90 year old grandma and cousins’ stepchildren

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My grandma is 90 and there will be a massive afternoon party for just two hours in a hotel paid for my mum, aunt and uncle.

All her descendants, their partners plus nieces and nephews without partners and one surviving sibling and two of her surviving cousins, one with husband. The surviving sibling and cousins will have one of their children with them given their advanced age.

Grandma does not want my cousin’s two stepchildren invited , they are teenagers who live almost exclusively with their mother.

Cousin has said her husband doesn’t want her to go with her elder child and their joint child.

Elder child’s dad has stepped in and insists that he will take child himself and sit in bar to wait for him.

My cousin, brother of this cousin is coming home from Japan for this.

My aunt has said she will make sure their joint child will be there as well.

What for you all think about this? Is cousins’ husband unreasonable.

Are the teens bothered? My DCs sometimes get invited to my DH’s family dos, sometimes they’re not. Either way they’re not fussed tbh. It’s not personal.

You don’t automatically become ‘siblings’ with someone just because your parent shacks up with them. I think the people saying this cannot have been the child in a stepfamily. Because it just doesn’t feel or function like that, no matter how much the happy couple may want it to. I can’t think of two people I’d less like to see than the children of the woman my dad made me live with.

Oh, that definitely exists with some of them. Not all, of course. But there are examples of this genre where the family is actually not particularly blended and/or the kids in question don't give a shit, but one of the adults has had their nose put out of joint.

But they are family - arent they?

They’re not just relatives of the spouse, they’re the children of the spouse

Well tbh if hosts really wanted them there I'm sure that my mum would have understood for a meal for a couple of hours.

I don't really see it as a "go fuck yourself".

In Op's case it sounds as if people would make sure she didn't have to seem them much/at all & will make sue that she gets the photos she wants.

This is totally disingenuous. Of course there is a line about extended family of a spouse - but in this case it’s not extended family of a spouse - it’s immediate family of the spouse - children and immediate family of the grand daughter - her stepchildren …. and this nasty small minded family (who are still bleating on
that these children at the age of 8 availed themselves of the ‘the free bar’ and the buffet’) now want to split the CHILDREN in this family so ‘blood’ can attend but ‘married in step CHILDREN’ can’t - why don’t they go all the way and excude all the spouses? I wonder where they would draw the line if any children were adopted or fostered.

Really quite telling and gross that at a spectacular milestone celebrating with an intergenerational party - some nasty adults have this ugly focus on excluding children. I assume it’s because they dislike the cousins spouse and want to punish him - so are taking it out on the grand daughter by splitting up the children in her young family. Grim.

As it’s a professional photographer have some with them in and some without. Such drama. And for the record it sounds like you’ve already made up your mind despite the majority saying YABU. Grandma might be a wonderful old lady but this isn’t wonderful old lady behaviour. Your cousins husband is clearly going about things the wrong way but shows his desperation for his children to be integrated. Why are they with their mum most of the time? Was this his decision? Anyway. Happy 90th to your grandma. Shame it’s tainted with her leaving out two children.

So if one of the cousins didn't want/couldn't have children then their spouse isn't invited? I didn't think it could get nastier and then it does.

Yes just as I would have to pick up the bill for my children's partners, and my nephew's partner's. They are family

I just find it very odd that you would throw a party in someone else’s honour, but invite the guests YOU want there. It’s like these people who buy “presents” for spouses or the wider family that they actually want for themselves.

Children were relatives the last time I checked.

I know what you mean. I was thinking more about this particular case where a fall out might be prevented.

So perhaps more a case of diplomatic to invite?

Forgot to say that my wedding example wasn't really a good one!

I'm torn between it being her birthday & in this case would it really matter.

Especially if it's the pics that are important & she can surely have some without them in.

It also does seem to be the dad driving it.

Without his input the teens would likely decline if invited anyway.

I can’t believe anybody thinks the stepchildren going to the party, but asking the photographer to take a picture that includes everyone except them, is a better idea than not inviting them at all.

If the kids don’t live with their father, he doesn’t even have to mention that he went to a party for his wife’s grandmother. If he does mention it, he doesn’t have to make a big thing of it - as many posters have said, it will have limited appeal to two teenagers. But if, as some people suggest, the stepchildren are invited but “discreetly” excluded from the photos, that really is sending a message that they’re there under sufferance. Why make it so obvious when it would be much easier not to invite them?

And so then granny may not get to have everybody at her party that she does want because people are allowed to decline and keep all their children at home.

First of all, OP didn’t say that. She said the actual great-grandchildren would feel heartbroken to realise they weren’t in the photo because their father had insisted all his children were included or none of them.

Secondly, why is it so ridiculous to be upset about a photograph, but not being invited to a party for someone you barely know is going to scar you for life?

So she should be blackmailed into having them there?

And it’s lovely that you have that relationship. No one is trying to suggest you can’t choose to have that relationship. But that simply isn’t going to be everyone’s experience. And it doesn’t have to be the other extreme of outright hostility either.

I get on with my BIL. He’s a good husband to my sister and good father to my nephew. But I don’t gush about him being like the brother I never had, because I just don’t feel that way (and I’m guessing he doesn’t either). And that’s fine.

Funny how him making a point doesn’t involve refusing to go, but actually involves free meals for himself and his kids…

I'm going to say it again. I got on well with my stepmother. I liked her siblings, but they weren't my relatives. I already had enough of them in my late mother's family. My half sister knew that my mother's siblings weren't her aunties and uncles. No one was upset.

And? It’s not the spouses party. The spouse is being invited as her grandchild’s plus one. The cousin’s children are being invited as grandchildren in their own right.

His children are no more the grandmother’s family than his mother is.

I’m sorry I find this confusing … but I think you are basically saying your cousins husbands children (ie your cousins step kids) from before he met your cousin are not invited to the family function … just your cousins and her husbands biological child? And in the past the husband has handled this by forcing his kids to be allowed to attend family functions?

The hysteria on this thread! Would the kids even know thier stepmother's grandma if they passed her on the street?

Lots of different permutations of photos, including one with just direct descendants & no in laws/partners/steps. Not Photo A, everyone, followed immediately after by Photo B everyone except 'you two brats...off you fuck!'.

Very much doubt two teenagers would even glance up from their phones, once they'd been in the 'everyone' photo & the 'cousin + husband + all their kids with Granny' one, & the photographer had moved on to doing various other groupings.

Your cousin (mother of step kids) seems quite passive in all this.
I agree with there can be a photo of desedents only - excluded partners and step kids … doubt two teens who don’t see the grandma will care