10 year old snubbed at wedding

[ProvoPrincess]

DH has raised my eldest since she was 3. She does not see her biological family,

DH’s cousin got married at the weekend. It was a perfect day up until the early evening.

All the kids were playing together outside when all of a sudden my ten year old appeared next to me inside. I asked where her sister was and she replied that she had been taken off by one of DH’s cousins and told her to come in.

I went to investigate, not that I thought she was in danger or anything but I just wanted to know.

Mother-in-Law and her sisters were having official photographs with their proper grandchildren.

Something came over me and I called out to my youngest daughter to come to me. As I was approaching group a cousin’s partner said to wait a bit as they wanted a group photo of all the sisters with grandchildren. I just grabbed my daughter.

I tried to find my husband but he was in another outside space and it turned out he had been in a photo immediately before I had come out. I went back to the room and just cried in front of both kids. I pretended I was ill.

DH couldn’t understand why they didn’t include my eldest but MiL’s eldest sister just said I had ruined something special.

I am angry, upset and also full of shame and embarrassment.

Lol, no. ‘Wrong’ here is entirely a matter of opinion, and they’re not obliged to fall in line with yours.

All Op has managed to do is piss them, and her husband, off. You may consider this to be totally justified and fine, but presumably OP does value her marriage, and would rather an amicable relationship with her in laws.

You went into protective mother mode, and you did not embarrass yourself. Fuck them. Bottom line, your eldest will ALWAYS be a half sister to their biological daughter so no matter what she will always be related to your husband, I know sometimes people don't want unrelated extras in photos because in years to come they may not be part of the family - but whatever happens she will always be related to your other daughter and therefore the whole family.

Pretty miserable way to treat a child, at the very least they could have hidden what they were up to.

No photograph is worth causing this much trouble and pain. I was excluded from family photos by my stepmother, who only wanted her children to be included.

How DARE he side with these cruel clowns? Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?

To all the posters saying “but what if they split up and the kid is in all the photos and they don’t see them anymore” at the time the photo is being taken they are a part of the family and might never split up.

Probably better not to take any pictures of anyone ever again in case someone dies and you have to look back at a photo of them even though you will never see them again lol ok that’s probably a bit over the top but the 2 girls will always be sisters won’t they so why not have them both in the photos.

Only blood relatives is a really fucking weird position to take and I agree with the poster who said that this confirms that most people are cunts

Doubt it. OP's daughter will always remember how her mother defended her.

I think this could further encourage the family to exclude the 10 year old. I bet the bride and groom now really regret having her at the wedding at all after this scene. You can't make your ILs act as if she's related to them in the same way as her younger sister by kicking off, it's only making things worse.

I still think that you need support to process the reality of not having the fairytale nuclear family because this behaviour isn't helping you.

In this scenario, child's feelings come first. The End.

I don't see how being put in the middle of these scenes is going to help the 10 year olds feelings. Girls that age can be very self conscious and with mum kicking off and the in laws walking on egg shells around her she could be feeling very uncomfortable.

Only blood relatives is a really fucking weird position to take and I agree with the poster who said that this confirms that most people are cunts.

This! 👏👏 I'm frankly stunned at how many people - on a parenting site no less - think this disgusting behaviour from the ILs (towards a child their son has parented since the age of 3) is OK.

What a nasty piece of work trying to score points off you via a 5 year old child. I guess we know why they did it then, they're nasty cunts.

You reacted in the moment, it was not ideal, but you were just shocked at your kid being treated badly by her relatives. You have not make an utter idiot of yourself and your DH is just like the rest of them, blaming you instead of defending BOTH his children.

It sounds like he also doesn't feel like the eldest is really his child.

I had a step granny (my only living grandmother) and she never would have treated me like this. She never treated my Dad like he wasn't hers either (he didn't see his mother's side of the family).
I would have been very upset in a similar situation to not be seen as an equal.

Poor girl

Perhaps. Or embarrassed her and singled her out and made her feel less than. If she didn't make a scene she wouldn't even remember it. Seriously if your child is upset do you make it into a big deal, or do you take them away from the problem, reassure them and change the subject? Sure, pull the adults up on it later if you feel that strongly, but to cry and shout and cause a scene at someone else's wedding quite frankly is disgusting behaviour and also shitty parenting. OP made this all about her because of her own insecurities and guilt regarding the DCs estranged father.

Completely agree. Especially since this happened in the middle of a photo with all the grandchildren - meaning there were a bunch of other children there, watching all this. There'll now be a lot of upset and confused kids asking questions about why X's mummy is shouting etc.

