsAreDead · 09/02/2022 17:20

@LouisRenault

I feel bad for her that she knew who part of her real family was....

What about the family who brought her up? Are they not her 'real' family?

Tell that to her who took a photo of herself with a dying unconscious man..

Of course she had a different real family. I'm meaning her biological family obviously. But they didn't want anything to do with her and while that hurts you have to accept that. They gave her up for whatever reasons and while that has been upsetting for her, she has gone about this in entirely the wrong way. If anything now if the family find out, she not only looks insane but she has something they don't want her to have. They could probably take legal action against her and if it's the USA they likely will.

saraclara · 09/02/2022 17:21

the fact that theyd taken a photo of him and her would be a non issue.

A photo of him/me dying or dead? And put it on FB? Really?

They'd be appalled if they knew that anyone had done that (just like OP) so if it was their own mother, when they were grieving, they'd be devastated and very angry. And I suspect it would put paid to them wanting any relationship with the person.

TheOriginalEmu · 09/02/2022 17:24

@lunar1

I'm shocked she was allowed to take the pictures
Why? If you are allowed in to a visit a dying relative of course you are allowed to take photos.
ABitBesottedWithMyDog · 09/02/2022 17:24

I'm genuinely amazed she'd want to. Just why?

My own father didn't give a shit or want anything to do with me or my siblings. We repaid the feeling in spades.

Original poster
NatashaBedwouldbenice · 09/02/2022 17:41

A photo of him/me dying or dead? And put it on FB? Really?

I agree, I'd find it very difficult to accept a sibling I loved and grew up with behaving like this.

OP posts:
Branleuse · 09/02/2022 17:54

I guess that means that different people have different views on posting pictures on the internet, and while some would be upset by it, others would be ok with it or find it neutral.
Is it against the law though?

ButtockUp · 09/02/2022 18:02

The trouble with social media is that it does seem to have increased the 'me,me, it's all about me' attitude.

Were someone to post a photo of me , like that, I'd come back to haunt them ( if I could!)

NotExactlyHappyToHelp · 09/02/2022 18:09

As an adopted person stories like this horrify me. The thought of some total strangers who I’ve only got genetics in common with tracking me down and trying to establish contact makes me break out in a cold sweat.

The thought of these strangers taking a picture of me as I laid in a hospital bed incapacitated is even worse.

Also if everyone could stop talking about adopted people being ‘rejected’ that’d be nice. We’re not seconds ffs.

Spudina · 09/02/2022 18:28

@NotExactlyHappyToHelp as a fellow adoptee I completely agree. I’ve never been interested in tracing my biological father. (Sperm donor). Being adopted gave me the life I have and I’m grateful for that.

giveyou2reasons · 09/02/2022 18:40

I wouldn't have posted it, if I were her, but honestly, barring the man's other close family members, it's no-one's business what she posts, unless it went against the rules of the group. Everyone else should have just ignored it and moved on. What's done is done. It's over now.

lunar1 · 09/02/2022 19:26

You really aren't @TheOriginalEmu, no trust I've worked in would knowingly allow deathbed photos to be taken if prior consent hadn't been given.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 09/02/2022 20:04

No trust I've worked in would knowingly allow deathbed photos to be taken if prior consent hadn't been given

I believe you, lunar, and realise you said "knowingly", but isn't it a case of how you'd stop them?
It seems some can hardly function without a phone in their hand, and even if they'd been told there's little to stop them whipping it out again the instant your back's turned; worse still, they'd probably post about the "haterz" at the hospital too

In the end, a lot of this has to be down to discretion and common sense - and sadly some seem to have neither

Tiana4 · 09/02/2022 22:27

Yanbu OP
It was so intrusive and disrespectful to take a photo without consent of a dying man on his deathbed and post it for 180000 people to see in fb

If I was his widow/NOK I would be so angry and report it to fb as intrusive and inappropriate and insist it is removed. I'd also want to contact the nhs trust where photo was taken and screen shot what she had done and ask if they could support insisting it was removed as a violation of their patients privacy if fb group did not remove it.

She has every right to want a photo ld her biological dad but not one on his deathbed within consent taken secretly and to share that on social media

It's awful

Tiana4 · 09/02/2022 22:28
  • without his consent on his deathbed I meant
Original poster
NatashaBedwouldbenice · 09/02/2022 22:49

This was in the US.

OP posts:
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