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.

I think the simplest solution is to invite everyone but finesse the photos.

I can actually totally understand Granny wanting a 'matriarch' photo of herself surrounded by all her biological descendants. Yes, it's a bit vainglorious, but if you can't be a bit cocky on your 90th, when can you?

So. Get the photographer to take loads of photos of everyone together. Then do individual family branches - give him/her a list to call out 'John, Jane, & their kids Jenny, Jim & Jack, please!'. Ensure that cousin & her entire brood including dickhead DH & steps get their photo done, just like every other branch.

By this point, the teens will absolutely have had enough & will wander off, & hopefully their dad will feel he's made his point.

One of the lists of people just happens to be all biological DC, GDC, GGDC. No partners, no in laws, no step kids, just people with Granny's actual DNA. There's an excellent chance cousin's DH won't even notice, & if he does, he can have it pointed out that no non blood relatives are in this one picture & he's being a dick.

To be honest, someone is bound to have some lurgy on the day, especially with hordes of small DC on the guestlist, so I'd be checking the photographer is nifty with editing anyway - then they can add absent DGC & scrub out surplus ones after the event...

yes, sounds more and more like a rage bait thread

So holding a party for another person would not involve asking who they wanted as guests. The person paying could just invite all their own friends and still pretend the birthday girl was having a party?

At my Granny's 90th she gave a toast where she got emotional and thanked everyone for coming, then fell asleep with a red wine mustache.

I also think that someone being a ‘nice person’ is subjective. The OP may think she’s lovely- but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t make unkind choices towards others.

Grandma is a wolf in grandma clothing.

If she’s such a lovely woman why does she want to exclude children from her party?

I don't understand why pictures are more important than the actual experience of the party? It's mean to exclude them. Just take more pictures? One of granny and 'blood' and one of everyone? I don't get why this would be complicated? It seems more effort to exclude and breed resentment rather than be kind, welcoming and generous? What about the feelings of the youngest child? How would they feel about their siblings being excluded? It's just mean and othering.

Grandma is in the wrong. They are family, whether you like it or not.

Oh I read it the other way around. That the dad who was going to sit in the bar was the cousin’s ex and was going to bring the child that is invited / a blood relation (I.e. if the cousin (the mother of that child doesn’t go)…. But maybe I’m wrong?

A sensible normal post. 👏

I find it funny, those posters whose gospel it is that no one ever anywhere must be left out from a party they don't even want to go to. I have been left out half my life and my dc are left out form many parties thanks to circumstances. I wouldn't want us to be at the parties where people didn't feel we should be, how could we possibly enjoy it? The whole idea of having private celebrations is to do it in a way you enjoy, so why would people invite guest they have no relationship with.

Madness.

The stepchildren are maybe 13/14/15ish. They have been in my cousin’s life for maybe 6 years.

When our mutual cousin got married they were probably 8/10 ish. Their father brought them to the service uninvited and not appropriately dressed and they are positioned outside the church next to cousin’s actual son (who has no real relationship with them). He then brought them back in the evening and called them over when photos were being taken. They had buffet and used the free bar.

They have no independent relationship with our family.

I understand that he brings them uninvited to lunches/dinners that in-laws host.

BowstotheSettingSun

Cousin’s actual children are of course both invited. What reason would you give to them especially the 11 year old for not taking them to a family party? Surely he and the half-brother in a few years would realise that the older kids aren’t related to grandma and they wouldn’t go to the other kids’ family occasions. They would then have to see the significant photos with ever other great-child in them?
That would be heartbreaking.

I totally get wanting a photo with just your great grandchildren on some visceral level and airbrushing them out after would be odd.

The collateral family e.g. nieces and nephews’ spouses aren’t invited; one nephew did say that his wife would like to come but accepted the reasons graciously.

I know I mentioned a bar but it is not a pub it is a proper hotel sit down meal.

She doesn't sound lovely at all. A lovely person wouldn't single people out like this and wouldn't care if they were in photos. You don't sound very lovely either.

I think that clarifies the situation.

I think that's a bit harsh actually.
You can easily mess up a teenagers mental health by excluding them.
I'm sorry OP but your Granny doesn't sound kind.

"Her party, Her rules" is such a dickish thing to say when it is used to hurt others.

None of the updates make your family sound any nicer, tbh

The children won't want to attend. They wouldnt even have know about it.

The grandmother doesnt know the children could be airbrushed out of photos if necessary.

The real issue is the husband of the cousin. The grandmother is imagining (problably through experience) that he is going to cause trouble, and thinks its going to be via the children.

I'd make my excuses, not go and have one to one meal with her. Avoid the drama.

OP if someone's heartbroken at seeing someone unrelated in a photo then they're a bit mental and if you can't see that I'd say you're a sandwich short of a picnic.

I think cousin's husband is the wicked fairy who's scheming an evil plan for gan gan to prick her finger on a spindle and sleep for 100 years because he feels slighted.

Your cousin clearly thinks of these kids as his own. Good on him for stepping up and being a proper father.

You can easily mess up a teenagers mental health by excluding them.
From a 90th birthday lunch? You've got to be kidding me. My kids are left out form school friends parties. it's up to me to teach them to handle disappointments.

They're not family. They never spend any time at OP's cousin's home. Cousin's partner does not have shared custody. Wonder why.

This isn't a school friends party and the fact that it's for a 90 year old and is probably very boring is neither here nor there.
This is about a family sending a message to teenagers saying "you do not belong here" and you are not part of this family.
It is massively different and in my opinion it's cruel.

Oh for goodness sake. You're suggesting these 13/14/15yos' mental health is going to be negatively impacted by not being included in photos at their stepmother's grandmother's 90th tea party? Really? Even if they knew this woman really well, you don't think that by that age they can't handle the truth of not being everyone's biological child, grandchild or great-grandchild? Another way these teens' parents are failing them.

Will the cousin's biological children's mental health be negatively impacted if they aren't included in their 13/14/15yo step-siblings' grandmother's 90yo's tea party photos? No? Didn't think so.

It's just nonsense, all this foisting of "relationships" (they're not relationships because it takes at least two to form a relationship) onto people who don't want them. And BS to "but won't anyone think of the childrennnnn?". The people who should be thinking about the children are their parents, specifically this idiot man who is foisting his teens onto people at public occasions for his own, selfish reasons to do with his own failed relationship with their mother. It's such hypocrisy, made worse by randoms accusing a 90yo woman of awful things and calling her vicious names. MN is like the twilight zone sometimes.

So dad of the children doesn’t want his children to be excluded from his other child’s family gatherings as he views them as one big family at a guess? Feel sorry for his wife who is stuck in the middle here. Does she want the children aka her stepchildren to attend?