is it really self absorbed to suddenly wonder why my parents have NO photos of me?

[lifesucks75]

Ok im not emotionally in the greatest of places right now, but for no reason it suddenly popped into my mind. My dad (I haven't seen for years) always had photos of his other kids dotted around but none of me, my mum has none either, not a single one. I've got photos of my kids everywhere, I assume most people do. My parents have none, zilch, nada, nothing to show I even exist.

My parents have photos in albums, drawers and boxes - they only have photos of the grandchildren on display.

I have no photos on display at home, I don't really like pictures everywhere, and I have very few hard copies anyway.

I know my parents have fewer photos on general than we might have as there was the cost of printing, and not knowing whole rolls of film were blurry/crap/double exposures until they were developed.

Not at all self-absorbed, life (speaking as one who periodically counts the number of photos of me in my DM's house and always find the total significantly smaller than the number of pics of my DSis) !

As Mimic says, some people display only photos of children, some don't have any on display at all. If your DM doesn't fall into these categories, then you're not being unreasonable to mind. That would be her Christmas present sorted, then?

Isn't there any in albums even in an attic or somewhere?

Do you mean no on display, or no pictures at all? DPs parents have no pictures of him at all and it does bother him. It's very odd.

Not self-absorbed at all - I find it quite sad and thoughtless of your parents.

I used to give DM and my ILs photos of the DSs as they grew up - and also a few of me and DH. DM put them on all on display but the ILs would only put up photos of DH on his own, as though me and our DSs didn't exist.

We had a "guess who from the baby pic" competition at work and everyone was asked to bring in a baby photo. One colleague asked her mum for a baby photo but she didn't have any. Same colleague remarked that each of her four brothers had been given an album of photos from their mum when they left home.

It really is hard to be treated this way but at least you are not passing on the hurt by treating your children the same way.

It's not self absorbed to wonder. However if you were the youngest of 4 or 5 kids or something like that, you parents may have been so busy they did not actually take many at all. I know someone the youngest of 4 whose parents are good parents, love him etc but don't have many photos of him due to the carnage of 4 under 5!

Depends how old you are. Cameras and film processing used to be expensive. If you are the oldest, maybe they couldn't afford it at the time?
If you think it is because of favouritism, surely this would show in other ways?
Or do you think you are not their child?