If I were any of OP's in-laws I would never invite her to anything again. Not because she's not family, but because she's volatile and willing to cause a scene.

I’m afraid I agree with your husband. You made a scene at his wedding that was unnecessary and it will have become a talking point of the wedding. I’m not surprised his relatives are pissed off about that.
You “would die” if your youngest ever felt guilty? You cried in front of your children about this photo?
I'm afraid you do sound a little dramatic and you are responsible for flagging up the issue when it doesn’t sound as if your eldest was even particularly bothered about it. She will be now and that’s on you.

Not everybody is the centre of everybody else's life.

There's blood/adoptive family and there's family by marriage. Both are a type of family but that doesn't make them exactly the same. There is also family by choice e.g. friends who are seen as family.

My MIL is a lovely woman. I do not view her as my actual mother though. She's family, but not my nearest and dearest.

From the OP's MIL's perspective, her son's wife's daughter is not her grandchild. She is family, but that doesn't make her exactly the same as other family members.

As you said regarding your step-son, you are his step-mum not his mum. You're both family but occupy different spaces. I imagine he sometimes wants a photo with just you, and sometimes just his mother. Would you ever insist he include you in the latter because a step-mum is just the same a bio mum? I'm guessing not.

Family is a wide concept that can encompass varying levels of closeness. There is a point where marriage stops making someone family though. For example, my BIL's parents aren't my family. I've only met them once.

Trying to pretend that every family member is completely equal is bizarre. I care a lot more about my own child than I would my mother's cousin's child. They're both family, but I want lots of photos of one and barely remember what the other looks like.

Regarding your comment about 150 years ago, yes, ideas were different then. What family means is often cultural. It was a time when divorce was pretty much unheard of, marriage was more binding, and brought with it more legal ramifications. Women became property of their husbands and children were property of their parents.

As an historical fact, I've always found such things interesting. As an argument for what people in the here and now should do, it falls flat.

Those saying it was fine for MIL to exclude a child her DS has been a Father to for 7 years (and is the only Father she has ever known) from the photos "because you might spilt up one day", do people really go through life thinking like this?

SIL has married someone with 2 children from a previous relationship. So as far as DH and I are concerned we now have 3 neices instead of 1. We treat them all equally and wouldn't dream of doing otherwise. No one in our family would. I'm not going to make innocent children feel unwelcome and excluded now because there's a possibility that SIL and their Dad "might" spilt up one day in the future. They might not!
This place is full of threads about GP's who don't give a shit about seeing their "blood" GC, men who walk away from their "blood" DC and "blood" siblings who hate each other and are NC. So let's not kid ourselves that biology is the key to permanence in family relationships.

They think it because, in many cases, they’ve already had it happen to them, when children they’ve thought of as beloved nieces or grandchildren have been abruptly removed from any further contact with them when a relationship broke up, and they’ve never seen them again. It happened to my parents with my sister’s partner’s children, whom they adored. Now, although she’s been married to the father of her stepchildren for years, I can see them keeping their distance. I don’t blame them. They still grieve the previous loss.

Brutally honest here. I don’t see dh’s nieces and nephew’s as mine. They are his siblings children and they came well after our marriage. Sure we send gifts and cards but I don’t feel like an aunty I wouldn’t ever ask to take them out somewhere or even call my self Aunty Bella.

If I did ever divorce Dh I’d never see them again, even if we didn’t divorce and he died I’d never see them again. I don’t think we even have photos of our children and them together not as a whole group. They live 15 minutes up the road and we have seen them once this year off the top of my head.

Gosh thats a bit sad, my kids are very bonded to their cousins even though our families lived all over the Country. My adult nephews and neices still call me auntie and give me a big hug at any family get togethers.

I personally hate it at weddings when they separate people into groups by category. I've been that person who didn't fall into a category and it does make you feel a bit rubbish.

It's not up to a 10 year old to be the bigger person.

There just isn’t a connection between myself and his nephew’s and nieces. I always thought I’d love being an aunty but honestly zero connection to those children.

I wouldn’t shun them when around but they are not really on my radar to see something and go oh jenny would love that, be nice to have Thomas round for activity as he likes that. I actually don’t know what they like nor does Dh I text their mum for gift ideas and buy off the list.

"Do people really think like this",
Yes sadly I think they do. I'm not in SIL wedding photos although DH and our DC are! She apparantly didn't want us to split and ruin her album.
DH and I are still together 30 years later, her marriage lasted 4 years.

It's so mean to exclude a child. Wedding photos should be a record of a cherished day not some sort of formal photographic family tree.

That said OP, I think it would have been better if you'd shown your ire after the event.